Any hip-hop fans out there
 

Anyone on this site a fan of hip-hop and looking forward to the Kanye West release next week? I think his first album is about 50% classic stuff and 50% garbage so hopefully he can be a little more consistent this time. Mainly I'm excited because the new Common album he produced is just a classic album.

you saw three people here say they owned Rutter albums ("sacred music"). You must be very optmistic to think this is a bastian of hip-hop-ism. :)

I am not ashamed to admit that...
 

I am somewhat of a "Fity" fan.

other than Eight Mile, I don't understand
 

hip hop.

I enjoy Eight Mile as I could kinda understand their drift.

My complaint about hip hop is that it's all percussion, no harmony, no melody and no complex keys.

It often promotes profanity for the sake of profanity, violence and hate. What's its purpose?

Educate us older folk.

Yes I figured my call for fellow hip-hop fans would probably not go through. As far as educating on hip-hop, I think the large majority of it is absolute crap. However, there is some of it that is very good IMO.

There is a segment of hip-hop that is really an evolution on jazz music. Lots of samples of jazz music and some have gone with live jazz instrumentation. This is the stuff that I am more of a fan of. It at times tends to have a little more melody and is not just percussion. Also the rappers approach the verses like a jazz artist would a solo, not just going up and yelling.

I agree though some of it promotes obscenity and misognyistic ideas that I do not like. Most of the stuff that is generally played on the radio is this type of stuff.

Jazz I sorta understand
 

so now you're talking my language.

give us some examples.

Archaea I am not a huge fan but...
 

what I can say is that I don't think I can make you understand the attraction by reducing it to its component parts. Some of the beats just sounds cool. Some of the rappers just have voices that are interesting. Some of the lyrics are just catchy.

I don't think Rock and Roll is much different really in terms of how hard it is too put your finger on why it is so appealing. It just is.

Lawyer to Lawyer I hope you can appreciate that response: it covered everything and didn't answer the question at all. :-)

true, but rock and roll has a large variety of topics
 

and some cool voices, Robert Plant.

I just hate the f that you mother fer and f u and f that sound of hiphop.

I can do without Hate Speech for the sake of hate. I get enough of that from Howard Dean. :(

Best example is the album by Digable Planets: Blowout Comb. Probably the best hip-hop album off all time in my book. One unfortunate problem though the group members are Black Panthers and thus very militant in their views.

Blackalicious: Nia. This is hip-hop with a melody in much of it not just percussion and beats. Also a good example of positive message in the music. A lot of it is about spirituality and the lyrics are really against the current state of hip-hop. A good sample of this is the song Shallow Days. You can see the lyrics for it here. http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/black...allowdays.html

As far as something more mainstream the Fugees album: The Score from 1996.

Just a few off the top of my head.

i am a fan.....
 

and am not overly excited about his new album.

i enjoy kanye west and will probably end up with the cd but i can wait. i dont like the diamonds are forever song.