Nas debut album “Illmatic” which is considered one of the greatest albums ever made was released on April 19, 1994. Illmatic is considered by many to be a masterpiece. The album is a story of his life, the things he experienced, what New York City was like in the 90’s. Illmatic established Hip-Hop in its truest form. Only nineteen at the time Illmatic came out, Nas proved to be ahead of his time. With his story telling, lyrical content, complex rhyme schemes, production and great album instantly put him at the top. “Even Nas' longtime nemesis, Jay-Z, frankly confesses that the first time he heard the album, "the shit was so ahead/thought we was all dead." (Serwer 2)
You will learn that the album follows a child from a poor community who not
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Illmatic is just a great body of work; from the lyrical content, technique, and production of the album. Nas painted pictures for his listener’s and provided them with a narration.
Even though Illmatic was not a commercial success at the time, Illmatic was instantly recognized as a classic. An album containing 10 classic tracks took the game by storm. Nas kind of electrified Queensbridge hip-hop and East Coast rap as a whole and put the shine back on the East Coast after the West Coast had the game on lock in the late 80’s early 90’s. After Nas and Illmatic Notorious B.I.G., Jay-Z and many others were up next and ran Hip-Hop with Nas.
Nas absolutely changed Hip-Hip forever with having a young boy as cover art an album. Before Illmatic, rap album covers were clichés: rapper with gold chains, cars, girls, and B-Boys. For Illmatic’s album cover, Nas chose a close-up picture of himself as a kid that covered over his project buildings. Not knowing years to come in the process of creating his album that the cover art would become a cliché. Illmatic's cover corresponded with the mood, tone, and songs of the album to such a high mark that it became an instant classic. A few albums that followed Illmatic’s cover were Notorious B.IG. (Ready to Die), LIL Wayne (Tha Carter III, Kendrick Lamar (Good Kid, M.A.A.d City), and J-Cole's (Villematic)
album contains an amazing combination of poetic lyrics and edgy music that make it an
Signing with Def Jams in 1984, LL Cool J gave hip-hop a new component which is love. As Guestlist explain his type of rapping as “LL cool J’s song adopted a ‘soft’ style which bred
“My job is to write shocking lyrics that will wake people up,” said Chuck D. This was his goal as the leader of Public Enemy (Dery, 1990). He wrote lyrics that were awakening and energizing. Public Enemy was a spokesperson for the African American community. Their lyrics contain controversial and popular issues such as drugs, crime, racism, and poverty. As well as the lyrics, the instrumentals are significant to conveying the group’s goal. The instrumental/sound part creates the mood, sets the beat, and prompts the engagementengages of the people. In the late 1980’s, Public Enemy introduced an intense, hard, hip-hop sound, which changed the sound of hip-hop. According to Rolling Stone magazine, “Public Enemy’s inventive production team, the Bomb Squad, tailored a unique, noisy, layered avant-garde-inspired sound that incorporated sirens, skittering turntable scratches, and cleverly juxtaposed musical and spoken samples ” (Simon & Schuster, 2001). All these brand new sounds of their songs were musically revolutionary during the late 1980’s. Public Enemy’s music consists of inspirational lyrics as well as strong and innovative sound. The lyrics and the sound work together, in addition to visual media to make it possible to reach millions of people as political commentary.
Prophets of the Hood is the most detailed and a brilliantly original study to date of hip hop as complicated and innovative literary story form. It is written with a refreshing harmonious combination savvy significance rigor as well as brave and creative narrative verve. Imani Perry’s research is an interesting analysis of late twentieth century in American great culture. Prophet of the hood is an excellent and unique book. It draws up a clear division between the negatives and positives involved in hip hop. She takes the discussions of rap to a deeper and greater levels with an insightful analysis of the poetic and political features of the art form. Being a fan and a scholar, Perry is aware the art, tradition of hip hop through an analysis of the song lyrics.
In a reputable rap album an artist must tell a real-life story. The following three artist come from different but similar backgrounds. One artist from Detroit, one from Compton, another from Brooklyn. Sada Baby along with other Detroit rappers share their experiences living in different parts of the city. Throughout D.O.N. by Sada Baby, he references a lot of weapon use, gang activity, and drug use in his neighborhood. The songs on this album go into so much detail about these things, because this was the life he was born into. This is what he knows first hand. In Sada Baby’s song, ‘Guatemalan’, he goes through the steps of his daily life and even goes on to justify why he is the way that he is based off his experiences.
K-R-S One was the guiding force of B-D-P, writing its lyrics and producing its albums. He is generally regarded as the popular artist who, along with Chuck D of Public Enemy, politicized rap in the middle 'eighties. It is well known that popular rap was capable of political content from its earliest beginnings. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five released both "The Message" (1982) and "White Lines" (Don't Do It) (1983), the first a lament about ghetto life and the second a powerful indictment of cocaine (then called "freebase"), well before crack became a mainstream epidemic. Run-DMC rapped in "Hard Times" about the early 'eighties inflation economy.
