Daily Discussion Thread 12/10/2018 - HipHop | HipHop Channel

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Daily Discussion Thread 12/10/2018 - HipHop

Daily Discussion Thread 12/10/2018 - HipHop

Daily Discussion Thread 12/10/2018

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 07:58 AM PST

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Album of the Year 2018 #8: Busdriver - Electricity is on our Side

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 01:27 PM PST

Artist: Busdriver

Album: Electricity is on our Side

Listen/Purchase:

Bandcamp

Spotify

Google Play Music

Tidal

iTunes/Apple Music

Youtube

SoundCloud

Background

Busdriver, real name Regan Farquhar more fantastical than the rap name, has been an important fixture in underground/alternative/experimental/'left of centre' hip hop for bordering 2 decades now, and during that period his freedom in throwing his voice wherever it may reach has established him as one of the genre's most original, innovative creators - so much so that accomplished artists like Open Mike Eagle, Milo, and P.O.S. have cited him as an idol. Hip hop has surrounded him since infancy, with his father Ralph Farquhar having written the iconic Def Jam-chronicling Krush Groove.

Busdriver has always called Los Angeles home, and even if his music isn't centred around lowriders and shirt colours, the city has consistently informed Busdriver's output - try counting how often he references Leimert park.

His first real foray into hip hop came with a group called "4/29", formed in response to the 1992 Rodney King riots, Busdriver only 13 at this point. That social urgency remained an integral part of his artistic identity. Only a few years later, he found himself immersed in the influential Project Blowed scene, learning directly from formative influences like Myka 9 and Aceyalone of Freestyle Fellowship. The improvisational quality developed in this space has stayed with Busdriver throughout his career - his delivery is characterised by unpredictability, by breaking structural norms.

Busdriver is also known for his long-time association with Los Angeles's Low End Theory, a recently closed club night celebrating the city's electronic music and experimental hip hop scene. Many of Busdriver's collaborators - Mono/Poly, Nobody, D-Styles, Daedalus, Nosaj Thing, Flying Lotus... - have played important roles within The Low End Theory.

More recently, Busdriver was part of the currently-inactive Hellfyre Club, a label/collective started by Nocando and housing Open Mike Eagle, milo, Anderson .Paak, Taurus Scott, Rheteric Ramirez, VerBS, The Kleenrz, KAIL, E.Super, Busdriver & Nocando. In addition to frequent collaboration with these artists, this period saw Busdriver team up with Nocando to form the duo "Flash Bang Grenada", whose solitary release 10 Haters saw Busdriver at perhaps his most ferocious and 'conventional'. The Hellfyre Club days also saw the release of a Busdriver-executively-produced compilation album - Dorner vs. Tookie, a discretely released EP also executively produced by Busdriver - CATCHER OF THE FADE, and a tour documentary - chewing.

But despite his music often taking on inaccessible, even esoteric qualities, Busdriver is a fervent supporter of the idea that rap is modern folk music. He's always aimed to use 'weirdness' not as a masturbatory artificial colouring, but as a means of tackling pressing issues - politics, race, artistry, relationships, gentrification, mental health... That philosophy has been pivotal throughout Busdriver's career - the marriage of the avant garde and the grounded, experimentation done with care. Much of Busdriver's work contains pop influence, playing with the idea of taking the standard and pushing it to its limits - Avantcore if you will.

Busdriver's recorded career stretches back to 1999, and across various collaborations and solo endeavors, comprises more than 20 releases, most stylistically and thematically distinct from each other. To minimally simplify things, I've messily divided this catalogue into 3 broad phases.

The late 90s and early 2000s saw Busdriver at his most stereotypically 'backpack' - characterised by a dense, even cartoonish delivery, with words hitting the listener's ears at a furious rate - a style exemplified by his cult 'hit' "Imaginary Places". The most significant releases of this period are 2002's Temporary Forever, and 2005's Fear of a Black Tangent. It was during this time that he cemented himself as a notable figure in hip hop's underground, attracting a cult fanbase.

