Tag: Boring Music

Apu Rambles: Sex, Money, & Drugs

by Apu (yeah, he’s alive)

rhh

Well shit, it’s been a while. I’m sure most of the readers of this little blog here were pretty happy with not having the site polluted with my awfulness for the last 3 months or so…I really just didn’t have any motivation to write anything. Maybe it’s because I mentally checked out after school ended, and now that I’m back in a course I’ve got more activity happening in my brain, thus creating the desire to write. Although the more likely explanation for my writing tonight is probably liquor. Regardless, I’ve got something new for you to read and roll your eyes at. Although it might be shorter than normal so there’s that.

As I may or may not have talked about at some point in any one of my fairly insignificant additions to this blog, I started listening to hip hop music around the time of Youtube’s creation. It was pretty good for me, as a person who had next to nobody to discuss hip hop music with. I spent a lot of time on Youtube looking for more music to listen to. At the beginning, I spent my time listening to a lot of Eminem and D-12. Over the next couple of years I did branch out to others like 2Pac, Nas, and others who I could list if I didn’t want to just shut up and get on with my story. While viewing videos (which were usually just audio with stills of incorrect album covers) by the artists I was listening to, I would find myself going down into the comment section. I started to notice a certain pattern in the comments to the artists I was listening to. There would be one comment that would almost always pop up. It’s a statement that I have nightmares about that involve knives, lube, and Mountain Dew. It’s what you’ll probably see coming from “real hip hop” heads. It’s toxic.

“He raps about real life and struggle, not bitches, drugs, and money like everyone else does!”

Jesus Christ, I hate myself for just typing that.

Now, I’m not going to lie and say I didn’t agree with that for a period of time. For a good 3 or 4 years I had that same sort of mindset. But now that I’m not a shitty 15 year old kid anymore, I realize how stupid it is to not listen to some rappers or songs because they’re not meaningful.

NOT EVERYTHING NEEDS TO HAVE MEANING TO IT.

Crazy, right?

I don’t know. I guess I understand the reasoning behind the idea that music needs to be deep. A lot of the time when I’m in a shitty mood (so most of the time) it’s nice to listen to something with a message behind it that I can relate to. Actually, it’s also pretty nice to listen to a song that I can’t relate to, but can still feel bitter over. It sort of validates the way I’m feeling or the way I think I’d feel if I were in a certain situation. It creates a sort of bond between listener and artist that makes the listener feel like he or she (hooray for gender equal descriptions!) is less alone. I get it. I’ve felt that, plenty of times. It’s definitely something that should be encouraged, as it’s almost a more intimate bond than any friendship or other sorts of relationships can create, because it’s your own raw emotion that you can feel and express without any fear of judgement from others, since there’s nobody else involved in listening to a song. I can’t tell you how often I will sometimes randomly just get misty-eyed for no reason, just because I’m still not the most mentally healthy person in the world and I hear something in music that triggers a raw emotional response.

However (I’ll say it again for extra emphasis since I’m terrible at getting my point across with all the tangents I can’t help but take), that doesn’t mean that all music needs to have a meaning to it. Far from it, actually.

Remember when I did that article on Prof and mentioned how I was going through shit? One of the reasons I gravitated towards Prof almost exclusively for 4 months or so is because he made a tone of ignorant music that I could just listen to, chill to, chuckle to, and ignore my pain to. Sure, Prof releases a lot of emotional shit. “A Month From Now” still puts me in a trance every time I listen to it, and it’s been at least 3 months since I first discovered it. But a lot of the time, I’ll throw on “Apeshit” or “Roughneck” when I’m feeling shitty instead. I don’t need to constantly be reminded how fucked up my mood is by listening to a song that matches it. Sometimes I need to just listen to something that has absolutely nothing to do with anything, just because it’s fun. How does keeping myself down with sad and dark music help me in any way move on?

Whatever happened to “laughter is the best medicine”? Does that suddenly stop applying when it comes to hip hop? This genre is absolutely incredible and I’ll love it forever, but I swear, some of the fans are just fucking idiots. It’s like they want to wallow in their own misery with the artists they listen to, or reinforce the fact that the world is totally and completely screwed and that we’re headed towards destruction (a topic that I can probably talk about forever, but doesn’t apply to this piece much more than that one sentence).

