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revolutionary hip-hop

 
  • revolutionary hip-hop

    A while back I read about The Coup and Dead Prez joining together to form a sort of "super group" to put out an album. I can't remember the name. Anyone ever hear about this or know any details? I'm pretty sure it never happened, but the prospect definitly got me excited when I first heard about it.

    Anyways, what are people's favorite revolutionary MCs and DJs? I'm definitly digging The Coup, Medina Green, and Mos Def (not sure if the last two are "revolutionary" but who cares).

  • i've never heard of a DPZ/coup supergroup though the idea is extremely tantalising. there is a collaboration between the two ('get up') on the coup's 2001 'party music' album, and it's boss.

    anyway. as for revolutionary hip-hop, the former two names should obviously be mentioned. anyone who's never heard 'nature of the threat' by ras kass should get a copy immediately. immortal technique says some amazing stuff although with a bit of less amazing gangsta posturing. sage francis covers personal as well as political stuff but the lyrics are fantastic. obviously public enemy (especially the bomb squad - the sheer noise weight of that production!! amazing). and speaking of noisy production, everyone should hear dälek - not self-proclaimed 'revolutionary' as such but the latest record 'absence' is great. also saul williams, the man is (literally) a poet. sure many other people can come up with many others.


    "30,000 Leagues Under the Scene" out now: last.fm | Bandcamp
    • annors said...
    • User
    • 19 Jul 2005, 15:34

    Put out an compilation for download

    Yo, I've put a home made compilation, Revolutionary Hip-Hop. Download and tell me what u think.

    Peace
    ALBUM:
    http://thepiratebay.org/details.php?id=3358158

    • [Deleted user] said...
    • User
    • 28 Sep 2005, 17:18

    Depends on the type

    It really depends on the type of revolution. I know of quite a few Chicano hip hop groups(Los Nativos, Aztlan Underground) that talk about messing with whitey.

    But that isnt everyones cup of tea.

    • [Deleted user] said...
    • User
    • 30 Sep 2005, 04:40

    others

    There are also some others
    NWA
    Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy
    Talib Kwali

    Alot of early hiphop was very political.

    There are also quite a few groups that do socially concious stuff, it just doesnt get radio time ie. Ying Yang Twins

    There is also quite a bit of spanish stuff.
    Molotov
    Jae P

  • NWA? Fucking shit up and hurting people is not revolutionary - it's just violent.

    For revolutionary hip-hop, maybe

    KRS-One
    Public Enemy
    Michael Franti/Disposible Heroes of Hiphopracy

    possibly Brand Nubians

    The stuff I hear on the radio now is just trash (though that probably says as much about radio where I am as it does about the state of hip hop) - more revolutionary/critical music used to get more mainstream airplay and was by known bands - nowadays you have to look under rocks to find anything.

    "One of the virtues of having a system of values is that you know exactly what to laugh at." - Virginia Woolf
    • [Deleted user] said...
    • User
    • 4 Oct 2005, 17:36

    NWA

    at a point NWA was so feared by the establishment (fuck tha police) that the FBI warned their record label.

  • NWA was derogatory gangster rap that glorified killing each other in the ghetto, taking drugs and treating women as solely sex objects. It is anti revolutionary. The establishment was afraid of it only because the establishment loves to whip up white racist hysteria occasionally for its own agenda that is all; the track was never banned unlike ice t’s cop killer which was banned. I must admit I used to love NWA when I was younger and still find the tracks fun on occasion, but take them very much as tongue in check and definitely not revolutionary.


  • Edited by radiored on 9 Oct 2005, 13:13
  • I agree with radiored... I love N.W.A. but they were never about politics.

  • immortal technique.

    • [Deleted user] said...
    • User
    • 16 Dec 2005, 10:08

    more...

    Sage Francis, Mac Leathal, Paris...

  • some sites to check out

    just saw a wicked show last night put on by some radicals in a local student union ... called REVOLUTION '06 ... lots of good folks .. m1 of dead prez, K'naan etc... all about hip hop and revolution ... centered around the world youth conference and revolutionary hip hop summit in venezuela this past summer... some groups to check out ...

