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r/hiphopheads Essential Album of the Week #74: 2pac - Strictly 4 MY N.I.G.G.A.Z. - HipHop

r/hiphopheads Essential Album of the Week #74: 2pac - Strictly 4 MY N.I.G.G.A.Z. - HipHop

r/hiphopheads Essential Album of the Week #74: 2pac - Strictly 4 MY N.I.G.G.A.Z.

Posted: 28 Dec 2016 07:01 AM PST

Welcome to the new and improved Essential Album of the Week discussion thread!

Every Wednesday we will discuss an album from our Essential Albums list

Last Week: A Tribe Called Quest - Midnight Marauders

This Week: 2Pac - Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z.

Stream/Purchase

Spotify

iTunes

Google Play

Songs/Singles

Holler If Ya Hear Me

Keep Ya Head Up

I Get Around

Background/Description (courtesy of allmusic.com)

On 2Pac's debut album, 2Pacalypse Now, the rapper showed himself to be a supremely passionate man, brimming over with ideas and anger and ready to voice his political and social opinions, call things like he saw them. This same kind of energy and lyrical acumen is found on his sophomore release, Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z., a record that, while it begins exploring the MC's more gangsta side ("Last Wordz," for example, which features verses from Ice Cube and Ice-T), still includes the provocative, reflective lines on which he first made his name as a solo artist, and which he continued even as he became more and more popular (and, for some, more and more frightening). "Keep Ya Head Up," one of his biggest hits, and his tribute to black women, especially single mothers, is deeply thoughtful and poignant ("And since we all came from a woman, got our name from a woman, and our game from a woman/I wonder why we take from our women, why we rape our women, do we hate our women?"), expressing opinions that aren't often equated with hardcore rappers, while tracks like "I Get Around" brags about his sexual conquests. But this was what 2Pac was, anyway, a juxtaposition between tough and sensitive, social consciousness and misogynistic boasting, and Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. shows this. The angry protest songs calling out police and politicians, reminiscent of Public Enemy -- and with Bomb Squad-esque beats to boot (albeit a lesser version of) -- the screw-the-world mentality, the soft introspection, the preaching-but-not-proselytizing, and the party anthems are all here, and though the production sometimes suffers, especially in the middle of the album, where it's utterly forgettable, the record shows a continually developing MC, with increasingly complex lyrical themes, well on his way to becoming nearly unstoppable.

Guidelines

This is an open thread for you to share your thoughts on the album. Avoid vague statements of praise or criticism. This is your chance to practice being a critic. It's fine for you to drop by just to say you love the album, but let's try and step it up a bit!!!

How has this album affected hip-hop? WHY do you like this tape? What are the best tracks? Do you think it deserves the praise it gets? Is it the first time you've listened to it? What's your first impression? Have you listened to the artist before? Explain why you like it or why you don't.

DON'T FEEL BAD ABOUT BEING LATE !!!! Discussion throughout the week is encouraged.

Next week's EAOTW will be Bloods & Crips - Bangin' On Wax

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[FRESH] - Lil B x Metro Boomin - My House

Posted: 28 Dec 2016 04:04 PM PST

[FRESH VIDEO] Travis Scott - beibs in the trap ft. NAV

Posted: 28 Dec 2016 05:31 PM PST

Death Grips - I've Seen Footage

Posted: 28 Dec 2016 03:30 PM PST

[FRESH VIDEO] Buy Love-Future

Posted: 28 Dec 2016 01:23 PM PST

6LACK-Prblms

Posted: 28 Dec 2016 08:23 AM PST

Travis Scott - Yeah Yeah ft. Young Thug

Posted: 28 Dec 2016 05:17 PM PST

DJ Premier, Freddie Gibbs, and more pick jazz records every rap fan should own and vice versa

Posted: 28 Dec 2016 02:05 PM PST

XXL Freshmen 2011 - Cypher (ft. Yelawolf, Kendrick Lamar, Lil B, Cyhi the Prynce)