The end of that decade and the beginning of the next saw Busdriver start experimenting more heavily with electronic music, even delving quite deeply into the electro-pop sphere. A good illustration of Busdriver's artistic mindset during this time is his perplexing yet absorbing Animal Collective cover. The mixed-quality trio of 2007's RoadKillOvercoat, 2009's Jhelli Beam, and 2012's Beaus$Eros with Belgian electronic musician Loden encompass most of his output during this period. It's fair to say that the music released during these years represented a somewhat confused, slightly directionless Busdriver.

But following this, comes what in my opinion is the period where all of Busdriver's conflicting ideas and qualities have best come into fruition, the period where his music has taken on its most fulfilling, holistic direction. At this time, Busdriver found himself at the centre of the burgeoning 'art rap' movement (as a unified structure, not as a concept). He slowed down to a certain extent, the delivery became not subdued but rather composed, the production veered away from the frantic and took on a more atmospheric tone, and perhaps most importantly, it felt as if Busdriver shed a layer of protection. His music never lacked introspection or vulnerability, but there was always an element of performance guarding him. The releases chronicling this shift are 2014's Perfect Hair, 2015's Thumbs, and now finally in 2018, Electricity is on our Side.

While it is true that much of Busdriver's artistic identity revolves around his uncompromising, cryptic style of rapping, it's a testament to his versatility that a significant portion of his work is self-produced, and as the years have passed he's become more adept at creating off-kilter soundscapes to work in conjunction with his delivery. Outside of his own musical output, Busdriver oversees his "Temporary Whatever" recored label - home to himself, Jinetta Rose, stillfriends, and Jerry Quickley, and hosts the "Free Black Press Radio" podcast. Busdriver also notably starred in Flying Lotus's 2017 film Kuso.

Since the release of Thumbs in 2015, Busdriver has been relatively quiet on a musical front, excluding guest appearance for artists such as Milo, POS, Daedalus, Zeroh, and Lorde Fredd33 among others. But 2018 saw a significant upturn in productivity, starting with the release of 2 new songs, "GUSH" and "the Imperfect Cinema" at the beginning of the year. While these songs remain untethered to any project, their more jazz-focused direction served as a precursor to what Busdriver would go on to do with Electricity is on our Side. Not much later, Busdriver would release, and entirely produce, poet Jerry Quickley's debut release, "(american) FOOL" - one of the year's strongest, most distinctive works. On 1 June, Busdriver released "Right before the Miracle" and its accompanying video, while announcing Electricity is on our Side with the following description:

Drawing from memory and community roots, the 10th album from rap innovator BUSDRIVER plays out like an ode to modern folk art via the act's characteristically warped take on the world's leading pop music: hiphop. Homespun and bursting with intention, "electricity is on our side" argues that the quintessential underground hiphop album is in fact the high art of the day.// Electronic musics, jazz, hiphop and writing are once again minced into a unique configuration(underground social music) to achieve the aesthetic ends and messaging harnessed by the legendary BUSDRIVER.

The album is predominantly produced by Busdriver himself, but features contributions from The Underground Railroad, Kenny Segal, Mike Parvizi, Fumitake Tamura, Swarvy. and Daedelus. Denmark Vessey, Dntel, Lorde Fredd33, and Hemlock Ernst appear as guests.

Review

In 2018, much of the hip hop discourse has revolved around the dichotomy between stream-guzzling behemoths, and glorified EPs. Within this mire of ever-decreasing attention spans and rampant commercialism, it seems we've lost the beauty of sprawl - art defined by its scope, its willingness to weave so many different threads into a greater whole. And although Electricity is on our Side may not be the year's most refined or consistent release, what it does achieve is arguably far more impressive. It is a piece of work that revels in its own messiness, that takes indecipherable chaos and twists it into shape.

