A Beginner's Hip Hop Playlist | Hacker News Reader

A Beginner's Hip Hop Playlist

gist.github.com

40 pointszmatilsky26 comments

I would have liked to see less mainstream artists and more underground artists.

Hip hop, by definition, at least to me, is more of an underground culture evolving from jazz, funk and poetry. I also think most people have heard these songs because they are pretty widespread on the radio, like Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, Outkast, Drake, Beastie Boys... etc.

A better introduction would be to move through different hip hop periods to show how the sound has evolved as the genre has matured, including artists that are actually in it for the art and not solely for the money.

Very fair criticism, I think when I was putting this together I went the mainstream route because I wanted to get broad appeal from people who had never even given the genre a chance, but thinking more about it your suggestions make a lot of sense (i.e. moving through different periods).

This is a really shitty intro to hip hop. Clearly the author is like 16 years old as he neglected to include anything pre-1996 except Sabotage.

Not to mention, it's all rap. There is plenty of quality instrumental hip-hop that deserves a mention.

Entroducing (1996) by DJ Shadow remains one of my all time favs. I believe it may even have been the very first album composed entirely from samples*

edit: * Wikipedia doesn't say it was the first.

he neglected to include anything pre-1996

Why is that a bad thing? If I, as someone who knows nothing about the genre, wants to find out what it's all about, isn't it better to start with contemporary bands that are still active so that I can get a feel for the current state of the hip hop scene? All else being equal, I prefer to discover new bands that are still putting out material and touring to discovering 'new' bands where the last member died 1998.

The 90's era was great but is extremely overrated. IMO the 90's doesn't come close to the 2000's and 2010's and I grew up on the 90's.

What songs would you suggest for that time period?

It's not totally terrible, but I do think its lacking without some Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul or maybe even The Roots for example - its quite Rap based and Rap != HipHop.

Good suggestions, definitely all worth checking out.

Nobody, let alone a hip hop beginner, should be subjected to Joey Bada$$.

His last album included collaborations with some of the most legendary producers in rap/hip hop including Statik Selektah, DJ Premiere, and the Roots. In fact, the Roots collab featured a previously lost beat from J. Dilla, another legend. It's a strong album that any true fan of the genre would appreciate. He's also a great sonic and lyrical bridge between the 90s style and modern day. His current album features Schoolboy Q, Styles P, and J.Cole, among others, and is unabashedly political and, at times, quite poignant. I just wanted to reply to your comment so people wouldn't be influenced by your uninformed opinion. In many ways, people who reminisce about the 90s and think rap/hip hop has changed too much or died, might be reinvigorated by Joey. I also challenge you to give him another listen :)

This is a decent list, though I'm not sure why Dave made it over Wu Tang or A Tribe Called Quest.

Wu Tang and Tribe definitely should've been included, bad oversight on my part... I included Dave more because I thought it would be interesting for people to see an international artist, not because I thought he was better than either of those groups. I guess I did have that covered with Skepta though.

The list needs some Kool Keith, MF Doom, and Aesop Rock, but I'm biased.

Yeah, the omission of Aes was pretty bad.

It's skewed heavily to really really new stuff (and they're on the money with Kendrick, Chance, J Cole) but …

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Qpbd-fHbMyfWXlWPRA_X...

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ewEzXRHj8LGvUB3g9Qbn...

The best place to start is https://reddit.com/r/hiphopheads

Lists can't cover everything, even your best albums list is lacking. Where for example are Critical Beatdown, Hard to Earn, Stunts Blunts and Hip Hop, 2000, Paid in Full, Funcrusher Plus, Unfinished Business, Breaking Atoms on that list?

not my list, that's the standard response in r/hhh to the same question

People being over critical here. Hip hop is great in all forms from underground to more popular artists, mumble to conscious.

Not sure what your goal of putting this together and posting on HN was though.

Post edit:

black thought is the GOAT though, how many rappers got a salaried day job on a talk show

yeah I definitely should have had the roots on there, there were a few major omissions here that people have accurately pointed out. to answer your earlier question, no particular goal in sharing this on hn, just thought it would be fun to encourage people to listen to music that they may have avoided in the past and get feedback from hip hop fans.

This is more of a meta-comment, but is this being upvoted because it's on github? I think this is a great list, but there are many similar to it not hosted on github.

I'd say it's being upvoted because people think it's a good list. I don't recall seeing other such lists submitted to HN (which doesn't mean there haven't been, just that my memory's not perfect and I haven't seen every submission), and what hasn't been submitted can't be upvoted. I don't think where it's hosted has anything to do with it.

Nice playlist!

Shameless plug, but you can also check out a collection of my favorite songs on my Juicebox: http://www.juicebox.dj/lawrence

It's mostly hip-hop, deep house, and experimental music.

Upvoted this only because I feel that hiphop is a genre that doesn't appeal much to the hacker news crowd, which, from my experience, is more focused on metal, electronic or classic.

Good playlist but ultimately (and predictably) incomplete

I don't get why people use GitHub for their random lists of shit they like...

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