My Love for the Hip Raps

I first got into rap music back in the mid-90's when OutKast's album Aquemini became popular. Since then I've delved a little into underground hip-hop, but I need to expand my ears more into that realm. A few years back my friend Henry Chanin introduced me to Immortal Technique, an artist with a strong vision who is revelatory not just for his fierce conviction and righteous wit ["My metaphors are dirty like herpes--but harder to catch," ... "I leave you full 'o clips like the moon blockin' the sun..."], but also because he samples classical music along with more standard electronic fare in his beats.

Anyways, rap music can be quite devine, and it is the most recent offshoot of our land's blues roots to swell up from underground and explode throughout pop culture, so it's very important to me as a source of inspiration; it has an urgency and ache in it that makes it immediate in the best of ways. Of course, most of what one hears on pop radio is "rap" music that someone forgot to put the "c" in front of. If you hate rap, go back to it and try again, either listen to people like Common or Immortal Technique or go back to the earliest era of the music and hear the buoyant spirits of folks like Grandmaster Flash.

What rap lacks, generally, is highly varied orchestration. When you're building a song on a computer, you have an infinite orchestra at hand--why not capitalize on that? Beat producers need to delve much deeper into what folks like Beethoven and the Duke did to forge masterpieces. Many rap lyricists are highly intelligent, and a few don't let posturing get in the way of their wit n' wisdom.

I would really love to see more live hip-hop, where a DJ and a band are featured onstage backing the rapper.

All of which is to say, I like this song & video featuring Nyle. Listening to it makes me feel good.

Nyle "Let The Beat Build" from Nyle on Vimeo.