Rap Recommendations

[Flah]

What’s up? Looking for some new rap music, thought I’d ask around here.

First, just some basic prerequisites:

It has to have pretty awesome production. I can’t listen to the same recycled G-funk from the early nineties. I like producers like DJ Premier, DJ Jazzy Jeff, and other people that have a real laid back style. I also dig on mid/late nineties Timbaland (Welcome to Our World, Tim’s Bio).

I refuse to listen to mindless thug crap. I hate that stuff! Unless the dude can really flow, that’s a definite no here.

Anyway, some tracks I like to help refine my search:

Nadasdi – Passenger
Jay-Z – Girls, Girls, Girls (Usually I hate his later stuff, but this song has a great flow plus strong production)
Oddjobs – Dream for a Molle Part 3
Pharcyde – Runnin’
Louis Logic - Dos Factotum
A Tribe Called Quest – Find A Way
DJ Vadim - Ediwe Brikell (Original Mix)
Aesop Rocks – Daylight
Binary Star – Reality Check
Common – Sixth Sense
Roots – Datskat
Dead Prez – It’s Still Bigger Than Hip Hop
DJ Jazzy Jeff - For Da Love Of Da Game
Dilated People – Worse Comes to Worst
Talib Kewli – Get By
Gang Starr – Ex Girl to Next Girl
Blackstar – Respiration
Naughty by Nature – Here We Go Now
Notorious BIG – Fuckin’ You Tonight
Rakim – Flow Forever
Souls of Mischief - 93 Till Infinity
RJD2 – Say Nothing
Tupac – Do For Love

Yeah, my rap knowledge is limited at best so please throw some stuff my way. Thanks.

 

[green iguana]

If your rap knowledge is limited mine must be nil.

 

[Nighty]

Hey Flah,

Here's some classic albums which I just listed on the fav rap albums thread:

'Pharoahe Monch - Internal Affairs
Nas - Illmatic, God's son (yes God's son)
AZ - Doe or Die, Aziatic
Tupac - Me Against the World, All eyes on me, Makaveli
Wu Tang - 36 Chambers
Eminem - MMLP, TES
Jay-Z - Blueprint Vol 1, Reasonable doubt
Talib Kweli - Quality
Kanye West - College Dropout
Dre - 2001
Biggie - Ready to die, Life after death'

Jay-Z is a good artist to start with, and as you like Girls, girls, girls so much you should deffinately cop Blueprint Vol 1 (not Vol 2 - it's wack), every song on it is class and most are even better than girls, girls, girls.

College Dropout (you've probably heard of Kanye West by now) is a new refreshing album with good production and is nice from the very first listen.

All of the other albums are classics IMO and might wanna cop them if you enjoy the previous two that I mentioned.

If you're downloading and are looking for individual songs, get back to me and i'll list you some classics.

 

[Flah]

Pharoahe Monch is pretty cool. Always liked Simon Says.

Illmatic is a bonefide classic. Must have for any rap collection.

AZ is pretty talented, wish he'd put out better wax though. Kind of like Rakim in that respect.

I dig on Tupac's softer stuff. I think the only harder material of his I dig on are Picture Me Rollin' and Hail Mary.

I was never really a Wu-Tang fan but I like some of their early solo work (which is odd).

Never could get into Eminem.

I like Resonable Doubt a lot, things started to go sour after that.

Talib Kewli is damn good stuff, love the album he did with Hi Tek.

Haven't heard Kayne West yet, will check that out. Any standout tracks?

I never liked Dre as a rapper, but I like most of his production.

Biggie is awesome, plain and simple.

 

[Nighty]

Sucks that AZ died, that dude was really talented.

My jaw just dropped and my sandwich filling fell out of my mouth, AZ's not dead!?

Seems like you have a fair knowledge of rap though.

Trust me! Blueprint Vol 1. is full of classics like girls, girls, girls, and it is far better than reasonable Doubt IMO.

Talib Kewli is damn good stuff, love the album he did with Hi Tek.