Posted: 28 Dec 2016 11:49 AM PST

Dr Dre - Medicine Man ft. Eminem, Candace Pillay, Anderson .Paak

Posted: 28 Dec 2016 05:44 PM PST

Top Ten Hip-Hop albums of 2016 | DEHH

Posted: 28 Dec 2016 09:43 PM PST

$uicideboy$ x Southside/808 Mafia Collab Announced

Posted: 28 Dec 2016 12:31 PM PST

Noname - Sunny Duet

Posted: 28 Dec 2016 04:09 PM PST

Vince Staples - Back Sellin' Crack ft. ScHoolBoy Q [Prod. by Larry Fisherman]

Posted: 28 Dec 2016 06:37 PM PST

Jamie xx ft. Young Thug,Popcaan - I Know There's Gonna Be (Good Times)

Posted: 28 Dec 2016 12:00 AM PST

Young Thug - Speed Racer (prod. Metro Boomin)

Posted: 28 Dec 2016 07:51 AM PST

RhymeBeat's Top 10 Verses of 2016

Posted: 28 Dec 2016 11:10 AM PST

GZA - Living in The World Today

Posted: 28 Dec 2016 03:51 PM PST

Ritchie With a T of Injury Reserve calls out Travis Scott for biting one of their videos.

Posted: 28 Dec 2016 07:14 PM PST

https://twitter.com/ritchiewitha/status/814307005779193856

People had already noticed in the beibs in the trap thread, glad Ritchie noticed and spoke on it.

submitted by /u/eyeamjigsaw
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Daily Discussion Thread 12/28/2016

Posted: 28 Dec 2016 08:00 AM PST

Welcome to the /r/hiphopheads daily discussion thread!

This thread is for:

  • objective questions with right/wrong answers (e.g. "Does anyone know what is happening with MIXTAPE?", "What is the sample in SONG?")
  • general hip-hop discussion
  • meta posts...e.g. ideas for the sub

Thread Guidelines

  • Do not create a separate self post for these types of discussions outside of this thread - if you do, your post will be removed.

  • Please be helpful and friendly.

  • If a question has been asked many times before, provide a link to a thread that contains the answer.

Other ways to interact

There are a number of other ways to interact with other members of HHH:

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Nav - Myself

Posted: 28 Dec 2016 08:16 PM PST

Lil Wayne - London Roads (Prod. London on da Track)

Posted: 28 Dec 2016 01:51 PM PST

THESHELLGOD (producer of Zombie Walk) announces a mixtape with Lil Uzi Vert

Posted: 28 Dec 2016 09:28 PM PST

[FRESH] KODAK BLACK - TUNNEL VISION (Live)

Posted: 28 Dec 2016 08:47 PM PST

Vince Staples - Nate

Posted: 28 Dec 2016 06:43 PM PST

Injury Reserve - Everybody Knows

Posted: 28 Dec 2016 07:44 PM PST
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The Weeknd's 'Starboy,' Featuring Daft Punk, Hits No. 1 on Hot 100 - HipHop

The Weeknd's 'Starboy,' Featuring Daft Punk, Hits No. 1 on Hot 100 - HipHop

The Weeknd's 'Starboy,' Featuring Daft Punk, Hits No. 1 on Hot 100

Posted: 27 Dec 2016 10:22 AM PST

Hip-hop and the LGBT community: a look back and a look ahead.

Posted: 27 Dec 2016 01:47 PM PST

I'm bad at starting texts. Like, real bad. I barely know how to introduce this post because this theme is really delicate. Plus, english isn't my first language so I can fuck up. So instead, I'll show an interview that probably everyone already saw, but that is still important: Kanye West talks homophobia. Why is it, in my opinion, so important? Because it is the way most of the homophobes get well, homophobic. Of course, a lot get taught since kids that being gay is a sin and a lot of terrible things, but this is the most common way. LGBT has always been treated differently, from how AIDS was treated to the segregation and the homophobia itself. For many people, being different is bad, and worth mocking up.