I don’t know where this “ugh this has no substance” mindset came from, and I wish I did. Not everything needs to make you think. I don’t really care if my opinion on this matter makes me come off as even stupider than you all probably already thought I was, but I’d rather read if I wanted to think (and trust me, I read plenty, I love reading). People can tell me that’s retarded all they want, because I’m sure that those same people probably don’t fucking read to begin with. If I’m really, really sad, I’ll listen to something that I can relate to, something powerful that’s cathartic for me to listen to. But if I’m just feeling down like normal, I probably want to listen to something that’ll get me in better spirits and uplift me.

It’s almost sad how much people hate to listen to lighthearted, meaningless music. People will essentially dismiss artists like Lil Wayne, not because of skill levels or anything (I’m not the biggest Wayne fan in the world but the man can fucking rap), but because of the type of music he makes. People talk about how he doesn’t make real shit, and it’s all vapid, and shit like that. Well, my question is, why the fuck do you care? So what if he makes vapid music? How does it affect you as a person, when you just have the option to not listen and choose something else instead of complaining?

And it’s not even really about that, either. What really amuses me about the hatred of new-school hip hop is how these so-called old-school fans, these “real hip hop heads”, say that the only hip hop that’s good is the deeper shit, and that’s why new shit sucks. These fucking mongoloids seem to forget that hip hop was founded on celebratory music. It was music that people danced and partied to. Shit, break-dancing is supposed to be one of the main pillars of hip hop, isn’t it? To my knowledge, the socially-aware aspect of hip hop didn’t become something that was really widespread until the late ‘80s. Before then, it was primarily partying, having a good time, bragging about how good you are, and topics of that sort. Why is it that hip hop can’t still occasionally be about that just because something new was introduced to it? Now, the keyword here is “occasionally”. I’m not saying that the only hip hop that’s worth a shit is empty nonsense. I’m just saying that that sort of music should be able to co-exist with the realer shit, too.

Somewhat related, I would like to also ask…why is it that rappers who sound like they’re being lyrical as shit and socially conscious by essentially just rhyming a lot and using metaphors that reference current social issues, while actually saying nothing but gibberish, get so much more praise than those who are upfront about the fact that they say nothing of importance? I personally find when a rapper is talking irreverent shit about having fun to be better than when a rapper just rhymes a lot of nonsense while trying to sound deep. At least the fun rapper is actually saying something, as opposed to masticating the English language until it becomes almost caveman-like just to fool people into thinking that they’re really good at rapping. They’re not trying to pretend to be anything that they’re not. They’re just having a good time while the “lyrical” rappers are just acting like they’re fucking messiahs to the people, because that’s how their audience treats them for being able to relate something to a truck running over people in France while rhyming every other word, even if they’re made-up words. Hip hop fans for some reason have got some over 4 hour long Viagra hard-ons for rhymes that sound intelligent while being unintelligible, and they need to get over it. But again, a topic of discussion for another time.

All I’m saying is that life isn’t all about staying paranoid and keeping up with the latest conspiracies that rappers are coming up with to try to make themselves seem smart (I’m looking at you, Immortal Technique). There are several aspects of life, and one (or more) of those aspects is enjoying yourself. At the end of the day, being alive really has absolutely no reason behind it. The least you can do is embrace and enjoy the absurdity of life. In our modern society, I believe part of that is listening to absurd, vapid music. All you’re doing is removing yourself from a part of your life that is pretty essential to living with at least somewhat decent mental health. You’re not fooling anybody by listening to so-called “smart” music.

I really don’t know where to go from here. I’m on the verge of writing about how life is essentially meaningless so there’s no reason why music can’t be meaningless as well, but I feel like that’s a pretty bad idea, so I’ll sign off and send this to Dustin. I think I’ve made my point, but if not, I’ll do a tl;dr version of it right here: Stop being a pretentious fuckwad and enjoy some music to party to. It’s not a bad thing to actually enjoy yourself, you delusional masochists

Apu Rambles: You’re All Boring, Stop Putting Out Music Please

by Apu

beat

First of all, I have to give a big, big shout out to Prof for retweeting what I wrote about him and making my dick feel less small than it really is. More people read that article in 3 days than I originally thought would visit our site in a month.

