The perils of reviewing hip-hop
Rap. Crunk. Grime. Gangsta. Freestyle. Nerdcore. B-boy. Ghetto house. Rap rock. Backpack rap. East Coast. West Coast. Hyphy. Ghostriding the whip. Old school, new school and high school.
Call it what you want, but when you post a CD review from a well known hip-hop act on the internet, you're leaving your life - and the website's grammatical standards - in the hands of others.
I thought metallers were crazed lunatics when it came to fandom, but at least they know how to spell.
Here's what happens when you review a rap CD: You get hassled for not knowing what you're talking about. You get accused of not understanding hip-hop. And you get told that because you're white, your views on the subject matter can't possibly be taken seriously.
And that's when you give something a good review.
Here's what happens when you give a rap CD a bad review: You get flamed. In text language. With extremely poor grammar. Some of the examples below are so coded I don't even understand what they mean.
Check out the responses to my review of Lil Wayne's Rebirth - which, by the way, is a stone cold one-star stinker, an unlistenable mess up next to Chris Cornell's Scream in terms of embarrassment.
Leave your own standards of grammar at the door and check these out:
"Complelee agree wit chu, he is da bomb & mi idol 2. Dis Cdee is da bestest 1 eva!"
-G-Unitz
"da rebirth is a great cd. any true lil wayne would agree becuz he changed up da game wit paradice, knock out ground zero and on fire he will always be da best 2 me and he is da god of hip-hop"
-Lil Jay Man
"Lil waynes the best out there. If youve been a true Lil Wayne fan you woud respect his work and what he dose. Hes been in the game for a long time now and as far as im concerned his the best and will continue to be the best."
-JP
"I disagree wit da rating. Rebirth is a really good CD. I have been listenin ae da album since it came out."
-Me
I don't think the poster called 'G-Unitz' really read my review properly. But for the record, I love hip-hop, and I loved Lil Wayne's last album, Tha Carter III. That was a game changer. Even the Mint Chicks covered A Milli.
Rebirth is just a shocker. If you're looking for something to get the taste of it out of your mouth, check out Scalper's Flesh & Bones, an awesomely dark and intense release from an expat Brit now living in New Zealand.
Perhaps the last word should come from a poster called Franklin, a shop employee who can't work out what to do with all the secondhand Rebirth CDs he has in stock:
"I work at a used CD store and this CD won't stop coming in. Worst part, it's not selling! There's no doubt about it, this CD is bad. I give Lil' Wayne credit for trying something new, but in this case, it wasn't good."
Word.
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Half the time, the rappers reviewed are garbage and not a fair representation of the rap music industry. How about reviewing rappers like Apathy, Celph Titled, Immortal Technique, e.t.c. Apart from the occasional one line quote, you're reviews lack anything on the artists lyricsm. Oh and the whole grammer thing, are you serious? Are you a little upset that twelve year olds didn't enjoy your review?
im a hip hop fan but if you ask me hip hop strayed a long time ago well atleast mainstream hip hop did. i work for a radio station and hear the crap that comes out all day its like a mind feed of sex sex sex violence and "self absorbed look at me" ness" and they wonder why we act so crazy
Hip hop is the worst rubbish ever invented.
How long do we have to wait before it disappears?
One of the best things about those comments is the spelling... why is it that some words have been modified into text language, but are the same length as the original word? Example: G-Unitz 'mi' for 'my', or JP's 'dose' for 'does'.
Something in the original review that caught my attention too... Untitled (#4) exclaiming that Lil Wayne is " Experimenting With New Types Of Music. This Is Rap Rock." Rap rock new? Umm, ever heard of Limp Bizkit? Linkin Park? Thing is, they're beyond s**t anyway, so why even bother trying something similar?
I used to be a hardcore Lil' Wayne fan. But the stuff he has been releasing lately is just utter crap.. Fully agree about Tha Carter III though! That album was insane, I absolutely loved it.
Have you done any reviews on Kanye West? Would love to hear what you have to say about his latest cd. His old stuff was great, his new stuff just makes me wanna gas myself.
Rap is Crap! Rappers have no talent, even their fans are stupid!
Lil Wayne? No talent. He's all Auto-tune. In fact, Most Hip Hop and cRAP "music" use music generated by a computer, or a rift "sampled" (pretty much a synonym for stolen) from someone who can actually write (and play) music. And now let's not get started on the gang background and awful American culture found in most cRAP music.
@ kanye #7 It's not true that rappers have no talent, but can see how you would think that if all u base your judgement on is the the crap that is thrown in your face on tv and radio etc. There is alot of great hiphop out there like Atmosphere, CunninLynguists, Brother ali ... i could go on for ever, you just have to put a little effrot in to find it!
@ Nil #8. Not talking about Lil Waynes case but you should know that it doesn't take talent to become famous. People love the trends rappers are bringing these days (even if it isn't related to music). Hating Lil Wayne purely because he has no talent is garbage. Would a music label spend so much damn money on the boy if their experts realised he had no talent?...
@ #5. You have got to be kidding me. Obviously that comment meant that Wayne was experimenting on new types of music to him, meaning that he hadn't done the whole rock rap thing and now he has... Silly people.
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Haha! If nothing else, they at least ought to give you due credit for writing in intelligible English. That's something!