The Dragon
Smash Journeyman
they are the fresh maker
-
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Connecticut Player Finder: We're better than you <3
- Thread starter _V_
- Start date
My friend Antonio and I beat Super Mario Bros. to the Slim Shady LP. Good times.
DarkDragoon
Smash Champion
I beat slim shady with a copy of Super Mario Bros. Good times.
-DD
-DD
Sigh, it's taking every ounce of my strength to not go on a long rant about how much rap sucks compared to five years ago.
trademark0013
Smash Champion
only 5 years ago, jam?
If I were to go beyond that, my head would explode with disappointment.
trademark0013
Smash Champion
hehe. i c. well said
theres an indepth philosophy behind it, but no one in this thread, barely this site, wants to hear it. plus it wont change anything.
o well *listens to gangstarr*
theres an indepth philosophy behind it, but no one in this thread, barely this site, wants to hear it. plus it wont change anything.
o well *listens to gangstarr*
DarkDragoon
Smash Champion
T-T I want to hear it!
Knowledge is power!
-DD
Knowledge is power!
-DD
trademark0013
Smash Champion
meh
in extremely short, laymans terms, i feel its a combination of 2 things:
the difference in struggle and meaning between now and a few decades ago
and on lower john-ish levels, the power of commercialism and the changing of the times
in extremely short, laymans terms, i feel its a combination of 2 things:
the difference in struggle and meaning between now and a few decades ago
and on lower john-ish levels, the power of commercialism and the changing of the times
AxelSlam
Smash Ace
so i just learned that everyone can use a custom avatar
and
in the words of khaly
"it's definitely not a trap"
edit:
if you get that,
hi five.
btw trade LMAO at avatar.
and
in the words of khaly
"it's definitely not a trap"
edit:
if you get that,
hi five.
btw trade LMAO at avatar.
its my personal opinion that whenever someone can develop a well synthesized thesis paper on something they love to talk about or are fervent about, they should do it.
drSuper
Smash Apprentice
nice summary tm
people like t-pain who sing only with computer voices are garbage
this **** makes me lol so hard
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-26bRZEedZg
people like t-pain who sing only with computer voices are garbage
this **** makes me lol so hard
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-26bRZEedZg
When I come home later tonight, I'm going to write a very long post about why rap has changed, and what that change (and rap in general) says about the African-American community. Maybe not a paper's worth of ideas, but it will definitely approach "tl;dr" territory.
AxelSlam
Smash Ace
i once wrote a little article about rap and how much things have changed and why it sucks so much now-a-days.
yes.
yes.
thumbswayup
Smash Master
Looks like the tournament in Laurel tomorrow has been cancelled. It's probably going to be moved to Cyberden or to another day. The good news is there's a C3 event tonight, where I will again record tons of matches of Azen and others (M2k if I can do it without him noticing), which will all be posted on youtube shortly.
Jam, I am anxiously awaiting that post.
Jam, I am anxiously awaiting that post.
SwiftBass
Smash Hero
Zombie Lucille Ball
Smash Master
lol you are way off. anybody else?
takieddine
Smash Master
thats just a basketball
Solid Jake
The Arcanum
internets are back
and swf is .. upgraded?
interesting
oh btw
this sig is ****ing hot
thanks dazwa
i love my other one too, im going to have to learn how to do your magic.
and swf is .. upgraded?
interesting
oh btw
this sig is ****ing hot
thanks dazwa
i love my other one too, im going to have to learn how to do your magic.
MarthIsMyHero
Smash Apprentice
Be like... OmegaRedMage Jake. It's silly being a mage and not having omega color mage as your name. KK!
Solid Jake
The Arcanum
omegabluemage is a pretty common nickname for me, considering my name used to be blue
Prince Of Fire
Smash Lord
Bonus points for you sir haha
Who would not get that? (noobs!)
It is postponed because Metal Gear is out!!!! DUH!!!!!
Still writing
Okay, here's my promised response about rao music. PLEASE NOTE- This is all my own personal conjecture, and as such, I may be totally wrong in my analysis and my conclusions. Take everything here with a grain of salt:
African-American music has always been about two things: struggle and celebration. The truly American forms of music that we have today have their common roots in the blues, which by definition is a genre of music characterized by woe and pain. From there, musical forms like jazz, rock & roll, R&B and rap all sprung. One of Elvis Presley's idols was Muddy Waters, the famous blues singer from Mississippi. In addition, several of the early rock and roll pioneers were black, such as Bo Diddly, Chubby Checker, Little Richard, etc. Due to their common ancestries and the similar people who influenced both, rap and rock are much more similar than most people will admit.
