#HIP HOP NEWS 2017 CRACK#

Indeed, the one jarring thing about the Hamilton cast recording is how much verbal information the listener is required to take in, which is perhaps fitting, given the title character’s oft-remarked-on propensity for going on a bit. You don’t have to listen too closely to “A Winter’s Ball” or “The World Was Wide Enough” to imagine the songs recast as something more straightforward – the vocals less theatrical, a bit of Auto-Tune, the pit orchestra replaced by samples. It’s beautifully, subtly done: the way “Satisfied” weaves an R&B melody and agile rapping around sweeping strings and chorus-line backing vocals how “Wait for It” gently introduces the influence of Jamaican dancehall in its stuttering beat. The two sound perfectly integrated: it never feels awkward, as if the hip-hop and R&B aspects have been grafted on for the sake of it. This is obviously all great fun, but what Hamilton’s preponderance of lyrical references really shows is author Lin-Manuel Miranda’s profound love and understanding of hip-hop, which perhaps accounts for his ability to interweave it so neatly with more traditional musical fare. Hamilton star freestyle raps with Obama at the White House Guardian Indeed, finding yourself quoted in the musical has become such a badge of honour that LL Cool J, whose 1987 hit “ I Need Love” was referenced in the original off-Broadway production but subsequently removed for copyright reasons, personally intervened in an attempt to get it reinstated. More dedicated fans still have spotted lyrics echoing lines by everyone from Mobb Deep to Eminem to DMX.

#HIP HOP NEWS 2017 CRACK#

More dedicated hip-hop fans might notice straight away that the title of “Ten Duel Commandments” is a deliberate echo of the Notorious B.I.G.’s “Ten Crack Commandments”. Pretty much anyone with a passing interest in pop could presumably spot the refrain from Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s groundbreaking 1982 “The Message” interpolated into “Cabinet Battles”. No rapper in history has ever rapped the way the cast of Hamilton rapīut equally, the lyrics come packed with references, of varying degrees of obliqueness, to classic hip-hop of varying degrees of obscurity. Indeed, it occasionally dispenses with the latter genres altogether in favour of razzle-dazzle showstoppers (“The Story of Tonight”, “It’s Quiet Uptown”) or, in the case of “You’ll Be Back”, the kind of 60s sunshine pop exemplified by the Turtles’ “ Happy Together”. It’s resolutely a product of Broadway, from the dexterous vocals with their impeccably clear enunciation – no rapper in history has ever rapped the way the cast of Hamilton rap – to the music, which clearly has as much to do with showtunes as hip-hop or R&B. In a sense that feels surprising, because the one thing the Hamilton cast album isn’t is a hip-hop album: no one in the mood to hear Joey Badass or Lil Uzi Vert is ever going to pause, reconsider and put Hamilton on instead. Phillipa Soo, Renée Elise Goldsberry and Jasmine Cephas Jones in Hamilton at the Richard Rodgers theatre in New York. And in the US, at least, that’s how the album appears to have been taken: it has sold around 1m copies, has topped the hip-hop chart and the Broadway chart and was as warmly received by rap fans as aficionados of the Great White Way. It suggested that its makers intended the Hamilton album to function as a standalone work, rather than a souvenir of a night out. It was recorded with far more care and attention to detail than is usual – they tend to be knocked off in a single recording session, but the production of Hamilton was overseen by Questlove and Black Thought of the Roots, who are clearly no one’s idea of fly-by-night bandwagon jumpers hell bent on sanitising hip-hop for the Andrew Lloyd Webber massive. In theory at least, it sounds like the kind of thing a teacher of the call-me-by-my-first-name variety might drag their class along to see.īut then the success of the Hamilton cast album, or rather the nature of its success, suggests that might be a hasty judgment. The spectre of something obviously put together with the best intentions but potentially agonising looms over the whole concept of Hamilton, earnest historical story and all. A voice for the underprivileged, it is seldom improved by gentrification. Of all the genres in pop, hip-hop is the one most obviously from the street.

Hip hop news 2017