To Pimp A Butterfly, Yeezus and what's wrong with modern Hip-Hop

DjPolair

DjPolair

New member
I stumbled on this video and while I do not care too much for art I found this to be a perfect analogy for music, and more specifically hip-hop.



He argues that standards have gradually gone down (as I've been saying for years) and all that is left now is personal expression.

Quality in music "is not merely a matter of personal opinion but to a high degree . . . objectively traceable." Which is a fact. Rhythm, melody, all follow certain rules. If everything is out of balance it doesn't sound good to our ears, you can listen to it 500 times and get used to tolerating it, doesn't make it good music.

The notion of universal standard of quality is met with firm resistance and it does a huge disservice to music.

Yeezus is the perfect expression of everything that is wrong with modern hip-hop and music. And To Pimp A Butterfly follows in that lane. It is dissolving from one thing into another and all over the place.

Mainstream hip-hop artists need to follow standards of excellence and put their heart and soul into their records because hip-hop can be so great. We hip-hop heads know how great hip-hop can be. That's why we love it. And we need to get back to that.
 
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DjPolair said:
I stumbled on this video and while I do not care too much for art I found this to be a perfect analogy for music, and more specifically hip-hop.



He argues that standards have gradually gone down (as I've been saying for years) and all that is left now is personal expression.

Quality in music "is not merely a matter of personal opinion but to a high degree . . . objectively traceable." Which is a fact. Rhythm, melody, all follow certain rules. If everything is out of balance it doesn't sound good to our ears, you can listen to it 500 times and get used to tolerating it, doesn't make it good music.

The notion of universal standard of quality is met with firm resistance and it does a huge disservice to music.

Yeezus is the perfect expression of everything that is wrong with modern hip-hop and music. And To Pimp A Butterfly follows in that lane. It is dissolving from one thing into another and all over the place.

Mainstream hip-hop artists need to follow standards of excellence and put their heart and soul into their records because hip-hop can be so great. We hip-hop heads know how great hip-hop can be. That's why we love it. And we need to get back to that.
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If u are putting those two albums in the same category, we have nothing to discuss.

Hip-Hop is in a great place right now if you ask me. A mixture of junk and excellence, but that's how it's always been.
To each his own
 
DjPolair said:
Not at all. Yeezus was terrible, TPAB could have been a classic but it didn't live up to it's potential.
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We disagree. I think it was a classic album when you put it in the context of the socio-political stuff that has been occurring in the US the past couple of years.
 
I disagree. I prefer Hip Hop. And truthfully you kinda dicredit yourself by calling yourself a hip hop head. Hip Hop head's just sit by and complain about how thing aren't what they used to be musically.
 
mwandishi said:
We disagree. I think it was a classic album when you put it in the context of the socio-political stuff that has been occurring in the US the past couple of years.
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Don't you think it could've been better? They could've made it more focused. A couple records on that album had classic potential, it was too experimental, all over the place, it lacked structure and direction.
It felt like listening through old records to find samples, you hear something good and then it goes a whole different direction and I'm left like "why" ?
I loved that sound right there, give me more of it.
It's how Kanye explained Yeezus. He said something along the lines of that he didn't want people to enjoy this album, he wanted to drop hints of greatness and then hit people over the head with nasty sounds. TPAB didn't do that, Yeezus was extreme, but it did it nonetheless. I feel like NWTS was a much better album than this, although it was inferior in message. It was better just for the fact that it respected the rules of good music.
I love and hate TPAB. Because it could've been so great.
 