Rock and Roll in particular was a more celebratory take on the foundation that the blues laid. "Sex, drugs and rock and roll" is one of the many phrases that illustrates this. And out of rock grew rap, an inner-city version of that good-time music. One can look at rap as rock for the economically disadvantaged: the tools required in early rap were far less numerous and far less costly than their rock counterparts. Rap, in the beginning, was essentially party music: it lent itself very well to the block-party nature of the inner cities, and the playfully combative nature of the residents of these areas were infused into the music in the form of "battles", where rappers would take turns insulting each other.
That party music atmosphere would dominate in the early 80's, and it wasn't until the appearance of rappers like Big Daddy Kane, Rakim and others that rap took on a more overtly combative tone, but even this was in a bragadocious, jokey kind of way. It was "I'm a better rapper than you, and here's why" kind of mentality. Beef was present, but not in problematic ways.
Music is a reflection of social conditions though, and the 80's quickly became a dark time for inner-city communities. The plagues of crack, teen pregnancy and STD's descended on the black communities, and gangs and violence were not far behind. Beneath the gleaming exterior of the Reagan years, the cities were rotting from the inside out, and this soon found expression in the culture's music.
It's not surprising that rap took on a more negative tone in the 90's. In fact, it was not the only genre to make this transformation. Nirvana became a mega-hit around the same time due to their darker, more topical form of "grunge" rock. But while grunge was dark, rap took a sudden detour towards violent subject matter with the success of the rap group NWA. Many consider this the birth of "gangsta" rap, where the topics focused more on selling drugs, killing cops and the struggles of everyday life in the inner cities of California. Soon, the happy-go-lucky and semi-combative styles of the 80's were drowned out by a chorus of voices that expressed, and sometimes glorified, the types of inner-city horrors that many people did not realize existed.
From there, gangsta rap spread rapidly on the West Coast, and quickly reached across the country. The boom in gangsta rap reached its crescendo with several high-profile incidents, culminating with the deaths of Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. It was at that point that the industry seemed to have a gut-check moment: suddenly, people who were rapping about guns and death were actually getting shot and dying. Things quieted down for a few years, until the summer of 1998. That was the summer of Cash Money, and the message of rap changed again. No longer was violence the main topic: instead, an almost ludicrous focus on materialism took center stage.
To this day, the rap world revolves around who has the most diamonds, the most cars, the biggest house and the most women. In recent years, a focus on lyrical talent has resurged, with rappers like Common, Mos Def, Talib Kweli and others leading the charge. Still, they cannot compete with the sheer commercial power of 50 Cent, who mixed equal parts materialism and ghetto-machismo to huge success.
-----------------------------------------------------------
So, there is the history lesson. But what does it all mean? Why has rap music come to the point it is at today? I don't believe there was ever a "golden era" or rap: there's always been more crap than good music. But today there just seems to be so much MORE crap than good music. Music has always been a hit-driven industry, but it's gotten to the point where seemingly every week a new rapper is the "Best Rapper of All Time", and no one is interested in cultivating talent. They're all looking for the next one-hit wonder. P. Diddy perfected this search, and it has become the industry standard ever since. These are the top five rap albums this week according to the Billboard charts (in album name/artist name format):
1. II Trill/Bun-B
2. Trilla/Rick Ross
3. Fight with Tools/Flobots
4. Still Da Baddest/Trina
5. Units in the City/Shawty Lo
I've never even heard of four out of five of those artists.
The formula for fleeting (but massive) success in the rap world seems to be mixing violence, drugs, and misogyny with some clever rhymes, but that's only 25%. The other 75% includes production and marketing. We are at a unique point in musical history, where the names of the producers are just as famous as the performers. Under different circumstances, we would celebrate this as those who are behind the scenes finally getting the recognition they deserve. But what this really means is that the producer is more important than the artist. People listen to rap more for the beat than the actual rhymes. In this climate, lyrical skill has degraded to an almost non-existent point. No one cares though, because the beat is hot.
