Audiophile quality Rap/Hip-Hop recordings
Jul 20, 2007 at 12:21 PM Post #16 of 30
almost forgot about Aesop Rock; especially Float and Labor Days. Aesop + Blockhead = good beats and good lyrics. Actually, even his self-produced stuff is worth listening to, just a lot more chaotic/less structured.
 
Dec 26, 2012 at 11:14 PM Post #17 of 30
This thread is like over five years old but I stumbled onto it and I thought it'd be really cool if fellow memebers could help with updating it.  there are now a bunch of really decent rap, hip hop albums, in terms of music and I'd love to know if anyone has heard some that are also pretty well recorded. 
 
I listen to a very wide genre of music through various cans and iems.  Thanks and Happy Holidays.
 
d
 
Dec 27, 2012 at 8:09 AM Post #19 of 30
without reading the thread, so i dont know if anyone mentioned this but i think ludacris is the only rapper to have a released an album in sacd format, i imagine a little more care went into the mastering of his album, forgot which one, i think it was the chicken and beer or wateva his album was called one
 
Feb 12, 2013 at 12:42 AM Post #20 of 30
I've been working on a speaker demo cd for me to do my own personal listening tests on. Although my itunes is probably 65% Rap/HipHop i am having a hard time finding good songs aswell. Over-compression being a big problem...

Kendrick Lamar - Bitch Don't Kill My Vibe (good kid, m.A.A.d city)
Bass isn't too strong and i think it's a solid mix.

I have a couple R&B songs i like however for clean vocals and a solid bassline

Alicia Keys - A Woman's Worth (Songs In A Minor)
Beyonce - Me Myself & I (Dangerously In Love)
 
Feb 4, 2016 at 8:43 AM Post #24 of 30
Digable Plants- Reachin' (A New Refutation of Time and Space) is one of only a few hip-hop CDs that I even rip to flac. Most everything else is 320. Others that sound remarkable are Nas & Damian Marley - Distant Relatives and Damian Marley - welcome to Jamrock. Theres more to list but I gotta go to work.
 
Feb 12, 2016 at 6:09 PM Post #28 of 30
Great album. I've always found it to be a quiet recording though - it may just be the CD I have. Not sure whether there were different masters for this release.

Quiet compared to modern releases, yes. Compared to Tribe Called Quest early stuff, Public Enemy's first 3 releases, Black Sheep, Ice cubes Amerikkkas Most Wanted, its the same. There was a book released awhile ago that went step by step through the recording process of like 30 of the best/influential hip hop records ever. I think it's called Check the Technique. Digable Planets reachin was one of the chapters. I need to track it down and buy it.
 
Sep 11, 2016 at 3:33 AM Post #29 of 30
first off... i'd like to point out that "gangsta rap" is NOT and never will be "hip-hop"!!! it is an abomination to hip-hop CULTURE which is about LEAVING gangs and challenging oneself to improve upon oneself in one of the ELEMENTS of hip hop...
 
1. b-boying
aka break dancing which SUBSTITUTED dancing for fighting with a code that you can NEVER so much as TOUCH an opponent "in battle"... gangsta is HIP-OPPOSITE! deal with it kids! learn some history before you spit hate and call yourself a hip-hopper and insult the originators who tried to turn their world positive, safer & more beautiful. afrikaa bambaata QUIT as the leader of the black spades gang to start the hip-hopping zulu nation. planet rock is about b-boying aka rockin'. long before B-BOYING made hip-hop a worldwide phenomenon after people saw it in flashdance, people about to fight in NYC would say "you wanna fight, or you wanna rock?" symbolically fighting with uprock (aka brooklyn rock... BEFORE there was breakin') which probably was derived from capoera, but is where the "never touch an opponent" code originated. without b-boys, there would never have been a hip-hop boom. it wasn't the music or the rapping, but the dancing that made hip-hop a thing. that's a fact. it took FOUR YEARS after the 1st rap record, rapper's delight, came out and everything after it for hip-hop to blow up overnight because of the intro to flashdance  in '83. before that, hip-hop was pretty much underground in NYC. if you REALLY want to know about the origins of hip-hop before the west coast RUINED IT, watch the freshest kids
 
