Rap Rebirth?

This is one for all you people that are sick of how rap has become take one line autotune it drop the bass to ridiculously low levels, spend more time on the music video than the actual creativity and call it a number one hit.  Rap used to be a musical tour de force to be envied, while most of music beared slight influence to predecessors, rap took samples and reworked them with a nimble lyric and rhythmic ability that few singers could match.  It also unlike many musical genres had few limitations, only jazz before it had such an expansive field for creativity. N.W.A., A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul were the forerunners in their sample mastery, combining elements from 70’s funk and jazz along with great word interplay, Tupac and Biggie were next, combining big personalities with big funky samples and Jay-Z and Kanye West followed.  But rap has now seemingly hit a wall, creativity now plays a minor role to dance-ability, and being able to dance to a rap song is all well and good because there are times where mood and sobriety (or lack thereof) call for it.  However earlier in 2009 an album by the producer BK-One, Radio Do Canibal, brought a glimmer of hope to a revival of rap’s glorious hey day, the whole album is phenomenal but to pique your interest heres a little sampler.

The True & Living–

This song features a bass groove so downright funky Bootsy Collins and all of Parliment would have given their left nut to call it their own.  Not only is this sample hopping, but the vocals themselves bring to mind the Game and Nas at the top of their game, a must listen.

Gititit–

This song comes off like a call back to the old school rap groups freestyle jams, its funky and the lyrics are sly, you can hear a bit of Snoop Dogg and Jurassic 5 in this.

Here I Am–

This is a fine track and it would fit right in to Dr. Dre’s 2001, just listen to that great guitar sample and mellow production, its a great chill out song.

Philly Boy–

The Roots always frustrated because their talent as musicians seemed to overshadow their ability as a rap group, but let Black Thought assure you otherwise.

Blue Balls–

The sample on this is just on fire, organ, funky back-beat and guitar riff, J5 would have loved to have come up with this. Its a funny song lyrically as well.