Citatendonderdag

Denn das l'art pour l'art ist ja fast niemals buchstäblich zu nehmen gewesen, fast immer eine Flagge, unter der ein Gut segelt, das man nicht deklarieren kann, weil der Name noch fehlt.

-- Walter Benjamin

At the risk of over intellectualizing, actual experimental rap happens all the time. You just weren’t paying attention (probably because you were partying/nodding your head/rapping along/stoned/drunk). It’s experimental when Timbaland gets a party started with a hiccuping baby or when Cam’ron/Posdnous/Project Pat/E-40 toys with language. It’s in the stark minimalism of snap music or the arhythmical stutter of Pharoahe Monch. Whether they know it or not, most hip hop producers refining and expanding upon techniques that were created by dorks in labcoats. And the best rappers are constantly breaking all the rules of literary and poetic convention. This is why, for all it’s success, rap is an intensely insular movement. This is why “Rappers Delight” (a fifteen minute song with no singing and no chorus that still got radio play) was so polarizing 25 years ago and why today TI can sell a million records in a month, have a hit movie out and still remain completely unknown by the bulk of the American public. Because all rap flies in the face of hundreds of years of musical conventions. It’s just so damn weird.

-- Posse On Blogway