And that is explained in Kanye's words brilliantly: 'Yo, you actin' like a fag. Dog, you gay?' And I used to deal with that when I was in high-school and it made me kind of like homophobic 'cause I would go back and question myself… if you see something and you don't want to be that because there's such a negative connotation toward it, you try to separate yourself from it so much that it made me homophobic by the time I was through high school. Anybody that was gay I was like, 'Yo, get away from me.''. Law of the jungle, you bully or you get bullied. If you're called a fag, you'll have to prove you are not insulting others. You are going to tattle to any adult? Oh god, you must be such a fag. There's not any other way to get out apart from saying calling out others. For that reason, whether you have any gay feeling or not, they are repressed deep into you, making homophobes.

But, things have changed.

Ok, the LGBT community is still really mocked up and there is still a lot of hate against them. But we are getting better and it is shown in how hip-hop, a subtly homophobic genre, is getting real talents from any part of LGBT.

One of the first cases of homophobia could've been in 1986, with the Beastie Boys and their debut album, considered an iconic classic for many people. Although this wasn't really explicit, Licensed to Ill's first title was Don't Be A Faggot. 13 years later, Ad-Rock wrote a letter to Time Out New York to "formally apologize to the entire gay and lesbian community for the shitty and ignorant things we said on our first record". Why the initial title didn't work? Because Columbia didn't want to: they wouldn't release it under that name. Fantasizing about how this title would impact their career is really interesting: would it benefit them? Would it damage their reputation? Could it be a first case for many to come?

Another, even clearer moment of homophobia, was with Will Smith. In Live at Union Square (November 1986), the tenth song from He's the DJ, I'm the Rapper shows an, in my opinion, disgusting lyric: All the ugly people be quiet / All the filthy, stinky, nasty people be quiet / all the homeboys that got AIDS be quiet / all the girls out there that don't like guys be quiet. Of course this line didn't have a big impact, but what's interesting is how it was so casual to say in a hip-hop song, a line that nowadays would make headlines if it was said from a big rapper like Drake, Kendrick Lamar or Kanye West. But in 2012 he changed of opinion, calling same sex marriage a brave act: "if anybody can find someone to love them and to help them through this difficult thing that we call life, I support that in any shape or form"*.

And even bigger rappers from the late 80's and the early 90's showed the stigma, like Eazy-E. On the second track from Eazy-Duz-It, Nobody Move, it's revealed that the woman Eazy is about to rape is, indeed, a man: The suspense was making me sick / She took her panties down and the bitch had a dick! / I said: "Damn", dropped the gat from my hand / (What I thought was a bitch, was nothing but a man) / Put the gat to his legs, all the way up his skirt / Because this is one faggot that I had to hurt.

But even the most beloved groups can fall in the cliche of having to be homophobic. Even the most progressive ones, like A Tribe Called Quest. In Georgie Porgie, a cut from The Low End Theory Phife Dawg's verse is a clear example: In the beginning there was Adam and Eve / But some try to make it look like Adam and Steve [...] But on the DL, getting done up the butt box / Oh my God how gross can one be / Well anyway, better him than me / Used to be down with the crew and had the girls that were def / Instead of staying to the right, he fell off to the left. Grand Puba follows: Even wore a dress and on his face he had swine / He cipher monkey cipher, you fucking faggot / Couldn't wait for gay parade so you can drag it / George used to flip, went from hitting skins to sucking nigga's dick / George better get a grip.

And at the end, Q-Tip final verse is homophobic from start to end, even him admitting it: Now Georgie Porgie pudding pie / What made you choose the path of the gays, oh why / Ain't got no reason, to hell with alibis / Won't play basketball cause your nails ain't dry / Call me homophobic but I know it and you know it / You're filthy and funny to the utmost exponent / Never will I do that, disrespect my mommy / So run and hide your salami / Used to, didn't you, used to be my man / Instead of shaking, you're dragging your hand / Yes it's the Abstract the info provider / Here's your new name - the rump rider.