Electricity is on our Side opens with its title track, made up of loosely strung together samples from a radio show, segments of conversation, Busdriver's crooning, and some improvised trumpetry. It's a piece that goes on to inform much of the album - fluid, formless, centred around off the cuff creation.

The song stems from a chance encounter between Busdriver and a Louisiana street musician, their instantaneous collaboration becoming the basis of what's recorded here. This origin plays into one of the album's central themes, and in fact something that has fascinated Busdriver throughout his career - the idea of the 'griot', the folk artist whose wisdom is unbounded by mainstream structures. Throughout Electricity is on our Side, Busdriver styles himself as a sort of 'rap Shaman', floating around to ruminate on various matters while always remaining on the periphery. It's a balance that very few can strike - the ability to chronicle your surroundings without positioning yourself above them in the way that many so-called 'conscious rappers' can be guilty of doing.

These forgotten, almost mystic figures are a constant theme, most notably on "Jeane Anthony":

The medicine man at the refugee camp

So negotiate your well-being with a plant

Spliff burning over the guitar amp

No love for the rewards and their grants

We don't need that stamp

The shaman reeks of the homemade moonshine

'Cause how we live, there's always a food line

The jazz man at the unemployment office

He pointed out them allies in a woman's carcass

The pharaohs lined up in them wooden coffins

They didn't die from flash floods in mid-August

In the halls of pain

Jazz man exhausted in vain

Whole life tossed in the drain

Man, he crossed out your name

Busdriver is giving life to those on the outskirts of society, stuck in a world that's left them behind, and it's clear that these portrayals echo the way in which he and his art have come to be perceived. It's the kind of weariness that comes from 20 years toiling on the edges of the music world, waking up one day and questioning your own place within the culture that's always been at the core of your identity. It's not Eminem's overt bitterness, and it's also not the suffocating refusal to accept progress which has plagued a host of rappers. It's a soft nostalgia which recognises its own futility.

What is also clear from the outset, is the extent to which jazz runs through Electricity is on our Side. But this isn't the traditional loop-based jazz/hip hop fusion which has taken on an iconic role in the genre thanks to producers like Pete Rock, Q-Tip, and DJ Premier. Instead, Busdriver is accompanied by a live band, The Underground Railroad, performing original compositions - much of these improvisational in some way. It's not an unprecedented direction - we can point to Freestyle Fellowship, Watts Prophets, The Last Poets, all of whom incorporated free jazz into their work, and all of whom have served as inspirations to Busdriver.

But what truly sets Electricity is on our Side apart from those influences and allows it to forge its own, unmatched identity, is the way Busdriver has managed to create something unstuck in time. The music that serves as a foundation to hip hop is merged with the music that represents its present and possibly its future. We jump between this world of dusty vinyl cuts and trumpet riffs, and the glitchy electronica of the Los Angeles beat scene. At points Busdriver seems to be emulating soul-singers of the past, and at points we hear him drenched in vocal effects. It's the marriage of 'digital' and 'organic'. It's also another instance of Busdriver playing with the arcane finding its way into a new world.

The album's artwork shows a framed close-up of a young Busdriver, and that image is a further representation of the timeless quality running through Electricity is on our Side. The picture is almost uncomfortably magnified, cutting off Busdriver's surroundings. This album is less a trip down memory lane than it is a fragmented series of recollections from someone looking back through a storied but complex past. This is aided by production effects - several songs have audible 'skips', vocals that dip in volume, as if he's highlighting pieces of the past that can never be completely recovered. It's a commentary on memory itself, as well as our obsession with idealised images of the past - regardless of how reliable those images really are. We jump between different periods in Busdriver's life, different things he's observed or experienced.

"exploding slowly" tells of an acquaintance in Busdriver's youth who found themselves embroiled in the gang culture that's often at the centre of Los Angeles rap:

Smoking shit, opiates

Split your mind in two layers

Surrender your homies to the nether world

All of your love contained in a ghetto girl

Memorize the young shooter's syllabus and fill the clip

Light them niggas up like some filaments

"FUKN" deals with early experiences of police violence:

Nineteen-ninety, cop rave

Startled rookie, shot Dave

A rally cry, shock wave

Their civil liberties not saved

'Cause they do more sighting and shooting

Enough to put that lightning in a mood swing

These seemingly disconnected pieces can be disconcerting at first, but as one engages more with Electricity is on our Side, Busdriver's tapestry starts to be unwoven.