Dear Diary,

I’m just sitting here eating my Little Bites brownies before I head off to the gym and I thought I’d try writing what I hope is a pretty quick little entry in Apu Rambles. I’m really fucking sick of people in hip hop (not necessarily just rappers but singers who are essentially a part of the culture and/or genre, but I guess I’ll say rappers from here on out because my fat fuck self is too lazy to write 5 syllables when I could just write 2) not having a personality in their music. That goes for people in both the mainstream and underground, however, I find that this problem does run more rampant in the underground. Of course, a lot of rappers in the mainstream have to rely on only personality because they can’t fucking rap (*cough* Future *cough* Young Thug *cough*), but strangely enough I come across more underground rappers than I do mainstream. Maybe it’s because my dad’s car’s speakers are dicked and my cheap-ass dad won’t do shit to fix it, leaving me to have to blast music through my phone’s speaker while putting myself at the same risk of death as people who text and drive.

So I don’t listen to the radio and I spend a little too much time on the internet, being the chick magnet that I am. Anyway, the point is that the whole personality thing bugs me.

I’m not gonna call any names out or anything in a negative way, because I don’t want to alienate any readers who may be fans of rappers I’m talking about (and basically make it so Dustin wasted $30 or so on the domain name). I just want to say, to me, technical skill isn’t everything. Some fans like to run around claiming that their next favorite underground rapper has the best flow, most complex rhymes, most mind-boggling metaphors…sure, I do enjoy them a lot. I mean, how couldn’t I? Eminem is my #1 favorite rapper and right now he’s probably one of the most technical rappers who has ever lived. But he still has a vibrant personality in his music. Just listen to the Bad Meets Evil song “All I Think About” if you think differently.

Honestly, if you don’t do something differently from the 30 other rappers I could find in the suggest videos column, then I’m not going to really care about how technical you are. Show me personality. Personality is fucking everything in life, even when it comes to shit like this. That’s why no matter how fucking terrible my submissions to this website are, I at least have a personality that isn’t like the typical millennial piece of shit who writes articles on the internet like “10 Reasons Why You Should Put Yourself Above Your Boyfriend” or “12 Ways I’m The Guy Every Girl Says She Wants But Doesn’t Date Because I’m So Clearly A Beta Male With No Confidence” or whatever the fuck else my generation spews out while expecting the older generations to actually respect us, so my shit is at least a little bit more enjoyable (at least, I would like to think. If not, well, at least I’m not getting paid for spreading my filth across the Internet). It’s especially important in an art form like hip hop, where it seems like everyone (including my shitty self) feels like they can do it.

So many underground rappers claim that they’re bringing the 90s back or whatever. REAL HIP HOP. The thing is though, I really don’t think they are. When I think the 90s, what I hear is guys like Wu-Tang, DMX, Onyx, or Heltah Skeltah with a rugged sound who rap with conviction. Busta Rhymes being catchy as shit with bouncy beats and a loud, fun as fuck voice that makes you want to yell along with him (“NEW YORK! JERSEY! PHILLY! B-MORE! D.C.! VIRGINIA! ATLANTA! EVERYBODY RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISE!” is very fun. Yell it at the top of your lungs at some neighborhood kids, then again while you’re in a high-speed chase away from cops for causing a disturbance. You won’t regret it). Nas with a rich, soulful sound. Redman with the funky beats, slick delivery, and witty jokes that makes you grin when you listen. In other words, they put themselves into the music.

Since everybody is a unique snowflake who has value in their own special ways jfkdlajklfdjalkfjkl;dajl (sorry about that, I pressed my hand down on the keyboard as I ran up to vomit after typing that), they bring something in their music that nobody else has. You don’t get that with most underground rappers nowadays. You generally get rappers who have absolutely no originality at all… Look at all the Eminem, Lil Wayne, and Drake biters there are. Even The Weeknd is starting to have his style bitten by R&B singers. They’ve got no power or personality behind what they’re saying, they’re just adopting what someone else has done or they sound totally empty. It’s either that, or they rap over beats that they think are “old school boom bap” but are actually just painfully obviously programmed drums over opera samples that sound decentralized in the way that the sound comes out of the headphones. And the way they rap is just as bad. No vocal variety, no musicality, just flat rapping. I don’t know if it’s just me, but I can’t see a reason why anyone would want to listen to anything like these kinds of rappers. I can’t find anything that these guys add to my playlist that’s anything that I’ve either not already got or would even want.

