clap clap blog: we have moved


Tuesday, May 02, 2006


Kind of crickets on the novelty stuff right now, which is fair enough, but while you're, um, "digesting," let me point you toward Tom Breihan's most recent post, which is about hip-hop and Frank Kogen and immigrants and dovetails nicely with the novelty stuff, I think.

For these guys, having an opinion on hip-hop is directly contingent to being hip-hop, and being hip-hop depends on adhering to certain aesthetic and cultural codes. A term like hip-hop means more than a term like rap music. Rap music means music with rapping on it. Hip-hop means burned-out Bronx tenement houses in the mid-70s and climbing fences into train yards and stealing electricity from street lights to fuel open-air DJ parties and Busy Bee battling Kool Moe Dee and KRS-One pushing Price Be offstage. The term has baggage, and that's why I don't use it.
Next up...well, I'm not sure. Maybe I should take a poll or something. But right now I have to go do some guitar edits.