I LOVE my hip-hop gig. It's definitely near my top styles to spin, and I like the venue I have (even though I have a midweek set which thins the crowd potential). I just wish I could transplant the scene somewhere with true hip-hop fans. They're so few and far between up here. I get requests for such GARBAGE sometimes, and I hate shopping for records having to find the recent mainstream radio trash just to appease my audience and the cats who work the bar that get more money when I pull in more people.
The other day I had that conversation with one of the clerks at my local record shop (Electric Fetus, much love!). He's an indie rocker type, plays in a solid local group, and we've seen eachother out and about with some brief interactions. He was ringing up my stack and said, "You've got a whole dance party set going here". So I told him about my new spot at Red Star and how it forces me to buy this crap in order to keep people on the floor--and I then told him the new Lyrics Born album was just for me haha. While he understood my pain, at least he reminded me of the silver lining: that a lot of the popular records do actually have 1 or 2 tight tracks among the deeper cuts. He's right, of course. And some of the popular stuff with terrible lyricism has decent production, so I can at least get down to that even if the MC is a fucking joke (Hello, Kanye West on just about everything he did after College Dropout).
I sit at work with my ipod overflowing with good hip-hop, the kind of stuff discerning fans listen to, and I know that 98% of it I could never play at the club if I want people to dance because it doesn't have fucking T-Pain on it. It's sad, yo. I have to travel back in musical time to hear any really good shit, and I worry people are going to think my collection is too nostalgic and played out if I don't stay on top of the pulse--which is nearly flatlining. The genre more or less as a whole is in serious decline.
The flipside to that is when I find something really good, club worthy, and fresh as hell, I have to remember that I live in Minnesnowta and it won't make it to the general public here for another 3 months. Sadly, I don't have the influence or the audience to break a record (although neither does anyone else around here). Maybe I'll get there one day, but right now I've gotta squirrel my gold away until somebody asks me for it so I can be sure someone wants to hear it. It's like I've got a Back 2 The Future thing going on, making myself notes of really hot music, and then leaving them for an older version of myself to find when they're finally relevant, and hoping it doesn't mess up the space-time continuum by finding the notes too early. It's a fine, fine line. Good thing I've got cat-like balance.
Death to auto-tune!!
xoxoxox
The other day I had that conversation with one of the clerks at my local record shop (Electric Fetus, much love!). He's an indie rocker type, plays in a solid local group, and we've seen eachother out and about with some brief interactions. He was ringing up my stack and said, "You've got a whole dance party set going here". So I told him about my new spot at Red Star and how it forces me to buy this crap in order to keep people on the floor--and I then told him the new Lyrics Born album was just for me haha. While he understood my pain, at least he reminded me of the silver lining: that a lot of the popular records do actually have 1 or 2 tight tracks among the deeper cuts. He's right, of course. And some of the popular stuff with terrible lyricism has decent production, so I can at least get down to that even if the MC is a fucking joke (Hello, Kanye West on just about everything he did after College Dropout).
I sit at work with my ipod overflowing with good hip-hop, the kind of stuff discerning fans listen to, and I know that 98% of it I could never play at the club if I want people to dance because it doesn't have fucking T-Pain on it. It's sad, yo. I have to travel back in musical time to hear any really good shit, and I worry people are going to think my collection is too nostalgic and played out if I don't stay on top of the pulse--which is nearly flatlining. The genre more or less as a whole is in serious decline.
The flipside to that is when I find something really good, club worthy, and fresh as hell, I have to remember that I live in Minnesnowta and it won't make it to the general public here for another 3 months. Sadly, I don't have the influence or the audience to break a record (although neither does anyone else around here). Maybe I'll get there one day, but right now I've gotta squirrel my gold away until somebody asks me for it so I can be sure someone wants to hear it. It's like I've got a Back 2 The Future thing going on, making myself notes of really hot music, and then leaving them for an older version of myself to find when they're finally relevant, and hoping it doesn't mess up the space-time continuum by finding the notes too early. It's a fine, fine line. Good thing I've got cat-like balance.
Death to auto-tune!!
xoxoxox