Rap

I loved gangsta rap. Of course I did. I was a middle-class kid in an ethnically diverse public high school in Sydney’s inner west, in the 1990s. That’s many ticks in some record-company’s market research survey.

Warning: explicit language.

The music doesn’t resonate with me the way it once did, but when I hear the blasting horn intro of the Joe-Cocker sampled California Love, the wannabe ‘G’ inside resurfaces and I want to pour one out for my homiez, and wish I could see Tupac or Biggie in concert.

By ‘Pac’s death in ‘96 hip-hop was well into its golden age. It was at a turning point where the genre was going mainstream, but hadn’t yet mutated into mindless pop-rap. It was a time where there was no possible universe where Snoop Dogg would collaborate with Katy Perry. And when that happened, all hip-hop heads ever talked about was how Pac and his deceased contemporary, Notorious B.I.G., would never have teamed up with these ‘sell-outs’. But Tupac’s posthumous performance as a hologram at Coachella showed us this scenario was definitely possible, whether Pac 1.0 (the flesh and blood one) wanted it to be or not.

Continue reading "Coming to a venue near you: Performing live, while dead" »

Just days after the official release of his new album, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, Kanye’s been given ten out of ten by Pitchfork and five stars from Rolling Stone.

For those of you who don’t subscribe to the music bibles, that’s unheard of. Critics are acting like it’s the second coming - and for hip hop, it basically is.

Hip hop used to be that stuff only the naughty kids listened to… the kind of music your mum used to ban you from buying… and the sort of album you’d put in your collection if you wanted people to think you walked on the wild side.

Continue reading "Firearms be damned, he’s got Brand Kanye" »