Try and get 'The proud', 'Rush' and 'Get By' off of his debut single album 'Quality'.

Haven't heard Kayne West yet, will check that out. Any standout tracks?

It has many good track, including; Family Business, All Falls Down, through the Wire, Jesus Walks, Never Let Me Down (feat. Jay-Z), We Don't care, Spaceship, and Get Em High (feat. Kweli)

I never liked Dre as a rapper, but I like most of his production.

There's a lot of guest rapping on 2001, it's a class album - You've probably heard Still Dre, Forget about Dre, the Watcher, and What's the difference.

 

[Flah]

Yeah, I keep mixing AZ up with Big L because I am, in fact, mildly retarded. Sorry for that. It's one of those things.

 

[Nighty]

No problem.

 

[Flah]

I probably should've just edited this into the last message, but anyway:

For The Blueprint, I really like Izzo (since it has a great hook), Hola' Hovito (good Timbaland production), and Song Cry.

Blueprint 2 kind of sucks like you said, but Some How Some Way (think that's the track) is okay.

I love Get By from TK. It's so damn infectious.

The only problem I have with 2001 is that I don't like many of the guestspots. Xzibit had better moments (like on Def Squad Presents Erick Onasis' Focus) and I've never dug much of the Dogg Pound. Snoop hasn't put out a really great record since Doggystyle and the rest of Aftermath's MCs are average at best (with Knocturnal maybe extending just beyond that). It's a great party record for sure, but more for the production. Shrug, just my opinion.

It's a shame that Nate Dogg won't be more than a hook singer since I like Never Leave Me Alone off his first (maybe it was his second) solo album.

Anyway, if you want to chat about Rap and R&B (my guilty pleasure, heh) hit me up on the AIM/ICQ and we can trade stuff.

 

[Nighty]

Blueprint 2 kind of sucks like you said, but Some How Some Way (think that's the track) is okay.

Well it has a few good tracks on it like the one you mentioned, but it should'nt have been a double disc album, way too much filler, apparently even jay-Z has admitted that it's not a great album. Some people hate it was my fav off BV2.

If you like Kweli there is an advance of his next album on Ares, a track called 'all the lonely people' has a similar feel to Get By.

Anyway, if you want to chat about Rap and R&B (my guilty pleasure, heh) hit me up on the AIM/ICQ and we can trade stuff.

I've never tried this AIM thing before and don't know if I have the right stuff to do it + most of my music is burned off onto CD's, could I stick them in for people to copy?

 

[Dakotah]

here is some more rap you might find interesting:
Mr. Doctor, Twista , 3 6 mafia , hypnotize minds, legit ballin, e 40, Brotha lynch hung, all Do or Die albums, eightball and mjg, turtle banks, 5th ward juveniles

when i remember more ill tell you

 

[Flah]

Dirrrrrty south!

I've heard of Twista for awhile, even before this current craze. He does a great track on Timbaland's solo effort Tim's Bio.

I'm not big on 3 6 since it's a little too thuggish for me. I dig on the production somewhat but I can't get passed that gangsta element. "Sippin' on some syzerup..."

E-40 is pretty down, Nah, Nah... featuring Nate Dogg was one of my favorite rap songs for awhile.

Brother Lynch Hung is a cool producer but I can't stand his lyrics. I listen to rap to kick back and have a good time not to listen to to try and be "shocked".

Eightball and MJG are okay. Buck Bounce was a pretty cool track a few years back.

I'll look into the rest, thanks.

 

[zxe003]

Brother Lynch Hung is a cool producer but I can't stand his lyrics. I listen to rap to kick back and have a good time not to listen to to try and be "shocked".

What? You don't like hearing about "babecuing baby nuts" or "eating bloody pussy clits"? LMAO. I'm from the bay area and looking back, it cracks me up to think of how we used to bump this insane shit in high school.