When we do take a look at what the lyrics do say, it's almost depressingly negative. These are the partial lyrics from the #1 single on Billboards Hot 100 list, Lollipop by Li'l Wayne:
Anyone who's listened to more recent gangsta rap has heard the same line in many different ways: I'm still hood. From Memphis Bleek to Jadakiss to 50 Cent, these multi-millionaires go out of their way to ensure the listener they're still on the block selling drugs, robbing, stealing, killing, etc., trying to "get rich or die tryin'". We all know that's not true. 50 Cent recently bought (and sold) Mike Tyson's former mansion in Farmington. You don't get much further from the hood then a house in Farmington with over forty bathrooms. As anyone who's spent time in the inner city will tell you, it is not somewhere they would want to be if they had a choice. So why are rappers constantly trying to convince the listener that it's not only where they want to be, but it's where they are? Rock music has the same destructive, violent and misogynistic sub-genres, but they don't enjoy anything near the level of success that gangsta rap does. What's the difference?
Frankly, it's because that's what the listener wants to hear. More white people than black people buy rap albums. These are people that are vicariously experiencing inner-city life. They don't actually have to deal with the problems that these lyrics are shedding light on, but they like to hear about "Money, Cash, Hoes" and how many bullets a Glock can hold. It's fantasy to them, in the same way that Star Wars and Lord of the Rings are: visceral representations of a life they will never experience. But how does that explain the sizable amount of inner-city and minority people who also buy this? They don't need the vicarious thrill, because they live it every day.
"Misery loves company" sums it up pretty well. The African-American community has been struggling for so long, that we have come to identify with, glorify and even love struggle. If you get out of the hood, off the block, into school, out of jail, off welfare, out of an abusive relationship, married, don't have four kids by 25 or do anything positive to get out of the cycle of poverty and hopelessness that has locked generations of people in projects, then you are a "sellout" and you don't understand the struggle anymore. Terms like pimp, hustler, gangster, G, hood chick and a host of others have positive connotations now. We constantly degrade each other by referring to each other as the N-word and the B-word. School isn't cool, you're hard if you've been to prison, and the only successful black faces you see on TV are those that belong to rappers, singers or sports stars.
One in three black men in this country are in some phase of the criminal justice system. Almost 70% of black children in this country live in single-parent households. There are more black men in prison than in college. Yet these aspects of our community are glossed over by our "leaders" who have the audacity to blame the woes of an entire race of people on the "white man", as opposed to trying to address the true roots within our own communities, homes, and families. We are not embarrassed by what is presented to the entire world as "Black Entertainment Television", a 24-hour parade of scantily clad women, iced out performers and lowest-common-denominator comedians. We don't demand more from ourselves, and expect reparations, welfare, forty acres and a mule, or whatever it is that we're waiting for to finally turn our situation around ourselves. Instead, we demand Affirmative Action, make a huge cry when a videogame is designed with African zombies, and turn a blind eye and deaf ear to the fact that young black men are killing each other on a scale that approaches genocide. The enemy is not the white man, it's ourselves. Our lack of motivation, of role models, of courage, or knowledge, of hope.
Given all of that, is it any wonder that rappers only sell us what we already believe about ourselves?
I'm going to stop at this point. I could keep going for much longer, but I think I've said all that needs to be said right now.
African-American music has always been about two things: struggle and celebration. The truly American forms of music that we have today have their common roots in the blues, which by definition is a genre of music characterized by woe and pain. From there, musical forms like jazz, rock & roll, R&B and rap all sprung. One of Elvis Presley's idols was Muddy Waters, the famous blues singer from Mississippi. In addition, several of the early rock and roll pioneers were black, such as Bo Diddly, Chubby Checker, Little Richard, etc. Due to their common ancestries and the similar people who influenced both, rap and rock are much more similar than most people will admit.
Rock and Roll in particular was a more celebratory take on the foundation that the blues laid. "Sex, drugs and rock and roll" is one of the many phrases that illustrates this. And out of rock grew rap, an inner-city version of that good-time music. One can look at rap as rock for the economically disadvantaged: the tools required in early rap were far less numerous and far less costly than their rock counterparts. Rap, in the beginning, was essentially party music: it lent itself very well to the block-party nature of the inner cities, and the playfully combative nature of the residents of these areas were infused into the music in the form of "battles", where rappers would take turns insulting each other.
That party music atmosphere would dominate in the early 80's, and it wasn't until the appearance of rappers like Big Daddy Kane, Rakim and others that rap took on a more overtly combative tone, but even this was in a bragadocious, jokey kind of way. It was "I'm a better rapper than you, and here's why" kind of mentality. Beef was present, but not in problematic ways.
