[ANNOUNCEMENT] Earthgang AMA Sunday 9/10 at 4pm EST - HipHop |
- [ANNOUNCEMENT] Earthgang AMA Sunday 9/10 at 4pm EST
- Recommended If You Like Thread - September 09, 2017
- POST MALONE SUPERISES RICH CHIGGA BACK FOR THE BEST BIRTHDAY GIFT OF ALL TIME
- [FRESH] Kodak Black x Travis Scott - Roll In Peace (Remix)
- Kendrick Lamar & Schoolboy Q - 6 Foot 7 Foot
- Tyler, the Creator Roasts MTV Video Music Awards on Instagram Live
- [FRESH] Roy Woods - New New (ft. Rich The Kid)
- The Weeknd ~ Down Low
- Common has won an Emmy for his song "Letter to the Free (featuring Bilal)". He is now only one award away from obtaining the EGOT (he just needs a Tony award).
- Hip-Hop in China
- [FRESH] Yung Lean - Hunting My Own Skin
- [GAME THREAD] OVO SOUND RADIO EPISODE 51
- [FRESH] Lil Uzi Vert x Maxo Kream - Mars
- Samiyam - Mirror ft. Earl Sweatshirt
- Daily Discussion Thread 09/09/2017
- Jazz Cartier- 100 Roses
- [FRESH] BONES - FAILURE
- [FRESH] Travis Scott - Roll In Peace [Remix]
- People Under The Stairs - San Francisco Knights
- A$AP Ferg - Olympian ft. Dave East
- Fat Nick with a weather PSA for the Florida boys
- [ORIGINAL] I Put Danny Brown's "Ain't It Funny" over a more somber beat so see what it would sound like. Gabriel Hennessy- Ain't It Funny remix
- OG Maco Feat Migos - FUCKEMx3
- Young Thug - Safe
- [FRESH] ILOVEMAKONNEN Love (ft. Rae Sremmurd)
- BJ the Chicago Kid - It’s True (feat. ScHoolboy Q)
- Army Of The Pharaohs - Dump The Clip
| [ANNOUNCEMENT] Earthgang AMA Sunday 9/10 at 4pm EST Posted: 09 Sep 2017 12:02 PM PDT announcement: https://twitter.com/EarthGang/status/906634470501109766 [link] [comments]  |
| Recommended If You Like Thread - September 09, 2017 Posted: 09 Sep 2017 11:05 AM PDT If you're looking for a recommendation give a description/music link/artist so that other people will know what you want. Example: I want to hear an artist that sounds like old Kanye (you can get more specific but that's enough imo). And then someone will respond with X, Y, and Z You can also recommend an artist/project/scene Example: You guys should check out DJ Mustard's mixtape Ketchup RIYL (recommended if you like) post-hyphy and minimalistic west coast beats. Remember, the point of this thread is to share music, try not to post stuff that's already really popular unless it answers someone's question. Also the more descriptive you guys are with your posts the easier it is to help you find what you want, just stating an artists name isn't that helpful since you might only like one specific aspect of that artist's music. [link] [comments]  |
| POST MALONE SUPERISES RICH CHIGGA BACK FOR THE BEST BIRTHDAY GIFT OF ALL TIME Posted: 09 Sep 2017 10:17 PM PDT |
| [FRESH] Kodak Black x Travis Scott - Roll In Peace (Remix) Posted: 09 Sep 2017 05:30 PM PDT |
| Kendrick Lamar & Schoolboy Q - 6 Foot 7 Foot Posted: 09 Sep 2017 10:42 AM PDT |
| Tyler, the Creator Roasts MTV Video Music Awards on Instagram Live Posted: 09 Sep 2017 06:51 AM PDT |
| [FRESH] Roy Woods - New New (ft. Rich The Kid) Posted: 09 Sep 2017 05:24 PM PDT |
| Posted: 09 Sep 2017 03:33 PM PDT |
| Posted: 09 Sep 2017 10:26 PM PDT |
| Posted: 09 Sep 2017 05:07 AM PDT Hey guys, I've been a hip-hop fan my whole life and have been living in China for the last two years. I'm doing a master's here in anthropology. I speak Chinese at a decent level, though not fluent, and I'm sure there are some big gaps in my knowledge as well as things I completely missed the mark on. Anyway, I wrote this article a couple of months ago purely out of my own interest in the topic and a desire to learn more about it. I thought I'd post it here and see if anyone was interested. Gathered below are some of my main impressions and thoughts on Hip-Hop hop in China. Hope you enjoy it: I have an understandably shallow knowledge of China's hip-hop scene. I've lived in Yunnan only two years. My limited exposure to Chinese music means that I largely use it as a language learning tool, rather than as an artistic production worth appreciation. In addition, Jay Chou/Mando-pop tracks gave me very poor impressions early in my language-learning experience, which colored my general attitude toward hip-hop in Asia. Finally, there's been such an eruption of fantastic hip-hop in the States that I never felt the need to redirect my musical interests to the continent I just so happen to live on. That's been changing lately. Yunnan sits in southwest China, far away from the politically charged capital of Beijing. Sichuan is just north of here, whose capital Chengdu has quickly become a beacon for emerging underground Chinese rappers. As it turns out more and more of these artists have dope flows, stellar production quality, and innovative wordplay. There are a few noteworthy points at which Chinese hip-hop diverges from its Western counterpart. This part's a little pedantic, but it's essential to wrapping your head around some of the more