A Tribe Called Quest redeemed themselves, too, this year. With We The People…, ATQC criticized Donald Trump's thoughts against minorities: blacks, mexicans, poor people, muslims and gays. Does this mean the time has changed their views? Probably. Hip-hop, as the whole world, has changed with the time. Nowadays, the LGBT community is viewed from most of the people as a normal collective, like any race or ethnicity. And as those, they're integrated, or almost.

When you think of a modern, LGBT artist, the first one you could probably think of would be Frank Ocean. Frank's story is a relatively known one: he was one of the first artists in this decade to come out being a R&B artist, in a genre that was traditionally heterosexual. He was dropping hints from the start, like in Odd Future's Oldie: I'm hi/high and I'm bye/bi, wait I mean I'm straight. A little hint that now seems obvious but so subtle no one realized until Channel ORANGE. Less than a week before the release of his debut album, Frank wrote a letter that he later posted on his personal Tumblr, were he explained his first feelings towards a man at the age of 19: 4 summers ago, I met somebody. I was 19 years old. He was too. We spent that summer, and the summer after, together. [...] By the time I realized I was in love, it was malignant. It was hopeless. There was no escaping. No negotiating with the feeling. No choice. It was my first love, it changed my life. [...] Imagine being thrown from a plane. I wasn't in a plane though. I was in a Nissan Maxima, the same car I packed up with bags and drove to Los Angeles in. I sat there and told my friend how I felt. I wept as the words left my mouth. I grieved for them, knowing I could never take them back for myself. He patted my back. He said kind things. He did his best, but he wouldn't admit the same. He had to go back inside soon. It was late and his girlfriend was waiting for him upstairs. A song about that man was written for Channel ORANGE too: Forrest Gump.

LGBT artists appeared in R&B, but they also have appeared in hip-hop, like Mykki Blanco, a transgender rapper. Her first album, Mykki, was released precisely this year. She won some awards in his teens, even an scholarship to attend the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, but she later dropped after two semesters. Apart from her debut, there's a lot of other material from her: Mykki Blanco and the Mutant Angels, Betty Rubble: The Initiation and Spring / Summer 2014, all EPs. But she also has two mixtapes, Gay Dog Food and Cosmic Angel: The Illuminati Prince/ss, both pretty explicit of her labels. This last mixtape was produced by another really interesting queer rapper, Le1f.

But not only there are queer rappers and singers out there, but also producers. Kaytranada is one of them. Being a pioneer in the SoundCloud scene, he came out publicly in an interview with The Fader: At home, his depression only escalated. One day, he got in a fight with his mom and his brother about "stupid shit," and he ran down to the basement. "I knew what was wrong," he says. "I knew why I was pissed off out of nowhere." His older sister, who also lives at home, came down to console him. She found him in tears and started to cry, too. It was then that he told her a truth about himself, the root cause of his turmoil: he was gay. "I just snapped," he says. "Something inside me was like, 'Wake the fuck up.' I felt like there were two people inside me. I was trying to be somebody I was not, and I was frustrated that people didn't know who I was". This year he released his debut, 99,9% featuring artists like Vic Mensa, Anderson .paak and Syd.

Syd is also an interesting case. Part of the band The Internet, she decided to come out as gay (she hates the word lesbian by the way) in the music video for Cocaine, one of the tracks from Purple Naked Ladies, The Internet's debut album. And now she's working in her solo album, too.

It should be necessary to talk about Young Thug too. Not gay, not bisexual, not trans, why then? Because of his thoughts on gender. Jeffery's cover was provocative because of what it meant: a man, concretely a rapper, wearing a dress. He could be named a lot of things, but specially transgender. For him it's different: "In my world, you can be a gangsta with a dress or you can be a gangsta with baggy pants. I feel like there's no such thing as gender", he said in his Calvin Klein ad. His often provocative outfits prove it, like that time when he wore a 'girl top' or what he used for the CK ad. In the traditional use of the word 'thug', a man who wears such extravagant clothes wouldn't be a thug.

And as a final side note, there are a lot of famous rappers who are LGBT+, like the mentioned case of Kanye West, A$AP Rocky, The Game, Jay-Z, Kid Cudi or Vic Mensa just to name a few.

