why isnt what boom bip does hip hop?

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Sure I know this is a Pitchfork review, so the source should be considered. Consider the opening line, though: Boom Bip's Seed to Sun isn't hip-hop. Hip-hop is dirty, concrete, in-your-face visceral, and reflective of an on-going public discourse. Are these really the qualities that determine what is or is not hip-hop? I've always thought that hip hop as more of a way music is constructed -- a structure built on turntables, samples, rapping/vocals, beats, etc. Or is Boom Bip not hip hop because of his race? Can only African Americans make hip-hop? (a snarky questions, I know, but look at the derision put on derisively named "backpacker hip-hop." Is hip-hop just the CNN for the street? Or songs about partying and smoking weed?

― Jack Cole, Wednesday, 31 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

they write "reflective of an on-going public discourse" = they are not allowed to make pronouncement on what is and is not hip hop

― mark s, Wednesday, 31 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Haha: Pitchfork is in a "public dialogue" with ITSELF!

Chris Dahlen sez of Boom Bip and Doseone's Circle:


Circle is a hip-hop album. But it transcends hip-hop, or any other 

style: it's one of the most sui generis records of the past few 

years, a mutant crossbreed of poetry and sound. It's not ambient, but 

it insinuates itself into your head; it has beats, yet the music 

fades in and drops away. It's dreamy, and then it's manic, insomnia-

fevered, gripping the sheets in a wordless immature panic. It's an 

album about childhood and adulthood, mature but unsophisticated-- a 

massive performance wide-eyed with sincerity.

― Sterling Clover, Wednesday, 31 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

sui generis = it is not a crossbreed!!

― mark s, Wednesday, 31 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i mean, i know that paragraph is all creative opposites AND SO AM I but this one just undoes itself...

― mark s, Wednesday, 31 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

"Is hip-hop just the CNN for the street? Or songs about partying and smoking weed? "

ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ.....

Both, and many things else besides....

― Ben Williams, Wednesday, 31 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Hell no, but yet its that too. You can't differentihate just coz you done read a book or two.

― Sterling Clover, Wednesday, 31 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I read the above from Sam's review as a rhetorical flourish, i.e. 'this is not what you conventionally think of hip-hop' ... in both examples, the product of someone thinking through the standard signifiers and presenting you with the thought process that draws out the impracticalities in the notion of 'difference' -- intro graphs as 'blog-influenced internal monologue -- paralleling the creative opposites of a typical verse -- review imitates genre.

― Dare, Wednesday, 31 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Boom Bip and DOseone are Hip Hop if you are prepared to accept progress with the genre.

If you are the hip hop equivalent of Bleacker St folk stuckists unable to accept that Dylan went electric then I guess they are not

Boom Bip and his ilk are evidence that Hip Hop can progress

― sonicred, Wednesday, 31 July 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

yes, sonicred that may be so (and i do not dispute that they are hip hop in the slightest), but the implication in your post seems to be that were it not for boom bip et al, hip hop would not be progressing, that it would be stagnant, but surely the huge success of timbaland, the neptunes etc disproves this?

― gareth, Thursday, 1 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

A lot of things people say imply that white guys transcend hip hop with 'progression' while black guys are just really good at it (unless they're Outkast). It's a common misperception that Anticon somehow bring hip hop to the next plane towards nirvana simply because their brand of hip hop is so affected and altered by their natural "whiteness", for lack of a better term. However, it's also wrong to blame them or tell them they aren't hip hop for being who they are (although they ironically deny being hip hop themselves).

― Honda, Thursday, 1 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I guess good hip hop is hard to find when you are not a fan searching for it and you get to hear the headlines of what is emerging - Jurassic 5, NERD et al. I listen lots of shit rock and pop - much of which does not make any progress on stuff that has gone. However the amount of music that falls into rockand pop means it does eventually progress somewhere down the line. Rarely is a band excluded from rock and pop

I am not making any sense.... blah blah

― sonicred, Sunday, 4 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

as dare stated, this was merely a rhetorical flourish. who the fuck am i to say what is or isn't hip hop? i write reviews on a website, and hip hop is a lot bigger than that. i was also very aware of chris saying this *was* hip hop. but don't believe us; decide for yourself.

― sam chennault, Thursday, 15 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

one month passes...

I don't know why everyone thinks Sam and I are contradicting each other when we're talking about two separate, very different albums.

― Chris Dahlen, Wednesday, 18 September 2002 22:39 (twenty-three years ago)

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