Peas: Hip Hop or Hip Pop?
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When you’re old enough to have clear - or mostly clear depending on you’re level of splif consumption - twenty-year-old memories you’ll have the wisdom to notice some of the bullshit in new stuff. Like these Pop songs gettin’ called Hip Hop because the group has 20% Black members.
Lenny Kravitz has never done Hip Hop, although he’s 50% Black - nor Klezmer music despite the Jewish half.
Once upon a time Hip Hop didn’t mean “urban music without singing” - as it seems to connote now. It was back beats providing a driving rhythmic background to the focus, poetic communication called “lyrics”. Those of us present at it’s origin began to label the less poetic of these rap. “They just rappin’” The better quality verse was called “rhyme”. “Yo! He got rhymes!” And such was the thought of the early 90’s.
By mid-decade, an underground group of three MC’s with an occasional vocalist from LA exemplified some nice rhymes.
Notice the emphasis on the lyrics over the beat. It’s almost like they have a lot of sweet shit to say and do so at a pace that you comprehend post consciously. This is hip hop. No, Fergie wasn’t Blacker and less humpy in the past. That’s Kim Hill - whom apparently didnt have pop appeal - in the same talented boat as N’Dea Davenport, Floetry, Jocelyn Brown and other sangers (jargon, not typo) you don’t know.
They added pretty and Fergulicious but vocally simplistic in 2002. Eleven years after Jams and Joints we got that … you know …
Catchy beat - so much you wonder if its laced with crack - but the lyrics are so simple. That “two thousand and late” is the best lyric of the song yet it goes on for more minutes. The newest single of there’s I Gotta Feellin’, also Billboard number one, is nearly all hook.
Yet, some would say BEP does Hip Hop exclusively. They are wrong and deserve to have Mobb Deep beats played continuously in their eyes until they committ suicide or a felony.
For those that didn’t get that last joke: Justin Timberlake has never done Hip Hop - that’s Pop.
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Totally agree with everything said here. The Peas’ first two albums were good - damn good. Smart, witty lyrics and good production that highlighted their skills. I still play “Behind The Front” and “Bridging The Gap” today.
But then they wanted to sell more records. I can’t knock the hustle, of course.
But the art suffered. Greatly.
As you said - the stuff is still catchy. Will.I.Am is a talented producer and this is what he chooses to do with his skills.
Doesn’t mean I have to like it, though.
And yes, Justin Timberlake is the essence of Pop. Tinged with Blue-Eyed Soul, but Pop to be sure. (Remy Shand is probably huddled in a corner somewhere, bitching about how he should have had Justin’s career, but I digress.) Timberlake did get The Clipse onstage at the MTV VMAs though, which is something I never expected to see.
There is still a whole lot of Good Hip Hop out there. Way too much to spend much time thinking about what the Peas could be. I recommend:
– Mos Def’s new album, “The Ecstatic,” has our boy Dante back to something close to his best.
– K’Naan is a Somalian refugee that now lives in Toronto and has two albums that are well worth your time, “The Dusty Foot Philosopher” and “Troubador.” I saw him open the Black Star/Pharaoh Monche/Jean Grae show and he held his own. Plus, dude brought back Chubb Rock.
– I cannot recommend The Foreign Exchange enough. The whole band is great, but Producer Nicolay (Laid back style, I want to describe it as “Classy Urban”), rapper Phonte Coleman from Little Brother (You’ve got all of those CDs, right?), singer Yahzarah (a product of DC’s Duke Ellington School of the Arts, fantastic voice) are standouts. Go get “Connected” and “Leave It All Behind”. LIAB is my favorite CD of 2008. Grown folks’ Hip Hop - a ton of lovey-dovey stuff, but the quality can’t be denied.
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Gonna review Mos when I can being a fan of his catalogue.
K’Naan? Can’t even prounce the name. Don’t know about gimmicky foreign acts, but Movits! has me intrigued about the greater non-US music world.
I recall your Foreign Exchange from some montrhs back and couldn’t remember their name. Now I can Youtube’em. Liked the Little Brother stuff I heard.
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