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Underground > Radio & Music >

Hip-pop, chart trends and far-fetched explanations

No star here laces

09:54 / 08.08.02

From today's popbitch:

>> Hip-pop rules the USA <<
Britney is dead! Hail Nelly, king of bling!

This week saw the Teen Choice awards in the US,
and the big winner was Nelly, with three awards.

Other winners included Ja Rule, Usher, Ashanti
and N Sync, for their collaboration with Nelly.

Hip hop pop is now totally dominating US
mainstream teen culture. It's softer, more
female-friendly and less violent than traditional
hip-hop, but still has enough bling to
be aspirational.

Nelly's album has gone triple platinum in just
five weeks, and he's currently at number 1 and
number 2 in the US singles charts (Hot In Herre
and Dilemma)

Britney is doing a brave job of scrabbling
for cred with Neptunes productions, but it feels
like the great Scandi-pop era of Brit, N Sync
and Backstreet is now over.

Sooooo, what can it possibly mean for the world that eurocentric pop music with cleanly scrubbed white teenagers has been replaced by (nominally) afrocentric music with similar content but thugged-out stylings? Grant Morrison would have an opinion, what's yours?

Regrettable Juvenilia

10:37 / 08.08.02

Short answer would be: it's great and it's almost entirely The Neptunes' doing. But I'm not sure that this is such a sudden thing, or that the two kinds of pop you describe above were ever as separate as might have appeared on the surface...

Matthew Fluxington

15:07 / 08.08.02

My feeling is there is little difference between Britney and Nelly's best songs, and the Neptunes are behind the both of them. Britney is not going anywhere. As long as the Neptunes are there to provide good songs and buckets of sex, whoever they produce will have hits.

Just wait til that Justin Timberlake/Neptunes record comes out....or the new Blur/Neptunes album. It's going to be wonderful.

No star here laces

15:50 / 08.08.02

Yes but that's not very interesting, is it. This is a Temporary Sense-free Zone. Git creative.

Maybe it represents the final transition in the teen demographic's view of the black race from fear to aspiration. The dawning of the age of the wigga? Maybe this means that in 10 years the US will have a black president - Bush's untrammelled machismo bears remarkable resemblance to the self-image propogated by many rappers, maybe he's aware of it? Maybe this is all his doing?

alternatively it could herald a new era of false-fronts in pop music. i.e. everyone knows that Nelly and Ja Rule are basically pop, and are probably nice quiet boys, but they pretend for the sake of pretending even though no-one is fooled. A bit like the whole "keeping it real" thing, in fact.

No star here laces

15:51 / 08.08.02

Not interesting cuss directed at Fly, not Flux btw.

11:19 / 09.08.02

The white fear has been dispelled partly because audiences are aware of the fakeness of nelly and Ja Rule's realness. There has always been an aspiration toward the thug lifestyle from white middle-class youths but now they are able to separate that from the actual natures of its proponents while using doublethink to maintain the belief in it which creates that delicious wigga frisson. A closer relationship with the artist can be built up as the white fans are no longer scared of attending their concerts for fear of being in a minority.

As the white audience loses its inhibitions and develops a genuine understanding of hip hop culture the doublethink becomes increasingly flimsy and "realness" - I mean real, fucking proper realness becomes an overriding obsession and for the next three years the hardest, purest hip hop comes from middle-class wiggas. However with no history of oppression or underdog staus to build a standpoint from the inevitable result is the musical abortion that is "Angst-a Rap". Own Worst Enemy's "Sartre for Your Right to Fight" is their call to armchairs and is inevitably derided by parents and the old guard of white rap. Fred Durst comments "We used to use guitars and shit, man. That was honest. You could trace, like, an unbroken line from us all the way back to Stone Temple Pilots. These new bands are forgetting their history, knowhati'msayin?"

As for the Britney/ Nelly relationship, it soon becomes obvious that lyrically they are two sides of the same minidisc. Britney's recent injection of extra fuck-me lust means that she is simply the easy-lay ho' singing "I'm gonna take my clothes off" in "Hot in Here". This realisation is good for both parties as they are able to combine forces and offer the best of both worlds. early 2003 sees the simultaneous release of companion singles "You Are My Bitch" by Nelly and "Yes I Am" by Britney.

11:59 / 09.08.02

i disagree with what mc lentil is saying about britney. just because britney is releasing new sexy material doesn't mean that she is demeaning herself or becoming an "easy ho". i think her work is powerful and sexy and just really good pop music. her last album is rockin. and no mistake!

nelly's new album is pretty good but not as angry as his debut, which i preferred. have you guys heard the track he does with justin on "nellyville"? it's amazing. flux is right: justin's new stuff with the neptunes is going to kick ass.

(i can't believe i said kick ass)

Matthew Fluxington

12:47 / 09.08.02

I'm with Sophie - I detect more than a little misogyny in Lentil's assertion that singing sexy songs about wanting sex makes a woman like Britney or whoever it is who sings on "Hot In Herre" an "easy-lay ho" or anything less than a normal person with a normal sex drive. I'm not going to put words in yr mouth, Lentil, but you sound really repressed when it comes to female sexuality.