But even when operating more explicitly, Busdriver is never bereft of important content. Electricity on our Side is perhaps the most overtly political album in a career which has never shied away from that arena. Busdriver deals with what his status as both a creator and as a Black man means in a world that's undergone a right wing resurgence. This isn't the same as the political awakening which many musicians seem to have undergone in recent years, it's fury in the face of existing ugliness taking on renewed power. It's when tackling these issues that we see Busdriver shed some of the complexity, and turn to a 'harder', more direct approach. The following line from "exploding slowly" illustrates this:

Got a rap sheet enclosed in your pigment

Or the following excerpt from "me vs. me":

It's the water got lead in it, the children they be breathing soot

The Founding Fathers, they're the esteemed thieves and crooks

Again the world-weariness comes in to play. Busdriver isn't militant - not because of any compromise to his ideals - but because these words come on the back of a lifetime of disillusionment with the American system.

But even after 80 minutes brimming with suppressed rage and characterised by his bleak outlook, Busdriver refuses to let that resignation take hold of him. The album's final song, the pop-tinged "pull the sky closer" sounds like an energy replenishment:

I'm addicted to my political recourse

I'm gonna spit it at the lawyer's face in city hall

And my disc jockey hate Mitt Romney at his boiler plate vitriol

It's not an abrupt show of blind optimism, and the web of ideas Busdriver has raised over the album's duration are not suddenly reconciled into a neat little capsule. It acts more of a rallying cry, with the songs hook calling for us to look to the future.

A common trope in the discussion of modern, 'melodic' hip hop, is the idea that certain artists are "using their voice as an instrument". And while by this stage that might have become cliché, it's impossible to discuss Busdriver without to some extent referencing that characteristic. Simply put, Busdriver's flow is the most unpredictable, rapidly-altering, and overall 'unquantifiable' I have encountered. He takes a series of extremely distinct, extremely complex beats, and completely seizes control of them. Most rappers will look for pockets within the beat, Busdriver often foregoes that altogether. Instead, he'll isolate a particular horn and start rapping in unison with it, as if he's part of this background cacophony while exerting enough presence to overpower it. He isn't just rapping over jazz compositions, his rapping itself is jazz. That idea is explored on "improvisers anthem", Busdriver's ode to art unfettered by over-preparation. Occasionally he breaks into passages of scatting, before effortlessly jumping into an impossibly dense rhyme scheme:

I'm banned from the sausage fest when I colored in the water crest

Radicalized by a false arrest just like my world view's an oxygen

This is the result of someone who's spent more than half his life honing the craft of rap as an art form.

Yet it would be totally inaccurate to group Busdriver with 'speed rappers', or to accuse him of fruitless technical masturbation. Content, self-expression are always prioritised ahead of the technical theatrics. His lyrics are at once far-reaching, almost mystical, and dripped with a sometimes absurd sense of humour. It's dense, cryptic, and even after having spent hours and hours with this album you'll still run into corners where the only appropriate reaction is bewilderment. But then you start immersing yourself into this incredible, vastly detailed world Busdriver has created. You'll be able to unfurl some of his coded language, but a great deal will still carry that massive ambiguity - and when this happens, you'll accept it. Because this isn't an album intended to reveal all its secrets after a cursory examination, or even ever. The beauty here is in that digging, that delving into the far-reaches of Busdriver's mind, that unpacking of all that is spread out in front of you. And maybe you won't see perfection, maybe you won't even see 'good'. But what you will see, is a creator of rare talent working towards a piece of immense ambition, and for me at least, that is always deserving of respect.