Another thing, why the fuck have producers stopped using drums? Jesus Christ, these fucking idiots think that just because the Atlanta scene uses claps that everyone can, so they throw claps behind some classic rock samples and listen to it thinking the shit sounds good. It doesn’t. What made me really realize this is when I was listening to a new song by Ca$his (you forgot and/or never knew he existed, amright?), produced by Eminem, that was posted on a forum that I frequent. The melody and everything is pretty fucking nice, right? Shit sounds like it could really knock…but it doesn’t. There’s no drums, it’s just claps. For some reason Em skipped past basically all the drum options and (I can only assume) thought “ay bro this shit hard” in his drug-addled mind and gave it to Ca$his, probably because it sounded like most other shit that got plays. Comparing that to this newer song which sounds more like it was produced sometime around The Marshall Mathers LP 2, or later, made me understand how much the impact of the drums can transform a beat completely.

See the difference? It sounds tougher. It sounds meaner and compliments Ca$his’s (sort of outdated) gangsta attitude and style more than that weak-ass shit in the first song. It fucking hits harder, even though the melody of the older one sounds like the song should hit harder. Most importantly, the sound of the drum fits this beat more than that clap or whatever the fuck was used fit the first one. You know why? Because the shit wasn’t a dirty south beat. Claps don’t work on beats that aren’t dirty south. Look, hip hop producers from the East, West, and Midwest. We get that Atlanta ran shit for a long time in the mid 00s. That doesn’t mean you have to adopt their style. The producers from Atlanta know how to make the claps work, because they know how to make the surrounding music fit them. You fucking don’t. Get back to using actual drums because the shit sounds way stronger on the style of music that you’re producing. Or maybe it doesn’t and I’m just hearing things, in which case, leave a comment below and I’ll be sure to slit my wrist to take myself down a notch. Not too badly, just to let a little bit of blood flow out before I bandage myself.

But I don’t know, I think I like guys like DJ Premier so much still to this day because his drums are powerfu. I didn’t like Royce much on PRhyme (circling back to the personality thing, I thought that he just sounded like he was reading off his paper rather than rapping with conviction, but that’s just me…see? It all connects!), but holy shit was Premo’s production on that some of my favorite production work in a long time. Those drums on “Dat Sound Good” and “Wishin’” are to die for. So yeah. If you’re gonna make an East or West beat, just put a fucking snare, trash can lid, or fucking cowbell on it or some shit. Usually those drums will resonate more naturally with me than claps do. I’ve always believed that you know a song is good when you can feel the shit in your testicles, not when you have to think about why it’s a good song. It should work similarly when making the music. Don’t be a bitch. Make your music with your testicles, not with your brain. If the drums are stronger and you know it, don’t think too hard about what will fit in more, especially because most people aren’t as neurotic as I am and don’t worry about the drums that are being used.

Now don’t get me wrong or anything, this isn’t me yearning for a better time in hip hop. I’m not some old head crying about how music sucks nowadays and the only good that has ever happened in hip hop happened 20 years ago. That’s a harmful thought process. It holds the genre and culture back. If everything stayed the same, then hip hop would have died out a long time ago. It’s natural selection; in the changing music climate, the genre needs traits that keep it alive. Keeping the genre alive with whatever gets plays and keeps people thinking about it gives people more room to make different styles behind what’s currently hot. Plus, there was really shitty music back in the day too. I guess there’s just more now because everyone is running to set up a home studio and just putting out whatever the fuck they want without thinking about whether it is any good or not. Technicality is great and all, but when it comes to standing out in my ears, I just like some more soul and personality. Something that hits hard and causes a reaction.

Okay, so it’s time to go to the gym and listen to music that isn’t boring as shit, with hard drums, so that I can lift weights that make me feel like a monster… Even though they externally make me look like a lazy bitch, because for some reason I feel like a person of my size should probably be curling more than 35s.

Love, Apu.