Music is a reflection of social conditions though, and the 80's quickly became a dark time for inner-city communities. The plagues of crack, teen pregnancy and STD's descended on the black communities, and gangs and violence were not far behind. Beneath the gleaming exterior of the Reagan years, the cities were rotting from the inside out, and this soon found expression in the culture's music.
It's not surprising that rap took on a more negative tone in the 90's. In fact, it was not the only genre to make this transformation. Nirvana became a mega-hit around the same time due to their darker, more topical form of "grunge" rock. But while grunge was dark, rap took a sudden detour towards violent subject matter with the success of the rap group NWA. Many consider this the birth of "gangsta" rap, where the topics focused more on selling drugs, killing cops and the struggles of everyday life in the inner cities of California. Soon, the happy-go-lucky and semi-combative styles of the 80's were drowned out by a chorus of voices that expressed, and sometimes glorified, the types of inner-city horrors that many people did not realize existed.
From there, gangsta rap spread rapidly on the West Coast, and quickly reached across the country. The boom in gangsta rap reached its crescendo with several high-profile incidents, culminating with the deaths of Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. It was at that point that the industry seemed to have a gut-check moment: suddenly, people who were rapping about guns and death were actually getting shot and dying. Things quieted down for a few years, until the summer of 1998. That was the summer of Cash Money, and the message of rap changed again. No longer was violence the main topic: instead, an almost ludicrous focus on materialism took center stage.
To this day, the rap world revolves around who has the most diamonds, the most cars, the biggest house and the most women. In recent years, a focus on lyrical talent has resurged, with rappers like Common, Mos Def, Talib Kweli and others leading the charge. Still, they cannot compete with the sheer commercial power of 50 Cent, who mixed equal parts materialism and ghetto-machismo to huge success.
-----------------------------------------------------------
So, there is the history lesson. But what does it all mean? Why has rap music come to the point it is at today? I don't believe there was ever a "golden era" or rap: there's always been more crap than good music. But today there just seems to be so much MORE crap than good music. Music has always been a hit-driven industry, but it's gotten to the point where seemingly every week a new rapper is the "Best Rapper of All Time", and no one is interested in cultivating talent. They're all looking for the next one-hit wonder. P. Diddy perfected this search, and it has become the industry standard ever since. These are the top five rap albums this week according to the Billboard charts (in album name/artist name format):
1. II Trill/Bun-B
2. Trilla/Rick Ross
3. Fight with Tools/Flobots
4. Still Da Baddest/Trina
5. Units in the City/Shawty Lo
I've never even heard of four out of five of those artists.
The formula for fleeting (but massive) success in the rap world seems to be mixing violence, drugs, and misogyny with some clever rhymes, but that's only 25%. The other 75% includes production and marketing. We are at a unique point in musical history, where the names of the producers are just as famous as the performers. Under different circumstances, we would celebrate this as those who are behind the scenes finally getting the recognition they deserve. But what this really means is that the producer is more important than the artist. People listen to rap more for the beat than the actual rhymes. In this climate, lyrical skill has degraded to an almost non-existent point. No one cares though, because the beat is hot.
When we do take a look at what the lyrics do say, it's almost depressingly negative. These are the partial lyrics from the #1 single on Billboards Hot 100 list, Lollipop by Li'l Wayne:
This is the #1 song in the country right now. True, Li'l Wayne also has a song about the destruction that Hurricane Katrina brought to his hometown of New Orleans, but he and his bosses have decided to market Lollipop aggressively enough that it became the #1 song. Lyrical content has always been the Achilles' Heel of rap, where all the critics have aimed in order to take it down. These attacks are deflected with grand appeals to the First Amendment and freedom of speech, but recently I've started to realize that the freedom to speak freely comes with the burden of speaking responsibly. Rappers, on the whole, reject this responsibility.
Anyone who's listened to more recent gangsta rap has heard the same line in many different ways: I'm still hood. From Memphis Bleek to Jadakiss to 50 Cent, these multi-millionaires go out of their way to ensure the listener they're still on the block selling drugs, robbing, stealing, killing, etc., trying to "get rich or die tryin'". We all know that's not true. 50 Cent recently bought (and sold) Mike Tyson's former mansion in Farmington. You don't get much further from the hood then a house in Farmington with over forty bathrooms. As anyone who's spent time in the inner city will tell you, it is not somewhere they would want to be if they had a choice. So why are rappers constantly trying to convince the listener that it's not only where they want to be, but it's where they are? Rock music has the same destructive, violent and misogynistic sub-genres, but they don't enjoy anything near the level of success that gangsta rap does. What's the difference?