Favourite Lyrics

I can see the worry behind your eyes

You opened a place unlike

For you do not know where the decisions that you make

Are without bearing in the end

But rest assured, my friend

You are the one at the beating heart of our sky's sun

  • "electricity is on our side"

No money in your hood at all

Out your block, cat call

At your inner city dancehall

Niggas ripped for mythical sources interrupting elliptical orbits

Magic guiding centripetal forces

Cause a stir of biblical proportions

Tucker the tools to the end of your horse trips

Getting offers from corporate bank courtships

  • "Im from a different time"

And she's heating up on that spoon again

Soothe dark, the perfect gold earrings

For snapping jaws at a parole hearing

I subvert my niggas' class envy

With my good taste cause I don't have any

I'll buy a high with that black penny

In Baton Rouge with the dealed-up plates

She needs imaginary real estate

So my blood sugars, I'm a drug pusher

What's a song worth against the price of dope?

A break's a bitch with the right approach

When you fake the pain and then you fight the rope

And go a bit insane as you light the roach

Then just melt into this kaleidoscope

  • "Grape Drank"

Black man is a colloquial term

I'm in that voting booth soaked in the Oreo germ, I'm

Called to renounce my poetry publically

From the stapled stomach of an unfaithful lummox

Now I rap for bankers, that's why I'm exacting bangers

My new flaccid wang is always casting flavor

Is always dipped in frosting

I died prematurely before I got to equip my offspring

Beware of the swamp thing

Look at my eyes and really know that there are no answers

So go ahead and mix that coca with the Arm & Hammer

The knowledge of self was all it took to arm the Panthers

They gave the same thing to me and I got a charming stammer

That's them dark thoughts shooting through the enamel

  • "me vs. me"

These dark weather, baby

From Sudan

Came in a sedan, can you understand

There is no rubber band that will take you back to the point of origin

Like this

A motive is at the helm, when I'm at the helm

Can you understand what happens

When I start rapping, tapping into unbelievable black skin

Motherfuckin' griots into Manhattan

When I start chanting, you know exactly when

My black skin cracks you see

  • "Right before the Miracle"

And they put it in skyscrapers

And interpret it under the sign language

Telling me I constructed pyramids

When they think I fly aimless

So I got to peace out, 'cause you play the game on some hater shit

During that weight gain, turned my stage name to an algebraic glyph

Improvising in slow-mo, my every solo's a calculated risk

Jazz militants take over on television you can smell the chicken on your laser disk

  • "improvisers anthem"

The medicine man at the refugee camp

So negotiate your well-being with a plant

Spliff burning over the guitar amp

No love for the rewards and their grants

We don't need that stamp

The shaman reeks of the homemade moonshine

'Cause how we live, there's always a food line

But you're new to the grind

Melt down your belongings to them golden tokens

'Cause we've been ice skating on these frozen oceans

  • "Jeane Anthony"

Nineteen-ninety, cop rave

Startled rookie, shot Dave

A rally cry, shock wave

Their civil liberties not saved

'Cause they do more sighting and shooting

Enough to put that lightning in a mood swing

The doctor bill I never paid

Your mother under a slender blade

Underfunded Medicaid

Die alone in a rented cage

Slamming those dominoes on the dinner table

Waving a gun barrel sticking out of the farms in the Winnebagos

Cinemax movie guide

John Burroughs Junior High

I cannot afford to die

  • "FUKN"

Discussion Questions

1) Is there a place in hip hop for lyricism that's deliberately cryptic, that tries to avoid being instantly understood? Or does that simply get in the way of delivering important messages?

2) Is ambition an inherently valuable quality in musical works?

3) Has there been a significant reaction to the Trump regime within hip hop? What do attempts at political rap music lack? Is there an obligation for rappers to tackle these issues?

4) What do you expect from artists on the back of long-stretching discographies? What is the best way for older rappers to preserve the impact of their art?