I'm not even going to get into yr use of the word "wigga" - I think that's just tasteless, wrong-headed, and very suspect.

14:10 / 09.08.02

Thje topic abstract says:

"In which we make foolish predictions/analyses of the world based on what records US teens are buying"

Lyra also says

"This is a Temporary Sense-free Zone. Git creative."

I didn't think it was necessary for me to add a further disclaimer.

04:28 / 10.08.02

Thought Lentil's altogether cheeky post was brutally funny.

"Angst-a Rap" - genius!

However, it's all a bit over my head at this moment in time and must retreat to the sanctuary of my bed and await the inevitable reprecussion.

Most intrigued by the concept of a "normal person with a normal sex drive", though.

03:30 / 12.08.02

My only contribution is that, according to today's New Weekly, Britney and Pharell are now an item. How Justin feels about this it doesn't say.

10:58 / 12.08.02

ooh! that's exciting news! i heard that her and beyonce were fighting over him. i'm glad britney won because she's been having a hard time recently, what with her parents splitting and blacking out. pharell is fucking HOT! woo.

Jack The Bodiless

18:42 / 12.08.02

I like bubble gum. Do you like bubble gum too?

23:00 / 12.08.02

I am defitely saddened by the almost overnight switch from the four elements (mic, sneakers, turntables, spraycan) to the four sell-aments (ice, mysogony, hooks, rims). Yes, mainstream hip hop is an image based industry where an mc gets laughed at if he wears the same jacket twice, ever. Yes, females have been berated in rap looong before Mathers was in the buisness. Yes, chorus and song structure must be maintained if an "artist" wants to see any radio play at all. And Yes, like the ice, quarter-of-a-million-dollar vehicles play an important role in the status of a hip hop performer.

There are underGround artists that challage these hip hop stereotypes and I love them for it. I just think there aren't enough yet.

Regrettable Juvenilia

11:00 / 13.08.02

Yeah, I miss the days when hip-hop was less shallow and placed its emphasis on the important things. Like footwear. Er...

Something tells me remorse doesn't like bubblegum.

The Natural Way

11:15 / 13.08.02

And that he has a beard.

And some really old skool addidas.

12:24 / 13.08.02

I think sneakers = breakdancing.

autopilot disengaged

20:51 / 13.08.02

any fool can see that timbaland and the neptunes are amongst the grrreatest things to happen to pop music in some long time.

but -

anyone else heard the rumour timmy's agreed to produce sting?

No star here laces

08:14 / 14.08.02

Nelly literally gets crowned "King of Bling". The Neptunes come and live in his platinum-plated palace - Pharrell is the Grand Vizier. The King mandates that when the weather is hot, everyone must take off all their clothes. This has no official force, of course, and the King has no way of enforcing his mandate, but when No Limit begin to produce a line of iced-out platinum fig leaves the edict really takes off.

Meanwhile Sting, the King of Ming sends his evil tantric minions to poach Prince Timbaland from the magical Greenback Kingdom.

what will happen next?

20:12 / 14.08.02

I have Adidas and I dislike bugglegum very much.
What is exactly is the beard comment all about anyway? I sense ill will.

Old brown-eye is back

21:53 / 14.08.02

There's nothing wrong with beards. I had a beard once.

10:37 / 15.08.02

The phrase "beard-hop" was coined o Barbelith and as far as I understand it refers to yer Clouddead, Anti-Pop Consortium, Def Jux kinda thang. It would be fair to surmise from your post that you're into some of that action. I don't think there was any ill will, but a little poking of your stance - I don't think you wanna get too hung up on the elements/ sellaments division; it ain't all that clear cut

The Natural Way

11:09 / 15.08.02

Yeah, I actually really enjoy APC, Mike Ladd, Clouddead and all that Jazz...

So colour me bearded too.

Regrettable Juvenilia

13:19 / 15.08.02

Ill Will? Wasn't he in the Ghetto Boyz?

New thread on way.

13:25 / 15.08.02

Hey, I like it too! I was just... um... giving an uninvited interpretation of other peoples' posts.

No star here laces

13:42 / 15.08.02

Well I don't. Bah to beards.

ANYWAY, this is a pop thread. I refuse to let it degenerate into beard-baiting.

Ja Rule to collaborate with Ted Nugent? "To all my niggas that be killin' some buck..."

Nelly to make record with Cameo in mark of respect to the Neptunes' clearest influence? Platinum codpieces sweep the states and the droopy 'tache comes back into favour...

Also, what can P Diddy possibly start wearing next after the lifejacket and dressing gown combo?

21:55 / 15.08.02

i just heard that ja rule is doing a song with limp bizkit. it should be weird because ja rule has a super sexy gravelly voice whereas fred dusrt sounds like a pipsqueak.
i am not on about this collaboration.
lyra, i see what you mean about that diddy pid. can you believe that song did better than cam'ron's "oh boy"? it was so creepy and lame.