It's interesting -- I find contemporary hip-hop (that my students listen to) to be very *ugly* in a way I haven't thought it was until somewhat recently, maybe past few years. But that ugliness has started to pierce through with its alienation, which I've been very attracted to. 21 Savage is the bluntest -- or maybe "most blunted" -- persona I can think of, and I'm drawn to it as a kind of sucking void. I admit to being extremely off-put by 6ix9ine, but I also told one of my students that he reminded me in the kind of one-note ferocity of his delivery of Waka Flocka Flame. It's the sadness seeping in at the edges and from the backdrop that brings me back to him. (Compare to another favorite among my students that I really can't stand, FGB Duck's "Slide," the remixes of which, mostly by women, tend to be better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QzQUO3j0gE)
I'm probably more drawn to sad in front and sad on the edges -- Lil Uzi Vert's "XO Tour Life," A Boogie's "Regular Person," 21 Savage "Nothin New," even Future's "Perkys Calling." But there is something interesting about braggadocio being tempered or maybe re-framed by these kind of desolate backdrops.
Meanwhile my listening this year has slowed to a crawl; I have a couple of albums I really like but nothing really popping out.
"Loneliness Calls" (comment by Dave Moore)
It's interesting -- I find contemporary hip-hop (that my students listen to) to be very *ugly* in a way I haven't thought it was until somewhat recently, maybe past few years. But that ugliness has started to pierce through with its alienation, which I've been very attracted to. 21 Savage is the bluntest -- or maybe "most blunted" -- persona I can think of, and I'm drawn to it as a kind of sucking void. I admit to being extremely off-put by 6ix9ine, but I also told one of my students that he reminded me in the kind of one-note ferocity of his delivery of Waka Flocka Flame. It's the sadness seeping in at the edges and from the backdrop that brings me back to him. (Compare to another favorite among my students that I really can't stand, FGB Duck's "Slide," the remixes of which, mostly by women, tend to be better: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QzQUO3j0gE)
I'm probably more drawn to sad in front and sad on the edges -- Lil Uzi Vert's "XO Tour Life," A Boogie's "Regular Person," 21 Savage "Nothin New," even Future's "Perkys Calling." But there is something interesting about braggadocio being tempered or maybe re-framed by these kind of desolate backdrops.
Meanwhile my listening this year has slowed to a crawl; I have a couple of albums I really like but nothing really popping out.