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ScHoolboy Q takes Mac Miller on a date after he was feeling depressed

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 03:50 PM PST

Ty Dolla $ign arrested for coke possession, could face up to 15 years

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 05:06 AM PST

full "Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse Soundtrack" tracklist revealed

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 11:51 AM PST

SOUNDTRACK OUT FRIDAY, DECEMBER 14TH

  1. Blackway & Black Caviar - What's Up Danger

  2. Post Malone & Swae Lee - Sunflower

  3. Jaden Smith - Way Up

  4. Nicki Minaj & Anuel AA - Familia (Feat. Bantu)

  5. Aminé - Invincible

  6. Duckwrth & Shaboozey - Start A Riot

  7. Juice WRLD - Hide (Feat. SEEZYN)

  8. Thutmose - Memories

  9. Ski Mask & Jacquees - Save The Day (Feat. Coi Leray & LouGotCash)

  10. Beau Young Prince - Let Go

  11. Lil Wayne & Ty Dolla Sign - Scared Of The Dark (Feat. Special Guest)

  12. DJ Khalil - Elevate (Feat. Denzel Curry, YBN Cordae, SwaVay & Trevor Rich)

  13. Vince Staples - Home

SOURCE: https://pitchfork.com/news/vince-staples-nicki-lil-wayne-more-on-new-spider-man-soundtrack/

UPDATE: special guest appears to be XXXtentacion https://twitter.com/JakeSul00361851/status/1072216456648146945

https://imgur.com/57xHVSP.jpg

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James Blake teased some songs off his upcoming album this past weekend, including a short Andre 3k feature

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 06:41 PM PST

James Blake had a 1-800 dinosaur show this past weekend in NYC, which is where him, his manager, bandmates, and sometimes others DJ. Someone in the /r/jamesblake sub captured some video of it, and @ about 7:40 a 3 stacks feature comes out of no where.

James' album is expected January or February with his tour starting mid February

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[LEAK] Travis Scott - The Curse (Untagged DIY)

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 02:56 PM PST

[FRESH ALBUM] Michael Kirby (formerly Rodney Tenor, ex-BROCKHAMPTON member) - Spying on Heaven

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 01:10 PM PST

New Documentary on Ja Rule's Miserably Failed Fyre Festival Coming to Netflix:

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 03:09 PM PST

Earl Sweatshirt On Resentment, Growth And Giving Yourself A Chance

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 02:48 PM PST

[FRESH VIDEO] Meek Mill - Intro

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 06:17 AM PST

[FRESH] Eminem & Royce 5'9 - Never Before Seen Concert - 1999

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 12:21 PM PST

Eating Curry with Denzel Curry

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 07:03 AM PST

[FRESH] Higher Brothers - 16 Hours

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 09:14 PM PST

[FRESH VIDEO] Rico Nasty - Guap (LaLaLa) [Prod. Kenny Beats]

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 10:07 AM PST

Mac Miller - I Got This Beat in My Head (Unreleased song from Sway in the Morning)

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 10:49 AM PST

Zack Fox - Square Up [Prod. Kenny Beats]

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 07:13 PM PST

Blackstar - Redefinition

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 01:05 PM PST

Rappers play VR w/ Famous Dex, YBN Nahmir, Smokepurpp, PnB Rock & more

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 07:55 AM PST

[FRESH] TM88 & Southside - Hmmm (Feat. Lil Yachty & Valee)

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 09:03 AM PST

[FRESH VIDEO] Kodak Black - Testimony

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 12:03 PM PST

Teaser for Ugly God’s upcoming album Bumps and Bruises

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 10:37 PM PST

Night Lovell - I Could Meet U In The Night (Teaser)

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 01:41 PM PST

Lil Wayne In The Studio Recording No Ceilings

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 05:58 PM PST

The People vs. Young Thug

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 01:35 PM PST

Pitchforks 50 Best Albums of 2018

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 10:29 PM PST

Westside Gunn & MF DOOM - Gorilla Monsoon

Posted: 10 Dec 2018 11:00 AM PST
at