my (shockingly recent, actually) introduction to Public Enemy was a full-album remix on Solid Steel. I recommend it!
hmm. . . my introduction to Miles Davis was also a remix. Apparently that’s my thing. . .
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Count me in on the DJ Format bandwagon, his work with Abdominal on Music for the Mature B-Boy is just, well, fun.
I’m also a Beastie fan from way back when, I consider To The 5 Boroughs one of their finest works and literally spend the majority of September 11th listening to this:
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It sounds like from your list that you’re looking for late Beastie Boys, where most of their later work is strongly condoning all of those things.
I would, with hesitation, also recommend Straight Out of Compton, if only to put most of rap into context. Ice Cube’s comments about being a poet describing the world outside his window are still relevant. It’s an art that describes a world that most would rather forget. I hesitate to recommend it given its very strong shading of past events and how Dre and Cube treated women being glossed over.
However, I cannot recommend Ed Piskor’s work highly enough. It will lead you to some wonderful early work, like Flash and the Furious 5’s The Message that Mindysan mentions. That is some incredible work and still very relevant.
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Yeah as much as I love License to Ill it is lyrically problematic. But anything from the later stuff is just awesome sauce lyrically and musically.
And they acknowledged that, which I thought was one of the main reasons I got back into them again. I’d changed and it was nice to see that not only had they changed as well, they were making a conscious effort to point out their earlier failings and mention to others that there might be a better way to go about things. This is from the 1999 Rolling Stone interview:
For your own show, you changed the original lyrics of “Paul Revere” [“The sheriff’s after me for what I did to his daughter/I did it like this/I did it like that/I did it with a Wiffle-ball bat”], from Licensed to Ill.
Diamond: It wasn’t just “Paul Revere.” It was a bunch of songs. That was one of the things we tried to express to Prodigy, that this is a problem we’re going through. We wanted to let them know that we’re coming from a place where we’re trying to change ourselves. And it’s a tricky thing.
The whole article is a really good read, and I think a lot of rap artists are much more aware of the negative stereotypes and tropes that they both use and are used against them and are trying to evolve the genre the way society has.
Also, props to De La Soul. Can’t go wrong there.
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[quote=“SteampunkBanana, post:25, topic:74077”]Also, props to De La Soul. Can’t go wrong there.
[/quote]I used to work somewhere where “Jenifa Taught Me (Derwin’s Revenge)” got frequent playtime. I … just don’t get it. At all.
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Do you also hate happiness and puppies? 
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Maybe just has a thing against Jennifers.
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I also maintain that few of their songs can be taken out of context from the entire album. They’re my go to group for snow shoveling given the solid hour or so that I can just listen to them without interruption.
Quick story: when I was in college in '93, De La Soul played a free show on campus with an unknown group called The Roots opening. The Roots came out and blew us all away, and Rahzel did a De La medley acapella, complete with all the beats and scratches. Afterwards, De La Soul came out looking cowed and just said “Uh, so… we can’t really follow that shit… so let’s bring them back out.” And the Roots backed De La Soul for a bunch of songs, and it was awesome.
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You had to stop going to concerts after that, didn’t you? That’s a fantastic story.
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I’d say Ornette is a lot more “challenging” than Davis (who had a few choice words for Coleman in his autobio as I recall.) I think the difficult listening for Davis is after his first quintet, IMO. so that’s post '61 or ‘62, I think. well, maybe I just like Davis’ early stuff, but that happens to be the period of jazz I like across-the-board. YMMV.
anyway, I’m a rap guy, I loved the video and also the suggested video after, a compilation of his. I mean, don’t get me started on rap nowadays. suffice to say, all these kids need to get off my damn lawn. All the top-40 stuff is wack to me, but that was always true. My friend who still listens to new stuff has tried to get me into Shabazz Palaces and the Bigg Juss catalog and Bishop Nehru. The skills are there but I’m just not feeling it overall. Joey Badass was dope, though. I just really don’t keep up anymore, and the video is part of why.
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Why can’t I be you? At least for that!
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The first person who tried to get me into Miles Davis played me Bitches Brew, and I can say from experience that that’s not the way to get into Miles. For most people, anyway!
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um, jealous!
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I found a copy of Birth of the Cool for like a buck at the thrift store by my house when I was probably 14 or 15. so, the complete opposite of your experience :^)
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Probably true (though I’d replace “can’t handle a little” with “choose to spend your time on things other than ceaseless”).
FWIW, country music irks me as well, for a nearly identical set of reasons.
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Withholding wurd because of some dude’s non-approval? Tsk, tsk, what would Jared say?
From the last twenty years or so, I’d recommend Kool Keith, A Tribe Called Quest, Digible Planets, De La Soul, Outkast. All incredibly creative.
More recently: Blackilicious, The Roots, Common, Aesop Rock, Mike Ladd, Kendrick Lamar
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