With all the recent old school mails being send, I somehow get the
impression that there are many people on this list who consider early
hiphop to be one of their major musical influences but that they now think
they have moved on/progressed or whatever and that hiphop (with the
instrumental exceptions of Ninja Tunes, DJ Shadow, NOW) has long lost its
cutting edge.
Though I would agree that many of the current hiphop-releases are boring
and conservative (but so are the majority of releases in any musical genre)
there are still great records being put out. Just check out I`AMs new album
"L`Ecole du Micro d`Argent"or some of the stuff on DJ Muggs new project.
As for the guy who said that he doesn`t like the lyrics in hiphop/ragga, I
only want to remind him that reggae producers were the ones of invented the
art of remixing. And that up to this day all Jamaican dancehall-singles
have instrumental mixes (called versions) on the b-side. And they are not
all the standard dub-stuff you would expect. If you want to hear an
excellent reggae-production combined with strong lyrics, I would recommend
Bounty Killers recent album "My XPerience".
Plus there seems to be a small hiphop-revival going on in the
electronica-world. Just think of the new collaborations Goldie/KRS-One,
Prodigy/Kool Keith (of Ultramagnetic MCs fame), Kool Herc/Grandwizard
Theodore supporting Chem.Bros. and the upcoming Björk-album which will be
produced by Wu-man RZA.
Open your ears and your feet will follow...
Heiko