Topic: The Music Thread

@Black_Swordsman To me, hip-hop is socially conscious by nature. I can appreciate some of the gangsta stuff, for various reasons, but it generally doesn’t speak to me on a personal level (After reading ‘Monster’ by Sanyika Shakur as a teen, gangsta life lost any romanticism and just became a social issue to me). I’ve been around hip-hop my whole life, have friends who are artists and really just love the wordplay and raw means of communicating complex ideas. I won’t shy away from darker material (Swollen Members’ songs are full of violent and dark imagery after all), but I do generally align myself with more positive messages and energies these days. But that’s all fairly subjective, isn’t it? I totally agree that variety in all genres of music should be encouraged and welcomed.

I saw the Nikki Iles Jazz Orchestra yesterday afternoon w/ Mike Walker on guitar. Two amazing sets. Fantastic musicians but Mike stood out to me for obvious reasons as we play the same instrument, when I got home I tried out a few of his licks that I remembered from the gig. Great guitarist, in a similar neck of the woods, musically speaking, to John Scofield and the late John Abercrombie.

Cyclone

I think Rob Luft is the jazz guitar equivalent of Bone Thugs N Harmony. So fast you can't really discern every phrase but you love the overall feeling of the song.

Edit: Also Marc Ribot is the connoisseur's Nels Cline imo. No disrespect intended to Mr. Cline.

Short but sweet. Experimental guitar-based heavy music track.

https://open.spotify.com/track/5xNXthlCHq7uKpGGeYQKeu?si=acc5...

@Jimmer-jammer Thought I'd send some more heavy music that we both can appreciate your way! This is a jazz guitarist (Marc Ribot) who also dabbles in heavy music playing rock-adjacent/metal-adjacent music/avant garde jazz interpretations of composer John Zorn's works. Hope you like!

N.B Let me know if you like surf rock 'cause they've done a surf rock-adjacent album together in that style as well.

@Black_Swordsman Thanks! I’ll be sure to give it a listen. As for surfer rock, I’ll listen to just about anything, man 😄

@Jimmer-jammer Excellent, man, let me know what you think of it once you've listened to it. Here is the link to the surf rock/ jazz fusion album! Be great to get your opinion on both ,once you've heard them both actually.

Amazing hip hop from a criminally underrated artist.

Quality hip hop.

I’ll give it a listen and come back. Big hip hop fan.

@Yousef- Oh really? Who are your favourites?

@BlAcK_SwOrDsMaN sorry I took a while to reply.

My list is a little unorthodox so here goes:

• Ice Cube
• Skee-Lo
• THE WEEKND
• Kurtis Blow
• Ye
• Big Daddy Kane
• The Notorious B.I.G
• Dr Dre
• Wu Tang Clan
• N.W.A
• Nate Dogg
• Isly Brothers
• Patrice Rushen
• Mystikal
• DMX
• Slim Shady
• 50 Cent
• Crooked

XD sorry the list is so long, i really like hiphop. I kinda had to stop at some point or it would inflate further.

@Yousef- Out of that list, I like Ice Cube, Ye, The Notorious B.I.G, Dr Dre & Wu Tang Clan and about 50 more that aren't my favourites but I rate in tiers sort of thing, and vary my listening habits according to mood. You have excellent taste in hip hop. What did you think of the Benny the Butcher album, by the way?

@BlAcK_SwOrDsMaN I really loved it! Had to renew my Spotify premium to be able to turn off the forced shuffle feature. It’s exactly my vibe! I always adore hiphop with some deep message underneath.

The first half was pretty great. Blood money might be my favorite.

Don’t make me is also really good. Such a great way to end the album.

@Yousef- Great! If you liked that you might like 'Burden of Proof' even more, it's produced by Hit-Boy of Nas fame, feel free to send any hip hop recommendations you think I might like my way as well!

@Yousef- Also, do you like any jazz? Be great if you could let me know which artists ,if any, you like in that genre too, just a couple of favourites will do. 😂
But yeah, Jazz & Hip Hop are all I really listen to, used to listen to rock and metal and then found music that spoke to me more.

@BlAcK_SwOrDsMaN I do! Heavy metal too! I’ll leave some recs after work. System of a Down is an easy pick right off the gate.

@Yousef- Oh, sorry, I only meant jazz recs, much appreciated though. 😃

Haha, aight! I’m a bit rusty on jazz recs but I can recommend Latino by Kenneth M Gregory and April in Paris by Count Basie. Hope those are good! @BlAcK_SwOrDsMaN