Frankly, it's because that's what the listener wants to hear. More white people than black people buy rap albums. These are people that are vicariously experiencing inner-city life. They don't actually have to deal with the problems that these lyrics are shedding light on, but they like to hear about "Money, Cash, Hoes" and how many bullets a Glock can hold. It's fantasy to them, in the same way that Star Wars and Lord of the Rings are: visceral representations of a life they will never experience. But how does that explain the sizable amount of inner-city and minority people who also buy this? They don't need the vicarious thrill, because they live it every day.
"Misery loves company" sums it up pretty well. The African-American community has been struggling for so long, that we have come to identify with, glorify and even love struggle. If you get out of the hood, off the block, into school, out of jail, off welfare, out of an abusive relationship, married, don't have four kids by 25 or do anything positive to get out of the cycle of poverty and hopelessness that has locked generations of people in projects, then you are a "sellout" and you don't understand the struggle anymore. Terms like pimp, hustler, gangster, G, hood chick and a host of others have positive connotations now. We constantly degrade each other by referring to each other as the N-word and the B-word. School isn't cool, you're hard if you've been to prison, and the only successful black faces you see on TV are those that belong to rappers, singers or sports stars.
One in three black men in this country are in some phase of the criminal justice system. Almost 70% of black children in this country live in single-parent households. There are more black men in prison than in college. Yet these aspects of our community are glossed over by our "leaders" who have the audacity to blame the woes of an entire race of people on the "white man", as opposed to trying to address the true roots within our own communities, homes, and families. We are not embarrassed by what is presented to the entire world as "Black Entertainment Television", a 24-hour parade of scantily clad women, iced out performers and lowest-common-denominator comedians. We don't demand more from ourselves, and expect reparations, welfare, forty acres and a mule, or whatever it is that we're waiting for to finally turn our situation around ourselves. Instead, we demand Affirmative Action, make a huge cry when a videogame is designed with African zombies, and turn a blind eye and deaf ear to the fact that young black men are killing each other on a scale that approaches genocide. The enemy is not the white man, it's ourselves. Our lack of motivation, of role models, of courage, or knowledge, of hope.
Given all of that, is it any wonder that rappers only sell us what we already believe about ourselves?
I'm going to stop at this point. I could keep going for much longer, but I think I've said all that needs to be said right now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEMmbtcxbpc
Careful where you post that Jam, a brother might get offended by your brainwashed white man ranting
Careful where you post that Jam, a brother might get offended by your brainwashed white man ranting
Cort
Apple Head
nealdt went to snoop dogg's high school
in long beach, ca
in long beach, ca
Don't worry, that will not be leaving these boards.
MarthIsMyHero
Smash Apprentice
You can't say that Jam, you're a sellout! JK Man. Awesome stuffs. I've heard a lot of some of that, but I didn't realize some of the statistics about the African-American communitys faultiness (not trying to be racist, just a word I'm using, :O). I feel more comfortable accepting information about a non-caucasian race explaining what is going on in their department. With all the media and horrible crap out there, you can't really accept much opinion unless it comes from one who lives/lived it, and isn't stooped to media standards, but by real personal experience.
tarmacker
Smash Journeyman
Not if I have anything to do about it lololol
Just kidding, but it was an interesting read and I enjoyed it. A different perspective to things since I grew up middle class and white.
Papito
Smash Journeyman
rap is mad garbage now it has fallen drastically in the last five years hardly anyone is lyrically good freakin down south trash music took over. and if anyone thinks lil wayne is good you dont know **** about rap, ive been listenin since the 80's. lil wayne and most down south cats are super trash.
oh and trademark when you gonna play me again so i can roast you lol.
oh and trademark when you gonna play me again so i can roast you lol.
takieddine
Smash Master
Soulja Boi Ftw!
tarmacker
Smash Journeyman
lol at the tags for the thread: "matt was here" and "matt was gay"
Good work someone
Good work someone
oh snap, mega man 9 confirmed:
http://www.classification.gov.au/sp...Y=1970&sDateToM=6&sDateToY=2008&record=228120
http://www.classification.gov.au/sp...Y=1970&sDateToM=6&sDateToY=2008&record=228120
_milktea
Smash Lord
holy WHAT happened to smashboards!? are the posts all weird aligned now!? this is so annoying!
Modest_Egoist
Smash Journeyman
Yeah, they set the post bit to Top. You can change it back to Left in User CP > Edit Options.