Juuso Koponen (mekaanikko@dlc.fi)
Sat, 04 Dec 1999 02:14:49 +0200
> >lately (say, from 1996 or so), French hiphop in average has been a way
> >more innovative, interesting and maybe even techincally on a higher
> >level, than its US counterpart.
> I havent heard too much french hiphop, but there really is *alot* of US
> hiphop which is *very* inovative. Check the stuff from Anticon (sole, dose
> one, them, etc), blackalicious and latyrx, anything related to Project
> Blowed, Living Legends, Divine Styler ("wordpower 2" has been out in the
> states for close to a year, but will get its european release trough mowax
> soon), Company Flow (faaar from my faves, but atleast El-P's beats are
> innovative).. etc. There is so much stuff going on over there that (sadly)
> never gets much attention.
Okay, gotta admit I didn't quite make myself clear there. I am not
saying that US hiphop isn't innovative, it's just that the stuff I've
heard during the last years (which must be very, very small a slice of
the hiphop scene, since I'm not so acitvely into that stuff) from the US
hasn't been so innovative as the stuff I've heard coming from France,
IMO. But then, there really isn't a objective way to say what is
innovative and what is not. And as I said, my sampling isn't quite that
extensive.
> And as for being "technicaly good", i cant even remember the last time i
> heard a album as well produced as Blackalicious' "nia".
Yeah, gotta admit that US producers still have the edge on technical
quality over Europeans, in most cases. But some French hiphop LP's just
rock with the production quality and all that shit, I mean, Saian Supa
Crew's LP called KLR is one of the finest records both musically-wise
and productionally-wise to my very uneducated ears, that I've heard in
hiphop in some time.
(Then again, what is hiphop is quite another question. Personally I
would say, for example, that DJ Shadow or even Massive Attack could be
classified as hiphop in a sense, but then some others argue that hiphop
= rap. Which I don't quite agree on.)
> been able to move me.. atleast not in the same way as producers like Fat
> Jack, Primo, DJ Shadow, Chief Xcel, Evidence and Mighty Mi.
Funny actually, to me DJ Shadow has always represented a very British
sound of hip/trip hop in some way. It might be just that he's on Mo'Wax,
but something in his music sounds sooo British to me that it's really
bizarre. Dunno what it is.
> Word to Finland! I dont know why, but it seems like LA and Bay Area hiphop
> is pretty big over there. If im not mistaken, B-Boy Kingdom even has heads
> over in Finland!. Ive only heard one group from Finland, cant remember their
> name, but they sounded very westcoast'ish (and i mean that in a good
> way!)... much better than what i had expected.
Gotta admit that my knowledge of the Finnish hiphop scene is very
limited. But there are some neat groups I personally like. Pepé Deluxe
on Catskills Records, UK, produces nice instrumental stuff.
Fintelligence is probably the best crew rhyming in Finnish that I've
heard, and DJ Didier's stuff I've also enjoyed a lot.
> Sweden isnt half bad either.. ive been pumping the new Petter album for the
> last couple of weeks, even Ayo's album is nice. (i really should get ahold
The Petter stuff is very nice, haven't heard the whole album, but what
I've heard is some no-bullshit stuff indeed.
> Anyway.. you should look into some of the independent stuff (more
> independent than PBWolf) coming out of LA and the Bay... im sure some of it
> must be available in Finland (since B-Boy Kingdom has people over there).
Gotta check it. I mostly get my stuff from Germany, actually, but gotta
keep my eyes open..
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