 

[zxe003]

I've always been more interested in lyrical quality, so since h.s. i've been naturally drawn to artists like heiroglyphics (i.e. Souls of Mischief, delthefunkyhomosapien)...plus they're local talent. Dug a lot of early Wu Tang, particularly Meth, RZA/GZA (Liquid Swords), and for shits and giggles...ODB. A little harder, but was into Mobb Deep (Hell On Earth). Definitely Pac and Big. But back on the more old skool lyrical side, also liked KRS one, Mos Def, Nas...etc.

As for Jay-Z...I've got mixed feelings. He's put out some lyrcially superior tracks, but not consistently enough for me to rank him up there as one of the rap legends. The Blueprint Vol. 1 was great production-wise but the only tracks I really liked were Girls, girls, girls and Renegade with Eminem (and like Nas said...Eminem murdered Jay-z on that song. His cuts were hella better.) -That being said, I must also give props to Eminem. If I said I liked lyrics, I'd be stupid if I didn't praise Eminem. He's cultivated the current battle rap style that so many MC's have emulated.

As for the more beat-wise, nitty-gritty thug rap...I couldn't claim the bay area or the west coast for that matter if I didn't actually listen to Mac dre, Mac Mall, Brotha Lynch, Andre Nicotina, E-40 and the Click, Rappin 4-tay, the Luniz and the list goes on and on...

 

[Flah]

What? You don't like hearing about "babecuing baby nuts" or "eating bloody pussy clits"? LMAO.

That's why I listen to gore metal man, haha.

 

[Mysterio]

As for the more beat-wise, nitty-gritty thug rap...I couldn't claim the bay area or the west coast for that matter if I didn't actually listen to Mac dre, Mac Mall, Brotha Lynch, Andre Nicotina, E-40 and the Click, Rappin 4-tay, the Luniz and the list goes on and on...

I was just going to say the Bay area on the west coast has some good underground talent that really know one knows about unless your from the west seeing alot don't get played on the radio. Two of my favorite rappers right now is E-40 and I believe Too SHort just came out with a good CD.
Just for a sample of Too Short, I would recommend you guys download Freaky tales, the Ghetto, or there new song Choosen. He's been out of the game for sometime now but it looks like the original pimp rappin' mack is back.

 

[resonator]

EL-P "Fantastic Damage"
Cannibal Ox (VastAire's verses anyway) "Cold Vein"
Slick Rick's latest album
Kool Keith "Dr. Octagon"
Kool Keith "First Come First Served"

This is basically the only rap that I listen to.

 

[beefybull]

"Renagade" - Jay-Z feat. Eminem
"This Ring", "Tormented", "Keep on Keepin On", "Strange Niggaz", "Be Warned", "It's Alive", "Now It's On", "Constantly Dirty", "Mitch Bade" - Tech N9ne
"Shining Star" - Sunz of Man feat. ODB
"Climb Trees" & "Runaways" - Sage Francis
"God Loves Ugly" & "One of a Kind" - Atmosphere
"One Last Time", "Motive 4 Murder", "Legit Ballers" - Twista
"I'll Be Around" - Cee-lo feat. Timbaland
"Breaker Breaker" - GZA
"Unhappy" & "Spottieottiedopaliscious" - Outkast
"Banjo" - Above the Law
"It's a Shame" & "Some of Em" - Devin the Dude
"Thugged Out Since Cub Scouts" - Cunninlynguists
"Search 4 Bobby Fisher" (Eminem dis) - Dilated Peoples
"Victory" - Do or Die
"Ends" - Everlast
"Cell Therapy" - Goodie Mob
"Winter Warz" - Ghostface Killah feat. Wu-Tang Clan
"Coco", "Incredible", "Now or Never" - Tela
"Triumph", "Reunited", "Visionz", "C.R.E.A.M.", "Iron Flag" - Wu-Tang Clan
"Reckon" - Haystak
"Forget the Fame" & "It's a Fact" - Lil Flip
"Heaven" & "Only Your Mother" (feat. Devin) - Scarface
"Been a Long Time", "Paparazzi", "Symphony in X Major" - Xzibit
"Back in the Day" - Trick Daddy

 

[jloflexin405]

Gift of gab
Blacalicious
Atmosphere
Dialated Peoples