    REVOLUTION '06 is a hip-hop festival happening from Sunday January 29th to February based out of Ryerson University in Toronto, Canada. Featuring LIVE PERFORMANCES FROM: M1 of DEAD PREZ*****UMI of P.O.W. (RBG Family)***** K'NAAN*****AREA 23 (Str8 from VENEZUELA) ****** NOMADIC MASSIVE*** ISIS***LOS PAISANOS (Str8 from CUBA) + much more. THIS FESTIVAL WILL BE OFF THE CHAINS!!! +++++++++++ Also featured at REVOLUTION '06 is a dope film and lecture series ft. Speakers such as M1 of Dead Prez + local Hip Hop entrepreneurs.

    maybe you wanna also look at some of these sites ...
    http://www.conscioushiphop.com/
    http://www.hiphoprevolucion.org/ (spanish)
    http://www.nativehiphop.net/ (not all revolutionary but good)
    http://mangotribe.thecollectivechicago.org/ some cool artists linked outta here...


    also some artists u may wanna check out ... tho i have a pretty wide definition of revolutionary ...
    Aztlan Underground
    War Party
    Deep Dickollective
    Aesop Rock
    I Was Born With Two Tongues
    DOPE POET SOCIETY (http://www.dopepoets.com/)
    check out the AWOL 1 comps at http://awol.objector.org/ and go to artist profiles ... lots of good shit
    hmmm so many artists out there have lots of good 'revolutionary' tracks or thinking.. but not so much explicitly in their lyrics ...

    • StBruno said...
    • User
    • 18 Feb 2006, 18:45
    Nas has some revolutionary stuff
    Bay Area MC Paris delivers some hard truth over bubblin' westcoast beats; peep www.guerillafunk.com.
    My favorite rap group is the Swedish quartet Looptroop (peep www.looptroop.nu)



    tjohei
    • jvglion said...
    • User
    • 23 Feb 2006, 04:37
    Immortal Technique
    Wu-Tang Clan
    Nas
    Sabac
    Dead Prez (as mentioned before)

    Wu-Tang and Nas although are not completely political, they spit rhymes with a social conscious and they know whats up...

    I'm looking for more artists from all genres to add to my tag 'Rebel Music'. I welcome recommendations and comments.

    " is spiritually revolutionary, and the message is divine. The message content opens the eyes of the people to the evils of the system…as inside the music are the seeds of destruction of the said shitstem." -- Peter Tosh
    • [Deleted user] said...
    • User
    • 25 Feb 2006, 06:00

    revolutionary hip-hop

  • Re:

    Check out the artist connections for this group. I've been trying to keep it update, but always looking for new adds.

    Quoth jvglion:
    I'm looking for more artists from all genres to add to my tag 'Rebel Music'. I welcome recommendations and comments.

  • Gangsta Revolutionaries

    If you listen to Ice Cube's first two albums and his E.P. you get a definite picture of a Robin Hood gangsta revolutionary. On Nwa records and his own (early solo stuff) he kicked a lot of $#!% about politics, ghetto economics, drugs, police brutality that was painfully ignored by everybody condemning "gangsta" rap. (Before writing off NWA wholesale, remember that in addition to F--- the Police (written before the infamous Rampart Division scandal broke - you mean to say they scooped Mike Wallace?) there was also: Dopeman, 100 Miles and Running, and Express Yourself, to name a few others.

    I'd also say listen to old Compton's Most Wanted (MC Eiht), Geto Boys, and Scarface. All of the above have tracts where they are mainly quoting Tony Montana-style machismo, but they shined the floodlights on the corruption of the police and hypocrisy of the drug war before people ever heard of Ollie North and Iran Contra. I'm sure everyone from dead prez, to Kweli, to The Coup, to Asheru, to Black Bottom Collective, and more would attest to how much they owe both stylistically and politically to these pioneers.

    Edited by theaphro on 2 Apr 2006, 00:23
    • Nugan said...
    • User
    • 25 Mar 2006, 03:11

    Re: Gangsta Revolutionaries

    Quoth theaphro:
    I'm sure everyone from Dead Prez, to Kweli, to The Coup, to Asheru, to Black Bottom Collective, and more would attest to how much they owe both stylistically and politically to these pioneers.


