Yeah, OC is a great example of the artistic-integrity vs money thing.
Im pretty sure that is what happened to Nas too. After dropping a
amazing debut album (which DID do alot for the hiphop comunity but
ofcourse didnt sell "enough") he got into that The Firm shit + his
second solo album..both of which i have to say is horrible. Someone on
rec.music.hip-hop had "R.I.P. Nasty Nas 1996" in their signature once,
guess i have to agree with that :)
> what
> about hip hop as an art form? (in the sense that art form = something
> that wont necessarily make money but the artist needs to do for his own
> sake).
Theres ALOT of artists out there that are doing it out of love, ofcourse
they seldom get the money and recognition they deserve.
The first to spring to mind is the whole Project Blowed crew/project...
Abstract Rude, Aceyalone, Tribe Unique, Mikah 9 etc. I mean, you can
really HEAR that they love what they do, its personal and passionate and
theres a total lack of cliches :)
Solesides, Rebel Alliance (bigup to Tony!), Numbs, Animal Pharm,
CVE/HipHop Klan, Living Legends (mystik journeymen, eligh, murs, grouch,
aesop) etc. etc. ..there are SO many crews doing what they do out of
pure love. Take a look at the Living Legend's zine "Unsigned and hella
broke" (http://www.mystik-journeymen.com ) and youll see how serious
they are about they art.. money isnt a subject at all.
Allso worth mentioning are the Live Poets (Moodswing9 and Sole) which,
IMHO, are gonna take over the web (atleast as far as hiphop goes) with
their site http://www.truehiphop.com which is dedicated to independent
hiphop and contains (or will contain) several realaudio radioshows, ATAK
Mailorder (the best source to independent hiphop on the web!), several
magazines and quite a few artists and labels homepages.
It allso seems that most bboys and dj's are very serious towards what
they do... most of them have their integrity intact and DO care about
what happends to hiphop...this might be because they are sortof the
underdog of hiphop and for years they have been pushed back by MC's.
I dont know how many of you saw XXL, a new hiphop magazine launched by
The Source's ex-publisher (or was it editor?). At first i thought
*finnaly!*, something other than the source, Vibe and Rappages... god, i
couldnt have been more wrong. The only decent article was one on Rakim,
other than that they were jocking artists like Jay-Z, Master P,
Eightball & MJG and Faith. The worst thing might have been that they
found the time and space to write about fashion, jewlery, bountyhunters
(!!??), cigars (2 full pages!) and bulletproof cars...still, they didnt
even mention bboying, graff or dj'ing. This is what hiphop have come to
in 1997.... its all about the mc's and their paycheck. The few kids that
are keeping it real (ugh..that sounds horrible) are, to quote the mystik
journeymen, unsigned and hella broke :/
Sad..isnt it?
> and by the way of all the heiroglyphics stuff, which is the best?
I guess my fave is Del's "no need for alarm". I bought the new Hiero 12"
(the who/after dark) and ..well..i dono. its defenetly dope, but it
doesnt have the same longlivity as their earlier ish. Im pretty sure
that whenever i get bored by The Who i will still be playing I Wish My
Brother George Was Here... :P
The upcoming Hiero family album might be interesting tho...
-Beside