At the end of the day, hip-hop has changed as much as the rest of the planet. We are not yet in a world where the LGBT is fully integrated, there's still a lot of hate towards them and look at countries like Saudi Arabia, where you can be killed just for what you like. But still, things have changed. AIDS is treated like a normal disease that anyone can get, not as a punishment to gays; same sex marriage is finally legal in most of the US and a lot of countries; everyday there are more people who can accept who they truly are. There might be a bright future ahead, both for music and for everyone.

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Gorillaz - November Has Come ft. MF DOOM

Posted: 27 Dec 2016 11:15 AM PST

[Fresh EP] MADEINTYO & 24hrs - 24hrs In Tokyo

Posted: 27 Dec 2016 06:21 PM PST

[FRESH VIDEO] Injury Reserve - Eeny Meeny Miny Moe

Posted: 27 Dec 2016 02:12 PM PST

Drake ties Lil Wayne for most Billboard 100 entries ever for a Solo Act

Posted: 27 Dec 2016 11:41 AM PST

Daily Discussion Thread 12/27/2016

Posted: 27 Dec 2016 01:44 PM PST

Welcome to the /r/hiphopheads daily discussion thread!

This thread is for:

  • objective questions with right/wrong answers (e.g. "Does anyone know what is happening with MIXTAPE?", "What is the sample in SONG?")
  • general hip-hop discussion
  • meta posts...e.g. ideas for the sub

Thread Guidelines

  • Do not create a separate self post for these types of discussions outside of this thread - if you do, your post will be removed.

  • Please be helpful and friendly.

  • If a question has been asked many times before, provide a link to a thread that contains the answer.

Other ways to interact

There are a number of other ways to interact with other members of HHH:

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Kendrick Lamar's incredible and striking 2016 Grammy performance

Posted: 27 Dec 2016 08:02 PM PST

Yelawolf handing out bags of food to homeless people on Christmas

Posted: 27 Dec 2016 11:29 AM PST

[Fresh] ETHEREAL & Playboi Carti - Lemme Know

Posted: 27 Dec 2016 11:21 AM PST

Undergroundhiphop.com Shutting Down Permanently =((

Posted: 27 Dec 2016 01:27 PM PST

Nav & Metro Boomin - Up

Posted: 27 Dec 2016 08:45 PM PST

Chief Keef 'Two Zero One Seven' project dropping Sunday

Posted: 27 Dec 2016 06:19 AM PST

Mike WiLL Made-It 2016 Instrumentals

Posted: 27 Dec 2016 02:55 PM PST

TUT - Live from Chattanooga

Posted: 27 Dec 2016 01:52 PM PST

HHH Secret Santa Mixtape Discussion Thread

Posted: 27 Dec 2016 12:00 PM PST

The 2nd annual HHH mixtape exchange is over. If your secret Santa didn't pull through, PM me and we can exchange tapes. This thread is for discussing what you got, things you'd like to change for next year, sharing your dope playlists or artwork, etc.

submitted by /u/freedawg
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Smino - blkjuptr

Posted: 27 Dec 2016 09:28 AM PST

The Weeknd - Same Old Song

Posted: 27 Dec 2016 04:34 PM PST

Playboi Carti - YUNGXANHOE

Posted: 27 Dec 2016 04:20 PM PST

[FRESH MIXTAPE] "24hrs in Tokyo" by MADEINTYO & 24HRS

Posted: 27 Dec 2016 06:41 PM PST

Run The Jewels 3: A Continuation of Excellence | The Album Analyst Review

Posted: 27 Dec 2016 10:33 AM PST

Killer Mike- Ready Set Go (Remix) (Feat. T.I. & Big Boi)

Posted: 27 Dec 2016 06:34 PM PST

[FRESH] Bones - Tempo

Posted: 27 Dec 2016 06:34 PM PST

Tyler the Creator calling out Hypebeast on Instagram

Posted: 27 Dec 2016 11:49 PM PST
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