    Boots (from the Coup) has listed Ice Cube as one of his personal inspirations during interviews. It's easy to understand why if you listen to his early albums like "Amerikka's Most Wanted" and "Death Certificate." The early Cube was known for his unflinchingly honest criticisms of society and politics.

    Cube's music has decayed since then, but if you look at some of the non-musical projects he has supported recently (think "Black.White.") it seems clear that he has maintained some social conciousness.

    "With all this extra stressin
    The question I wonder is after death, after my last breath
    When will I finally get to rest" - Tupac Amaru Shakur, "Me Against The World"


    www.dykal.net
    • StBruno said...
    • User
    • 25 Mar 2006, 14:31
    Hollywood destroyed Ice Cube.



    tjohei
    • jvglion said...
    • User
    • 29 Mar 2006, 17:14

    Re:

    Quoth radiored:
    NWA was derogatory gangster rap that glorified killing each other in the ghetto, taking drugs and treating women as solely sex objects. It is anti revolutionary. The establishment was afraid of it only because the establishment loves to whip up white racist hysteria occasionally for its own agenda that is all; the track was never banned unlike ice t’s cop killer which was banned. I must admit I used to love NWA when I was younger and still find the tracks fun on occasion, but take them very much as tongue in check and definitely not revolutionary.


    I think NWA was more about being a wake-up call for people, especially in America during the time of Reagan/Bush Part I. Poverty and issues such as racism, drug use, misogyny, crime, homelessness, and so on were swept under the rug. For so long Conservative AmeriKKKa wanted to portray the image of happy white people, going to church, the husband going to work during the week, while the wife tends to the kids, and blazay blah. Times were changing, people were changing, and the problems of society were not going away when they ignored it. It wasn't the post WW2-40's and pre-Korean War-50's anymore. The Vietnam War and Nixon changed people's thinking.

    There is a lot of real life in hip-hop. A reality that many people want to pretend it doesn't exist. It's only when these problems make it into the suburbs, such as crack and meth use, does the media care about anything. Hip-hop was a news forum for a long time. NWA may have several frivolous, misogynistic, and other songs which may seem to promote drug use, but these MC's were giving the news of what they saw and what the news on TV didn't talk about. That in itself is revolutionary. When the FBI has to get involved, it's because there is concern of a change. What sense did it make for a federal agency to make a stink about what a few black men from the inner city had to say?

    " is spiritually revolutionary, and the message is divine. The message content opens the eyes of the people to the evils of the system…as inside the music are the seeds of destruction of the said shitstem." -- Peter Tosh
  • Re: Slept on Revolutionaries

    Quoth tom_dissonance:
    anyone who's never heard 'nature of the threat' by Ras Kass should get a copy immediately.


    Easily one of the most ignored songs and albums in hip hop. Way way too many headz slept on this record. The whole album was rife with political/socially driven cuts:
    Miami Life, Ordo Ab Chao (a hip hop cut with a Latin title and quoting Dickens!?!?), The Evil That Men Do (about his own failings), and of course the title cut. Soul On Ice didn't only put the $#!% down, it hit the reset button.

    Digable Planets' Blowout Comb, another sleeper revolutionary. And De La Soul has forever been a revolutionary sleeper cell, deconstructing American society, man/adulthood, the Black community, and Hip Hop. Funny how these cats have been hiding in the light.

  • Re: Re: Slept on Revolutionaries

    Absolutely agreed. Seattle's Blue Scholars and Bay Area's Zion I are outstanding. Also just checked out M-1's new CD called Confidential. Single off of that one, "Till We Get There", has some great verses and a solid, classic beat.

    lil' dukes up!
  • You guys should listen to Uncle Scams, he is an amazing Anarcho-Hip-Hop artist!

  • Cyne is not a common name heard among circles such as this, but they're nice. i've listened to a few tracks by them, and so far, really good.

    if anybody is slept on, its cyne.

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