Greetings! Life is busy.

Anyhow, about two weeks ago I was at the Pitchfork Fest. I wasn't there for very long. On Friday, we got there toward the end of GZA's set, decided "why are we here" and ten minutes into Sonic Youth, left.

Saturday, the only full set I saw was Clipse. It was an excellent set, no doubt. Clipse has very much grown on me. It's hard to explain why I like them so much - their beats are very sparse and I do not connect with their lyrics. For someone whose favorite rap song is "Devil's Pie" by Rhymefest, a song that has an incredible hook and a great topic, it's odd. I tend to think the beats are very important - check The Hood Internet, and you'll see what I mean. Rap that I generally wrote off as tacky or music I ignored as dull is fused to create something wonderful. I don't much like I'm A Flirt, but I'm A Flirt (Shoreline) is musical divinity.

I have struggled recently with what I think is so enduring about the genre of rap - you could argue that the art of the mashup demonstrates a few things, how important a good beat is and how interchangeable a vocal track is. Even in the process of creating a mashup, I found that the primary link between the two, other than general song structure and the organization of thoughts into couplets and so on, is the rhythm. And of course, a good rap song relies on a beat and a vocal track to work - as I pointed out re: "Tooken Back" by Ghostface, a good beat can change the entire mood of the song.

And I think the whole idea of it as poetry is a sack of shit. I ain't no poetry buff.

I think what's great about hip hop as a genre is that it allows a rapper to take different attitudes toward his work. Other music relies on crafting a song, but I think that you can really get a feel on a good rapper's personality by listening to him rhyme. You can like the music a group makes, and like them from getting a feel on their live personality or media personality, but much more often you actually get to like a rapper as a person not just because of their verbal acuity. Rappers and comedians, moreso than how Dave Chappelle linked them together in his film, are very similar to one another - out of all media personalities, they're the only ones who really give you a piece of their mind.

So yeah, that's the je ne se quois on why I love Clipse. De La Soul was there too, and damn, I love me some Jazz Rap. We skipped out early to avoid traffic. Finally, Girl Talk = disaster. Why put him on a small stage? Totally disappointed I missed it.

Here's my self-promotion - my video for I'm a Flirt (Shoreline), mentioned earlier.

Labels: clipse, rap, the hood internet