Instrumentality

rekordah · Post by **rekordah** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 12:31 am

Right so, this whole long drawn out thing about naming this stuff has got me thinking - do people feel the need to pigeonhole and catagorise this stuff with new names/sub-genres (so that it is, to a degree, distanced from the hip hop genre) because of the common lack of MCs/vocalists on the tracks?

It seems to me that any track, no matter how crazy, eccentric, or experimental the beat is, will be catagorised as hip hop without a second thought so long as there is an MC on it. Yet once the MC is removed from the equation, people get confused and start wanting to give it a different name in order to differentiate - e.g. trip hop, downtempo, electronica, beats, wonky etc etc.

I know it's a kinda directionless debate with many different viewpoints to consider, but what are peoples thoughts on this? Is the presence (or lack) of an MC a defining factor in what can be legitimately called hip hop? If not, what are the defining factors? Or is hip hop just "a feeling"?

Personally I think instrumentality is very much a part of hip hop, and has been since it's birth. From soundsystem culture, to block parties, to the DJ, to the breaks, to the beats - it's always been a part of it, so why the urge to differentiate?

Sorry for the deep, beard-strokey post. It's just I played some of my shit to some friends recently, and upon being asked what genre it was I said hip hop, which was met with some confused faces.

pidge · Post by **pidge** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 1:08 am

Rekordah wrote:do people feel the need to pigeonhole and catagorise this stuff with new names/sub-genres (so that it is, to a degree, distanced from the hip hop genre) because of the common lack of MCs/vocalists on the tracks?

This doesnt happen in America though, its only in a UK ting.
Electronic music here has always been over categorised, drum and bass for example or all the sub components of garage. In the US a lot of people I know are happy to just call it all 'electronica' which is a word pretty much non existent in the UK except for describing stuff which doesnt fit in any other genre.

I think its to do with creating a new name/sub genre which people can relate to. Here dubstep is big and there are overlapping similarities between dstep and fwd thinkin hiphop so 'wonky' is a word which sort of connects them. And its to do with differentiating from other parts of the same 'scene' *shudder* as people into wonky hiphop or whatever you want to call it dont want to be associated with top 40 or your usual stale UK hiphop. Just as liquid drum and bass seperated from hjump up and dubstep from grime etc

My thoughts anyway

zin · Post by **zin** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 3:09 am

BEATRONICA !

skywave · Post by **skywave** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 1:13 pm

if lack of an MC means its not hip hop then i'm an aubergine

a turntablist is not hip hop because there's no MC backing him up?
a hip hop beat can't be called hip hop due to no vocals?
aren't there many elements anyway?

producer, MC, DJ, b-boy, graf/artist, beatbox, wisdom and culture etc ... didn't realise the whole lot needed to be in place in every instance to make it officially hip hop

DJ Shadow and Prefuse 73 are hip hop only when an MC is present?

slugabed · Post by **slugabed** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 1:31 pm

i dont call my type of music hip hop. i usually end up describing it with lots of words and then saying saying "fuck it have a listen" or some such

i say its like hip hop but different

but thats not because of the lack of mc, its just because the music is different.

its all a bit blurry tho yaknow

who knows

2tall · Post by **2tall** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 1:34 pm

its just music.....

just another way of trying to make form of what cannot be described basically, the eternal struggle to realise what can't be intellectually realised.

genres, looks and marketing demographics make attempts at trying to marginalise, homogenise and package things to make them sellable. some people then associate out of a consious choice to become part of that thing, usually out of vanity.

what happens then is a solidarity, a movement, and then the death of that movement once its job is done, the conclusion of most in that movement is that music is just.. music.

definitions are not important, they are only a limitation. the marginlisation makes people distrust their ears, and they will often say, naa that tune doesnt sound ..... enough or it should have ........ in it.

that is a symptom of wanting to control their experience when it is at odds with their previous experience of music.

so you might say the role of the musician is to create something so authentic and yet original and complete sounding that it re-defines what people see as valid music.

so keep doing it..

of course that redefinition will become another format in time and will be subject to the same seasonal paradigm of birth, life and death.

its all about the gaps between genres, this will consitently challenge both you and the listener and enrich both. - this for example - i believe is the reason between hudson mo's success.

renegatus · Post by **renegatus** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 1:39 pm

I don't think it's an MC thing at all, perhaps on a more general scale it is.