DjPolair said:
Don't you think it could've been better? They could've made it more focused. A couple records on that album had classic potential, it was too experimental, all over the place, it lacked structure and direction.
It felt like listening through old records to find samples, you hear something good and then it goes a whole different direction and I'm left like "why" ?
I loved that sound right there, give me more of it.
It's how Kanye explained Yeezus. He said something along the lines of that he didn't want people to enjoy this album, he wanted to drop hints of greatness and then hit people over the head with nasty sounds. TPAB didn't do that, Yeezus was extreme, but it did it nonetheless. I feel like NWTS was a much better album than this, although it was inferior in message. It was better just for the fact that it respected the rules of good music.
I love and hate TPAB. Because it could've been so great.
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Not sure how much better it could have been. I think whole project was put together very well. There are tracks that like more than others, but even those support the whole project to paint the big picture.
The album structure from Wesley's Theory to Mortal Man is classic.
To weave one poem in snippets through the whole project only to reveal it at the end was brilliant.
I understand the project may not appeal to the masses, but for him to do this now is classic.
 
Same old "music was better back in the day" argument. Just listen to old records and reminece, things are never going to be the same.
 
The thing is Yeezus was classically sound as far as not only sound design but paradigm shifts and track layout and relevancy of concepts.

So if you mastered movies and music and fashion, and art, and lived a life, and know what its like to get adoration and be alpha and be a King, only THEN can you appreciate Yeezus.

So if you consider that music is a language, he communicating what its like to be alpha, to be a God. And in both content and delivery.

You can't compare wanna be trash from Kendrick. His apeal was that he was a clever hood nerd from Compton. He should stick to making clever raps, he is nowhere near Kanyes realm of artist.

Track 8 of his last album was produced at my house. I know the whole spirit of those people, and they don't have it in them to be heroes.

They were just creative kids using all the new plugins (which I helped install) and it was about having the culture of that be an element in the music, but now they are in over their heads.

I think anyone who liked the new Kendrick album was just trying/needing way too hard to like it. And maybe that tricked them into thinking it was good music lol.

Look out for Detox was the last time Kendrick was impressive, the rest he just coasted from there because of what he represents, not the way he represents it a majority of the time.

The last frontier has fallen and people desperately trying to hold on.
 
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The other thing about Kanye is his musical instincts are so potent.

Like any of us if we just tried to get fancy and get outside the formula, we can make 100 joints and they would all be weird.

But his instincts are so sharp that he can go explore and still pull some amazing art from nowhere but his own taste and how it reflects on people.

And he is surgical with that capacity.

Thats why he has so much street cred as an artist even outside of music.
 
Robot Sunsets said:
Track 8 of his last album was produced at my house. I know the whole spirit of those people, and they don't have it in them to be heroes.

They were just creative kids using all the new plugins (which I helped install) and it was about having the culture of that be an element in the music, but now they are in over their heads.
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Pictures or videos please.
 
lol......................Kanye gave Rick Rubin a bunch of very unfinished shit......(you know...that shit when you making a beat and only got like a synthline and shit)....A bunch of drunk ass Kanye sessions....told him make something happen.


Rick Rubin did the best he could with that shit......it's like asking a lady to braid your hair....but you don't have enough hair....


foh....
 
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Its not that the album didn't live up to your lame standards, DJ Polair, its that you have a set of ****-ass ears. Its not entirely your fault, though. A nigga with McDonalds taste in music gonna have a hard time coping with a well-prepared, home-cooked meal of an album.
With that being said, I don't wanna see naaaaaahn one of you ****-eared niggas complaining about hiphop when a nigga just dropped perhaps the most original and sonically nuanced mainstream album in years and y'all like, "uggggggghhhh whurr mah trap bangas and autotune at?" "Too much jazz, too much jazz" "Why it no 1995 no more?"
 
Jazz doesn't = good music.

There is good Jazz and boring Jazz.

wow you think you're special because you used a jazz type sound.

but you put together a turd lol lol
 
If you want to complain about modern hip/hop, Yeezus and TPAB are not the albums to attack. In my opinion both Kanye and Kendrick are rightfully controlling the game.
There is a lot of trash today, but the ones that actually mold and craft new sounds that work are still true artists.
 
...and the funny thing is I never see anyone roastin Young Thug, DJ Mustard, YG, Chris Brown, Trey Songz, 2 Chainz.

But everyone got hate for Kendrick and J. Cole?
 
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