peculiar elements of Chinese hip-hop. There is broad consensus in the linguistic community that Mandarin has 420 distinct syllables. By this definition alone, its syllabic limitation curtails the amount of sonic variety in the language's sound. On the other hand, linguists quibble about the number of distinct syllables in English. Some scholars claim that a word like "singer" consists of two syllables; others claim it consists of three. Low estimates suggest at least 10,000 distinct syllables in the English language, with some estimates going as high as 15,000. However, Mandarin has a few tricks to get around this syllabic limitation. The first is that it uses a tonal system to change a sound's meaning. This allows for each sound to be inflected in one of four ways, or left uninflected and thus neutral, all varieties of which are considered semantically distinct components. From this, we can see that it presents the chance for a ton of wordplay. The classic example is the sound "ma." If it is inflected to a higher tone, it expresses "mom." If it's inflected as sharply declining, it expresses "to insult." If it's inflected as falling and rising, it expresses "horse." And if it is neutral, it functions as an interrogative particle. This means you can have sentences written around wordplay like "Mom swears at the horse," which is grammatically sound, but is pronounced like "Ma ma ma ma?" (This is largely a non-issue in the spoken language, due to the abundance of disyllabic words.) It gives the language some flexibility it wouldn't otherwise have, and in the arena of hip-hop, introduces plenty of chance for double entendre. In fact, the prominence of double entendre in Mandarin can be a delicate subject to navigate. I've seen professors blush when reciting classical Chinese poetry, because a sentence about "sitting and cherishing the forest deep into the night" can also be read as "making love in forest deep into the night." The abundance of homophones (words pronounced the same but differing in meaning) means that these kind of situations are unavoidable. Another hallmark of Mandarin is that it's technically a prevalent northern dialect that was elevated to the lingua franca of China. Chinese regions all have their own disparate dialects, though, most of which are mutually intelligible. For example, someone from Yunnan (where I live) speaks a dialect with their family that someone from Shandong (northeastern coastal province) wouldn't understand. However, both of them, assuming similar levels of education, could communicate with each other using Mandarin. What does this mean for hip-hop? It means that regional pride features front and center in Chinese hip-hop, just like in the US. And moreover, using your dialect instead of the official language is inherently political: it's defiance in the face of the government, of bureaucracy, of societal expectations, and of normalcy. Think about the division in the US. In hip-hop, to be called "fake" is one of the most barbarous insults someone can level. When a rapper's life is exposed as artifice, the backlash is immediate. This is why Childish Gambino, a hugely successful rapper, can be from urban Atlanta and rap "without an accent" and it's OK: if he affected a southern drawl, the sound of other prominent southern rappers in the trap movement, he would be immediately derided. We already know he doesn't sound like that. One feature of hip-hop in the US is that we want to hear the artists using their own words for expression, because authenticity features front and center. We want to hear the slang, the stylistic quirks, the accent—all the markers that we're listening to something "real." From this, in China, rapping in your hometown's dialect is similar. It's an expression of class consciousness, not one of phonetic limitation. Most rappers here, when they're chilling with their friends, use their dialect to talk to each other. Freestyles happen in their dialect. It's more comfortable to use than standard Mandarin; there's a closeness, an intimacy, that exists there. Comparatively, Mandarin comes off as cold, calculated, and political. There's another thing to remember: sometimes, there is a subtle bias from people who speak standard Mandarin toward those who don't speak, as Mandarin fluency is one of the key markers of education level. Large-scale business and governance tends to be done in Mandarin. Us foreign students are taught Mandarin, and we're often warned against the "dangers" of studying dialect. (I've heard all varieties of "It'll corrupt your accent! It'll teach you words that aren't accepted as standard!" "These expressions are too uncouth!" in the classroom.) So, rappers who actively choose dialect over Mandarin are embracing their hometown roots and subverting the expectations of anyone who would look down on them. I'm reminded of a white, 60-year-old curmudgeon, grumbling on his porch: "Why can't these hooligans just speak English, gosh darn it?" Well, he's not the intended audience. That's not to say artists don't rap in Mandarin, because they often do. Given that hip-hop is still relatively underdeveloped in China, it tends to be difficult for local rappers to break out on a national stage. In order to captivate fans who don't speak their dialect, Mandarin becomes the necessary expressive tool. At this point, it becomes a balancing act between Mandarin and dialect, all the while striving to maintain the authenticity that the fans demand. There is another phenomenon regarding claiming authenticity. From my experience, Chinese hip-hop artists love to pepper their tracks with English swear words. They view expletives as hallmarks of coming from a harder, tougher background. The irony, of course, is that they are using a foreign language to bolster their own local street cred. Of course, they'll still cuss in Mandarin and their dialect, but very nasty English swear words are also all-too-often dropped in extremely clunky moments. It comes across as tasteless rather than authentic, especially the n-bomb. It also reflects that the speaker is wholly ignorant of American history. This is likely the case; their rap icons exist as seen through media, not through a textbook. Reinforcing this is that the Chinese word for "uhm," already sounds extremely similar to the n-bomb. Things distort when transplanted across continents, and sometimes they come out the other side not looking so good—this is one of those distortions. All things considered, the simultaneous existence of Mandarin, dialect, and English expletives on many tracks means that understanding—or at least vibing to—Chinese hip-hop requires a vigilant ear. I was playing a track by MC HotDog, one of Taiwan's bigger rappers, and without notice, I realized I suddenly couldn't understand anything he was saying. My girlfriend sitting on the sofa behind me started laughing. "What's so funny?" I asked. "He's rapping in Minnan Hua, my dialect!" (It's important to note that since dialect and family are inextricably entwined, at the first sound of her dialect, she thinks of her watermelon-farming grandpa, hence the laughter.) Sprinkle in some f-bombs, some bizarre phrases like "My yellow n*!"and "My life [Mandarin] F** UP! [English]", and you've got yourself one hell of a linguistic cocktail, to say nothing of a musically baffling experience. Earlier, I mentioned Chengdu as one of China's largest hubs for underground hip-hop. Most of the underground artists there belong to a rap collective called the Chengdu Rap House. By and large, these rappers use their dialect, Chengdu's local Sichuanese, in their music. One of their more famous artists is Fat Shady, a play on Eminem's Slim Shady moniker. A few years ago, he went on China's biggest singing TV show and performed his song "Daddy Ain't Going to Work Tomorrow," performed entirely in his Sichuaun dialect, on a stage in front of millions of Chinese. It was a huge hit, and propelled him center stage as one of China's foremost hip-hop artists. Why was this song, with a topic as mundane as skipping work tomorrow, received so well? To figure this out, you've got to look at why Western hip-hop, outside mega-stars like Eminem and Jay-Z, has had very little success in penetrating the Chinese market. Simply put, the individualistic focus in Western hip-hop doesn't jive well with Chinese fans. Expanding on this, the deep Confucianism embedded in the culture, that is, your existence purely in relationship to your placement in a hierarchy (whether at home, at work, or school), severely limits the extend to which one can "vibe" to the self-aggrandizing intensity of most Western hip-hop. This is why poppy music from Korea or Jay Chou from Taiwan both do great in China: they overwhelmingly feature tepid and sentimental lyrics sung over a light, harmless beat. Humility, another inescapable tenet of Confucianism, clashes harshly with the braggadocio featured in most Western hip-hop. So, as far as a song about skipping work is concerned, the banality of the topic actually comes across as a virtue, as a quiet humility, and is consistent with the pressures built into Chinese society. This is very different from Western rappers, who often face very different struggles at home—whether it spiking crime, rotting public education, single-parent houses, police brutality, rampant drug culture, etc.