Is this that only Rap record that should have ever been made?
Y'know wot, its not that I dispise Rap moozique, which to some peoples addled brane, means I must be a follower of Steven Yaxley Lennon,or ,if you're American anyone in the Republican Party. It's just,beyond its monotonous habit of repeating itself over and over again on a scale that only has one solitary note on its stanza's, that on its one page annals of history,everything that it has achieved or, will ever achieve can be encapsulated in one singular track from this peculiar album released in 1982, namely, "The Message". Everything anyone needs to hear in the realms of Hip-Hop ,slash, 'Rap' is first vested,and so it should stay there, is on this rather infectious manifestation of of that dominant genre.
Of course some of the members of the Furious Five went on to make some very highly interesting and experimental work with Adrian Sherwood,and the On-U-Sound bunch, striving carefully not to exclude Public Enemy's politically charged cacophony of "Nation of Millions" as the gravestone of Rap's Zenith, but...its all in there, compressed into one infinitely dense crotchet, and the "Message" was the Big Bang,expanding exponentially across the audible universe. A lesson on how to paint yerself into an infinite corner, and everyone's invited........Not for me however. I've a;ready got "The Message", and that Public Enemy LP, so I don't wanna hear, or see the point in anything else Hippity Hoppity,
Basically its Novelty Music gone pandemically wrong innit? Get out while you still can.
That said, I like the ways these kids dressed, and like this LP record,and does feature some very unimaginative early forays into sampling,for which I think Grandmaster Flash probably had to pay millions in royalties, and was the reason we never heard from him in the same way again, save for some personal appearances and behind the Steel Wheels. Lou Reed did the same for "A Tribe Called Rip Off" (as he ironically called them), who also sampled Ian Dury classic, "What a Waste" on the same track, but Ian never sued 'em.However, talking of Rip-Offs ,Lou only paid Herbie Flowers £17 quid (Standard session Fee in 1972) for the the bassline on Walk On The Wild Side ,as in the bit that "A Tribe Called Quest" sampled for their 'Can I Kick It' top ten smash.All the money should have gone to Herbie right? Instead of 100% of it going to Lewis's's back pocket.He's even credited as the songwriter on "Can I Kick It"!?
This blatant theft, and display of corporate power,was a major part of Rap's evolution ,or lack of,there-in.It also meant that no-one needed to play an instrument no more. How Punk is that?
Tracklist:
1.She's Fresh 4:56
2.It's Nasty 4:15
3.Scorpio 5:10
4.It's A Shame (Mt. Airy Groove) 4:58
5.Dreamin' 5:45
6.You Are 4:49
7.The Message 7:11
8.The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel 7:06
14 comments:
Grand! I've heard it said, and I do confess that don't remember who that who was that rap is modern Blues music. Right down to the bragadoccio and bravado.
They say that shit about virtually all modern musical styles.
John Cage is modern Blues to these daft dweebs. I'm just as bad 'cus I think everythings modern Folk music......including Blues.
Herbie dreamt up the riff but it was still Lou's song, unlike Yoko who now has a credit for 'Imagine' for repeating a phrase she heard of in a Beatles song in the first place! Spooky and greedy bitch. Dury didn't sue as he knew he didn't write all of his own stuff, like most hitsters. Most singers/groups have their best songs written for them, there's a lot of filler on early Stones' albums for example, Beatles too. Dylan rip off songwriters, but had folk behind to pay off the victims, like Paul Simon for instance, still going on to-day.
Most big groups have Intel written all over them, pushing some psyops. For instance: Drugged up kids don't start a revolution. Another: 'Reduce population' This has multiple fronts, split the sexes with lurid fake events like Epstein, pushing faggot agenda, queers don't breed, get women into footie/rugby etc or have a Career so by the time they want to starta family it's too late, what with vaccines which either give you cancer, heart problems, impotence, etc. Rap is crap, grime is a crime (against music), reggae is vile!
Funny that, that's precisely the two albums that I would mention when it comes to "the best" hip hop albums, and The Message... Well.... I honestly think that's the Golden Standard really, best rap song ever.... Public Enemy... I spoke about that already here in the comments section I think, one of those albums that hit me like a freight train full speed, to me, that one was the logical next step after punk died and the years of what now is referred to as post punk, had kind of a similar impact as well in Holland as punk although not as big. Seeing them live for the first time in Ahoy, Rotterdam, '89? '90? 8500 People there and maybe between 5 to 10 white folks in the place was quite something, EPMD and The Afro's were there as well and those two acts made the hairs on my arms stand up, just amazing.... There's been quite a few other fantastic albums in that genre, Disposable Heroes of Hiphopricy comes to mind, when I saw them live, '91, '92 somewhere they blew up the speakers. Took around an hour to get other speakers but they didn't care, they just started playing an amazing acoustic jazz set, Michael Franti reciting his poetry. Not to many acts that could do that... And like I probably also said in the comment section here already....I got out of hip hop completely around 2006 or so, disgusted with what it had become... Funny thing though.... A few years ago they (Grimloc Records) re-released my 2005 experimental hip hop album 18 Slingshots, on cassette, and last year they released a vinyl ep with two of my songs and they sold out super quick, they're selling t-shirts, 3 of them, two with a huge picture of me and my grandmother when I was around four, around 1969, and those sell quite well too, really....weird... Back when I put it out almost nobody here (Indonesia) knew what to make of it....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g6bsJ4z3220
You're both wrong, it was Gen P Orridge who invented Blues, and acid house and the wheel
Rap is cool when it's done by Mark E. Smith, Laurie Anderson, Fred Schneider (in the early days, before the "Love Shack" vomit), The Flying Lizards, Anne Clark, Karen Finley, Debora Iyall from Romeo Void, John S. Hall from King Missile, Test Department, Suicide (like in Frankie Teardrop). Hell, even Robert Smith raps in "Give Me It" which is fantastic. And of course there's Afrika Bambaataa - who I just discovered has died on April 9 of this year.
The New Lennon & McCartney would that be the secret collaboration of Steven Yaxley Lennon with Alexander McCartney?
Afrika Bambaataa got influenced a lot by Kraftwerk and a lot of other German post-punk/neue welle bands, presumably by Palais Schaumburg and the like :)
Yeah i guess bambaata spotted this talking rather than singing, to a minimal bscking, from reading some interveiw with uk some second invasion synth popers, or gary numan, john foxx and, popier end of the german electronics ,Kraftwerk and the such like.some German neue welle would have been a challenge to find in brooklyn.a lot of whom definitely chose to speak rather than sing, Just like Punk it never existed until it was given a name and a shoe box to live in.
I can cope with reacting to this...its too hot out There..i'll try later.
Of course there's Ian Dury...as mentioned before. John Cooper Clark, Gil Scott Heron, its jive talk innit,like they do in yer Jazz right?.....but The Last Poets just make me wanna smash up my record player.
Basically Rap was a novelty music for much of the beginning of the genre, like Kurts Blow, and the Sugar Hill Gange......that when rap as we know it started.......theres the facts, but its still shit....the wrong kind of non-music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnYHaEX4QoA
Worth noting that Herbie Flowers played two basses on Walk on the Wild Side and thus got double the usual session fee. He pulled the same trick on the far superior 'Rock On' by David Essex as well as writing the classic 'Grandad'...
Yeah!...Rock On was me first single!.....and Grandad is far superior that most Grime artistes ,and packed with far more relevant social comment.to coot......well maybe not in reality, but in my world ,it is.
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