Rap/Hip Hop

[ObscureInfinity]

I'm starting to really enjoy some of it. I really dig Wu-Tang Clan, Jed Mind Tricks, early Eminem(seriously listen to his unreleashed album Infinite, I was actually really impressed with it), N.W.A., Public Enemy, some Dr. Dre, Geto Boys, etc.

[1349]

I like Eminem(Marshall Mathers LP)

Goretex, Necro, Common, Jedi Mind Tricks, Canibus.

and some others that are evading me

eventually ill get around to checking out Gravediggaz

[Black Core]

french hip-hop > american

[Saartje]

The only rap song I like is La tribu de Dana from Manau

[Feathers & Flames]

Anything mainstream Hip-hop/Rap in the last 3 years has been horrible shit.

[Captain]

I'm more fond of the classics myself, ie A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Public Enemy, Wu Tang Clan, Beastie Boys, Gangstarr etc. There is some undergorund stuff I like as well like Cunninlynguists, Non Phixion, Eyedea and Abilities and more.

[DoctorX3]

Mainstream rap and hip-hop has been largely shit ever since NWA came along. I love Straight Outta Compton, and even parts of their first album are good, but by unleashing gangsta rap, they did a disservice to us all.

Most rap producers have become very tiresome and unimaginative over the past decade or so. The worst is when rap songs steal the entire melody from another song, put a drum machine over it, and repeat the chorus as if it's somehow hip and clever (re: Every Breath You Take or That's Just the Way it Is).

We've fallen a long way from the great sample collages of the late 1980s, though those albums are illegal to create now (via a series of highly publicized lawsuits).

Maybe worst of all, most of the guys we once looked to as leading lights in underground hip-hop are now past their prime and out of touch with the artistic cutting edge. That happens to all artists when they reach a certain age, but it happens faster in hip-hop, because of the insane rate at which styles and tasts change in the music. Common asked "how come the industry builds careers that don't last?" I say, that's the bargain you accepted when you entered this field. That's the way rap has always been, from the Sugar Hill Gang on down to Outkast. Rap is a young man's game. If you hang around too long, you just embarass yourself.

Underground rap/hip-hop didn't make much of a dent in the mainstream, and now I am worried about there not being a future for the music. Artists and labels are getting the news that the general public just doesn't give a shit. As Zappa so eloquently said "artistic freedom is dependent upon adequate funding."

If no one buys your music, no one will help you create it either. Work isn't done in a vacuum. More than anything, I mourn the passing of a voice for the misfits of hip-hop, who don't buy into the whole image of bitches, bling, blunts, gats, and 40s. The creeps and weirdos are my sort of people, and I can't stand to live in a world that has no place for them.

[Feathers & Flames]

Yeah but Gangsta rap didn't really decay 'til recently. Rap now is just about the street (in little or no detail) or how much money they have and shit. The poetry is gone from it completely and it is just repetetive stuff.

Yeah modern mainstream music is dying, but I find that the underground music is more popular than ever, and it might possibly be the new mainstream.

[ObscureInfinity]

Yeah, I only listen to rap with a strong message. I can't listen to rappers who talk about their cars, money, bling, etc.

[Tallerthanatree]

Patrik and the Small Guy are Swedish, and are very good. Basshunter did a remix of 'Vifta Med Handerna', and it owns.

[Unfaithfully Metalhead]

I like Biggie, Tupac, Dr. Dre, Beastie Boys, Snoop, Eminem, House of Pain... can't think of any others that I like... maybe 1 or 2 others...