The 'general public' is more responsive to rap than hip-hop and these two are usually confused. Some may say that there is no difference, but I think there is. Rapping is talking. Hip-hop is a type of music. There is rap music, but the focus is more on the talking, not the music. Hip-hop has rapping but the focus is less on words, more on rhythm and the musicality of lyrics.

You must consider a person's approach to music when understanding their pontification. The more seasoned music enthusiast will have a willingness to separate music further into sub-genres since he is able to identify individual elements than run concurrently through similar songs, but still remain under a large genre moniker. When you transfer this into a wider music audience, who don't have the experience of identifying between niche genres, songs tend to be generalised under popular genre monikers. So when you start to disassemble modern hip-hop you find people can't tell the difference between sub-genres because for them they don't exist.

w3sk · Post by **w3sk** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 6:03 pm

2tall wrote:definitions are not important, they are only a limitation. the marginlisation makes people distrust their ears, and they will often say, naa that tune doesnt sound ..... enough or it should have ........ in it.

As much as I agree with this statement I personally like having names for sub-styles of music to help me communicate with others what I like or am looking for, even if it can create some challenges. The problem tends to be that us listeners fall into two categories: those who want to create sub-genre names, and those who do not. And then we continue the circular debate on our own opinions when we shouldn't have to justify our own reasoning. I like sub-genres names you don't, cool.

saphyre · Post by **saphyre** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 6:09 pm

Definitons are a limitation.. but they are also convenient, and how boring would it be if there were no genre names just "music" it would get depressing pretty quickly

renegatus · Post by **renegatus** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 6:23 pm

Plus, how would music be marketed without genres?

rekordah · Post by **rekordah** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 6:49 pm

I'm not trying to start the whole genre debate again, or discuss the role of names. It's quite hard to express but I guess what I was trying to get at was how many people's perception of the music changes when there is no MC.

2tall · Post by **2tall** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 10:01 pm

in a nutshell.. i havent got a bloody clue what anything is in music anymore, the lines are blurring between genres which is great.

hiphop = legit genre

wonkstep = fuck off

get me

tekblazer · Post by **tekblazer** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 11:08 pm

wonkstep = fuck off

get me

-dun know this actually makes sense to my old ears.

rekordah · Post by **rekordah** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 11:38 pm

Awww there's still life in them yet fella

Oh, and did I mention I'm attempting to write a "mini-thesis" for uni on this vague topic, which has got to be in TOMORROW?

HELP.

rekordah · Post by **rekordah** » Tue Apr 28, 2009 11:42 pm

And did I mention that on top of all this, I found out today that Robert Mugabe HAS BEEN IN MY HOUSE

tekblazer · Post by **tekblazer** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 1:17 am

I actually mis-quoted myself in that one.

I, unlike others, prefer wonkstep to calling everything hiphop. Kinda the reason you don't say Jungle Brothers and Flylo or some dude are the same. You'll never see that in music crit....unless they are horrible.

my bad.

incnic · Post by **incnic** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 7:10 am

definately all hip hop imo

pneumatic · Post by **pneumatic** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 9:38 am

Robert Mugabe = wonkstep
Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela = Hip Hop
Trevor McDonald = Dubstep

stick that in your mini-thesis Rekordah.... it'll blow their fookin minds

slugabed · Post by **slugabed** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 10:21 am

my left retina · Post by **my left retina** » Wed Apr 29, 2009 12:12 pm

<beats>

Instrumentality

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