—so it's natural for this background to inform their lyrical storytelling. The Western target audience overwhelmingly functions as audience to a narrator, and we look to these artists to draw our attention to critical inequalities built into national ethos, à la Kendrick Lamar's "To Pimp a Butterfly," where he functioned as sage highlighting racial and economic equality in 21st century black America while offering his vision for a hopeful future. The Chinese target audience, however, has a different function. They want empathy. They want to relate to the song. This target audience is beset with struggles of their own, comparatively mundane to inner-Compton gang warfare but nonetheless serious issues: children face enormous pressures from their parents and teachers to test well; blue-collar workers toil under unsafe labor conditions for a low wage; white-collar employees must contend with a labyrinthine maze of intricate "face-giving" and "face-saving" social occasions, on which their promotion or demotion rests; and everyone, it seems, feels enormous historical pressure from national dissonance of "China is the greatest country with the greatest history in the world, but why can't I drink the tap water?" In this context, the decision to not to go to work becomes representative of what I would characterize as a collective melancholy reaching an apex. People here are not excited to go to school. They're not excited to go to work. This disillusionment is, of course, not unique to China, but it expresses itself to a much more alarming degree in Asia. Thus, the simple act of saying "No" is already incredibly meaningful here, especially in the context of Confucian filial piety, and I would contend that the number one reason why this song exploded in popularity was because the average listener was sick of his or her life's constraints, but had no avenues for expressing this frustration. It became an anthem for those totally disenchanted by their life's monotony. Right now, hip-hop culture is still very much an underground thing in China. Fat Shady and MC HotDog have ascended to the echelons of stardom, but they are exceptions. In general, the sort of violent, politically conscious sound we're used to hearing in the West doesn't translate well for a Chinese audience. Which is OK: the backgrounds are different. Things are supposed to mutate when they're transplanted to a space. This transition period is the realm of art, where creativity's brushstrokes become bolder with every flick of the wrist. However, when a community assimilates a new transplanted art form, the first period of its exploration involves much imitation. This happens everywhere with everything and isn't unique to Chinese hip-hop. (See: post-Migos explosion in trap sound, post-N.W.A. explosion in G-funk, etc..) What I'm curious to see next is, what trajectory will Chinese hip-hop take? 10 years ago, it was virtually nonexistent. Now, there is a flourishing—albeit small—underground scene, with several larger stars emerging from the pack. In a land where government approval is paramount, that hip-hop, inseparable from defiance and aggression, was ever allowed a musical foothold in the country at all is already quite a remarkable achievement. I look forward to seeing the path it takes. I'm still getting my daily dose of Western rappers, but more and more, I'm bobbing my head to lyrics I don't understand, infused with transformed meanings, sewn into a strange musical tapestry I don't quite get, but there I am, more and more, bobbing my head on the street. Who knows, maybe I won't go to class tomorrow. For those interested in checking out some Chinese hip-hop, I recommend checking out these artists: MC HotDog; Fat Shady; Melo; MA$IWEI; Ty.; Wordy; Purple Soul; and Soft Lipa. [link] [comments]  |
| [FRESH] Yung Lean - Hunting My Own Skin Posted: 09 Sep 2017 11:14 AM PDT |
| [GAME THREAD] OVO SOUND RADIO EPISODE 51 Posted: 09 Sep 2017 02:46 PM PDT Start Time - 6PM EST / 5PM CST / 4PM MST / 3PM EST News / Speculation - New Music -
LAST SONG BEFORE START - CARDI B - Bodak Yellow TRACKLIST -
[link] [comments]  |
| [FRESH] Lil Uzi Vert x Maxo Kream - Mars Posted: 09 Sep 2017 09:50 PM PDT |
| Samiyam - Mirror ft. Earl Sweatshirt Posted: 09 Sep 2017 08:50 AM PDT |
| Daily Discussion Thread 09/09/2017 Posted: 09 Sep 2017 12:11 PM PDT Welcome to the /r/hiphopheads daily discussion thread! This thread is for:
Thread Guidelines
Other ways to interact There are a number of other ways to interact with other members of HHH:
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| Posted: 09 Sep 2017 07:23 PM PDT |
| Posted: 09 Sep 2017 07:31 PM PDT |
| [FRESH] Travis Scott - Roll In Peace [Remix] Posted: 09 Sep 2017 06:50 PM PDT |
| People Under The Stairs - San Francisco Knights Posted: 09 Sep 2017 09:40 AM PDT |
| A$AP Ferg - Olympian ft. Dave East Posted: 09 Sep 2017 09:07 PM PDT |
| Fat Nick with a weather PSA for the Florida boys Posted: 09 Sep 2017 11:02 AM PDT |
| Posted: 09 Sep 2017 10:01 PM PDT |
| Posted: 09 Sep 2017 06:59 AM PDT |
| Posted: 09 Sep 2017 01:17 PM PDT |
| [FRESH] ILOVEMAKONNEN Love (ft. Rae Sremmurd) Posted: 09 Sep 2017 02:18 PM PDT |
| BJ the Chicago Kid - It’s True (feat. ScHoolboy Q) Posted: 09 Sep 2017 07:55 PM PDT |
| Army Of The Pharaohs - Dump The Clip Posted: 09 Sep 2017 09:44 AM PDT |
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