Chance the Rappers mixtape “Acid Rap” is Chance’s second mixtape ever released premiering in April of 2013. A different kind of rapper Chance is seen as unique in a genre that today is predominantly dominated by auto tune and the same background beat in every song. Acid rap has incomparable beats to many rap mixtapes because the beats used by Chance are just so uncommon and odd; not to mention Chances sound is different it is said by many that one either likes or dislikes his voice there is no in-between. Alongside with the uniqueness of Chance himself and the mixtape, Acid rap is a social commentary on what is wrong in society more specifically the constant anxiety of the “Man” watching. Acid rap by chance the rapper is an incredibly unique album with new surprises
More than any other rapper, Dr. Dre was responsible for moving away from the avant-noise and political stance of Public Enemy and Boogie Down Productions, as well as the party vibes of old school rap. Instead, Dre pioneered gangsta rap and his own variation of the sound, G-Funk. BDP's early albums were hardcore but cautionary tales of the criminal mind, but Dre's records with N.W.A. celebrate the hedonistic, amoralistic side of gang life. Dre was never much of a rapper -- his rhymes were simple and his delivery was slow and clumsy -- but as a producer, he was extraordinary. With N.W.A. & C.A. he melded the noise collages of the Bomb Squad with funky rhythms.
Hip-hop through out the years has been involving and become universal in everyday life. You will here presidents, senators, republicans, and democrats talk about their favorite rappers and songs they hear. The president was asked if he liked hip-hop music, he replied, “I’ve got to admit, lately I’ve been listening to a lot of Jay-Z. This new ‘American Gangster’ alb...
One of the most popular music genres today is Rap. Over the past five decades it has evolved from its roots in Jazz music to become what we now recognize as “mainstream music”. As with many music genres, Rap has had several eras of varying influence and popularity. While the importance of each era is subjective, many will agree that the 90’s are a period of great importance in the genre’s history. One of the main reasons for this is the introduction of two very famous artists: Tupac Shakur (2pac) and Christopher Wallace (Biggie). They are most popular for their association with the great conflict between East and West Coast Rap. Although Tupac Shakur and Christopher Wallace shared many similarities, their feud highlighted important differences
Rap started in the mid-1970s in the South Bronx area of New York City. The birth of rap is, in many ways, like the birth of rock and roll. Both originated in the African American community and both were first recorded by small, independent record labels and marketed towards, mostly to a black audience. And in both cases, the new style soon attracted white musicians that began performing it. For rock and roll it was a white American from Mississippi, Elvis Presley. For rap it was a young white group from New York, the Beastie Boys. Their release “(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (To Party!)” (1986) was one of the first two rap records to reach the Billboard top-ten. Another early rap song to reach the top ten, “Walk This Way” (1986), was a collaboration of Run-DMC and Aerosmith. Soon after 1986, the use of samples was influenced in the music of both black and white performers, changing past thoughts of what make up a “valid” song.
In the eyes of the general public, all of Hip-Hop is usually categorized in the same way. Labeled as the poison of the Black community because nowadays, most Hip-Hop lyrics all sound the same generic way always talking about money, women, cars, drugs, or some type of beef that all these rappers sooner or later continuously have with one another. But what this new generation doesn’t know about are the positive and creative flows that were spit not so long ago in the 80’s and 90’s. Rappers back in the day like Tupac and Ice Cube both had times when they had to show off their thug sides but they both had reasons or a call-to-arms for that, and indeed were in tune with that era’s problems as well as the society where they were raised. Moreover, even though some new school songs actually look promising, old school songs are still always great classics that anybody in this day and age will most certainly vibe to.
As one of the most popular genres of music, hip-hop has an extremely wide reach to a global audience no longer limited based on age, race, or gender. With each new single, artists such as Drake, Jay-Z, Kanye West, and Nicki Minaj occupy spaces at the top of the billboard charts. The current success of rap is unlike what it was when hip-hop was emerging in the early 90s. Originally as a subculture in opposition to the mainstream culture, hip-hop was an extremely diverse genre that placed importance on lyrical genius. It was socially conscious, politically aware, and often challenging of the dominant power struggles seen in modern society. As the majority of rap and hip-hop artists were underprivileged minorities, they spoke of their experiences
New artists came onto the scene and again changed how hip hop would sound. This period was called “The New School”. One of the first groups to change hip during this time was Run-D.M.C. They were a trio of middle-class African Americans who mixed rap with hard rock, defined a new style of dressing, and became staples on MTV as they brought rap to a mainstream audience. The introducing of MTV only made hip hop more mainstream. Next were the Beastie Boys were diversified hip-hop by being a white trio who broadened rap’s audience and popularized digital sampling by composing with music and sounds electronically extracted from other recordings. Beginning in 1989 the populur group N.W.A came out with a dynamic album Straight Outta Compton. N.W.A. and former members Ice Cube, Eazy E, and Dr. Dre led the way as West Coast rap grew in prominence in the early 1990s. Their graphic, frequently violent tales of real life in the inner city. Snoop Dogg and other rappers on the East Coast such as Schoolly D, helped with the rise to the genre known as gangsta
Rap Genius. N.p., n.d. Web. The Web. The Web. 01 May 2014.