One of the things I decided to try to do was listen to more hip hop. I enjoy rap, rapping and rappers, but my experience with the genre is really microcosmic focusing on “Rap White People Like” and a strong familiarity with Ye Olde Skool (see “Rap White People Like”).

My disinterest began in 1992 when I first heard Dr. Dre’s The Chronic. It was everything I hated in hip hop amplified to a million, then that whole area became the fixture. I was living in Texas surrounded by whites and hispanics; so my only exposure to rap at the time was what was played on MTV and what I would pick up through osmosis. I didn’t like what I heard, so I didn’t really try to dig any deeper, and I was too wrapped up in the the Industrial music I was starting to obsess over to really care about anything other else.

What I heard was not…encouraging. From Dre it seemed to go to Puff Daddy whose empire built on the back of Biggie always struck me as exploitative as fuck and the music pushed a repugnant lifestyle of crass commercialism and excess for the sake of excess. From there it went to Jay-Z and No Limit and the rise of Rapper as CEO and the less said about that the better.

I probably didn’t give a fuck about rap except for stuff my skater friends played in high school and didn’t honestly go back to explore any of what I may have missed until someone played Dr Octagon and I realized that there was this huge undercurrent of music which I had ignored.

I ensconced in the ignored subscenes of one musical genre whose allegiance was total. It never occurred to me that the same thing would be happening in hip hop. This is probably why I don’t get nostalgic, because I see now how fucking stupid I was when I was younger.

I began to look deeper into what I had missed, but overshot, determined to skip the mainstream success stories. God help me, I listened to a lot of backpacker music until I had felt that I had filled whatever void I had within me.

By then I was deeply into dance music which meant buying records and working on being a DJ. My only experience with rap was remixes and mash ups and the twists and turns that culture of a million different genres took with hip hop. I was picking up a thread from when i was younger.

Let’s skip ahead.

I remember reading something, probably either a Das Racist interview or Chris Weingarten rant about how music blogger suck at dealing with hip hop, either ignoring it completely or only listening to a few pre-approved acts. There’s no work at the act of discovery like there is with indie music. I don’t really consider myself an indie music blog (which is a sure indicator that I am one), but what was said was definitely true. My experience with hip hop currently was one of passivity. It would come to me, I wouldn’t go out of my way to seek it out and as such, I only got the stuff that everyone else was discussing, which I usually didn’t like.

Rather than continue to ignore it, this year I decided to try to make hip hop a larger part of my listening and cultural dialog and since the KoTGB was all but abandoned, I didn’t really share anything I had found or what I had done to find the music I enjoyed.

This post is going to correct that a little and give shout outs to the people who I’ve found helpful in really getting a handle on what makes up my listening in hip hop.

egotripland.com. The greatest hip hop magazine ever made has been reborn. Discusses mostly recent history from when the magazine was first around, a period of time I wasn’t into hip hop. I had access to this mag, I probably would have paid attention more. The Book of Rap Lists and Book of Racism are amazing.

Nah Right / XXL: I end up hating like 80% of what they cover, but that 20% makes it worth it. There’s a lot of overflow between the two, but I keep both around because they usual have stuff worth reading. XXL is so entrenched though, that when you see stuff like the huge anti-odd future rant you just roll your eyes and then when you see the magazine begin to devote slavish coverage to them, you know the fix is in.

Potholes in my Blog: They cover every genre with a strong focus on hip hop and I like what they cover. I was trying to write for them, but I guess they didn’t like the thrashing I gave to the new album from Twilight Singers. Potholes gets you in on the ground floor on a lot of stuff. They hipped me to Clams Casino and Man Mantis well before the indie centric blogs began their slavish devotion. Not a lot of original content, most of it is “we got this from some PR, here’s a paragraph on what we think and the link” but the editor has a good ear.

Tape Diggers (aka shit i slept on) A collection of old hip hop mix tapes. Always amazing listening.

Diggers Union Local 1200, More videos you’ve seen everywhere else than original content nowadays, but when they cover music, it’s usually worth checking out.

Wax Poetics: Great magazine, horrible web presence. You’d think they’d be inundated with stuff they’d love to cover but don’t have space to do, but it’s mostly PR and reminisces on the anniversaries of deaths and births.

Nu-Soul Magazine: Mostly PR info, but they’re out of LA, so it’s info about an area and scene with which I’m unfamiliar.

Space Age Hustle: “Cloud Rap” Prophet covering music I usually don’t end up liking, but am always glad to hear the directions the genre is being pushed.

I’m going to compile some of the hip hop albums and mix tapes that I’ve really been digging and do a blog post to show what all this work has been about.