2. DJing
 
3. graffiti
 
4. rap
the EASIEST of all of the elements... if you can read and write and talk rhythmically, you can rap... BFD. that can't compare to the years one can spend trying to just be competitive in the other 3 elements, so no, i don't respect "rapper's skills". i got bored with rapping because it was so easy, but NEVER mastered any of the most basic b-boy moves like headspins, windmills & flares etc. even after 5 years of trying. real b-boys blame rappers for destroying hip-hop culture
 
5. beat boxing could be considered the fifth element of hip-hop
 
with that out of the way, i approached this thread from a b-boy's perspective looking for the kinds of beats that would have, or did, go over well in clubs that played real hip-hop before it was essentially crushed by 1990 by gangsta crap and house/techno or lightweight wannabe sample based pop that took DJs out of the picture more or less forever. these beats have what i consider a hip-hop VIBE. if you don't feel 'em, i can't help you. a lot of these are vinyl only too

ripper sole - stomp (nearly 100% acoustic with chunky bass & HF dynamics)
 
peter piper - run dmc (old school 808 bass meets HF bell sound)
 
ain't nuthin' to it (intro) - k9 posse (crisp cowbell skip)
 
funky tamazula - nortec collective (thick bass with crisp percussion & acoustic horns)
 
backyard betty (instrumental) - spank rock (thick dubstep bass)
 
atomic dog - george clinton (analogue synths & *bow wow yo* & a club ruling classic that's the essence of hip-hop)
 
wobble & squeak - JFB (retro swing sound meets dubstep bass wobble & HF synths)
 
bringin' it - nightmares on wax (thick bass, saxophone sound & low level treble detail/ambience)
 
pon de replay - rihana (thick bass, vocal doubling sound & HF synths)
 
pleasure of love - tom tom club (analogue synth sound, vocals & SFX)
 
liberdade - delta nove (dynamic drums with deep bass hits)
 
feel like jumpin' (krossbow remix) - krafty kuts (full range ska/dubstep... cool video too)
 
high up on the hook - alice russel (well recorded dynamic nu-jazz with sweet vocals)
 
i know you got soul - bobby byrd (old school minimalist dynamic funk... nice ambient sound)
 
blowing up the barrio - fort knox five (ambient sound, HF percussion)
 
staten island groove - down to the bone (HQ jazz/funk & punchy drum sound)
 
un coche de agua negra - malcom mclaren (sweet vocals, punchy bass, HF percussion)
 
scratchy noise - the herbalizer (high frequency percussion)
 
the smurf - tyrone brunson (analogue synths & drums with HF percussion EFX)
 
ass kickin' bass - gramatik (thick bass guitar vs HF percussion & synth "sirens")
 
funky stuff - kool & the gang (bass subharmonic sweeps under crisp percussion)
 
beat bop (instrumental) - rammelzee vs k-rob (mostly acoustic with nice HF percussion EFX like almost ANY beat... it sounds so much better when the rapper Ses TFU)
 
hurricane season - trombone shorty (airy ambience, punch drums & HQ sound)
 
guero bounce - carnivale electricos (crisp percussion effects & blues harmonica over thick bass)
 
inosan - DJ food (acoustic drums, textures & ambience)
 
fly hawaii - luke vibert (extended frequencies, dynamic drums & ambient slide guitar reminiscent of "hula dub" by jaz & jay Z aka "girl named sophie" as a rap, & removed from youtube 2x)
 
66 meters - indian ropeman (vocal & sitar HFs in 1st half, ambient organ & HF synths 2nd half)
 
as seen in 822 ad - anubian lights (HF percussion & ambient chants)

dogs (instrumental) - haiku d'etat (super crisp HF percussion)

kinda laid back - birdy nam nam (ambient live sounding nu-jazz cut & scratch)

radio active (dub version) - steps ahead   (bouncy dynamic beats with live sax & vibes. vinyl only. the album version on CD SUCKS!)
 
salvador - coldcut & hexastatic   (clear percussion & thick bass... awesome video too)
 
smoke signals - emancipator (crisp acoustic sound & HF birds)
 
underwater love - smoke city (sweet vocals, killer percussion EFX, ambience... one of the two amazing videos that was censored is back, minus some of the intro)
 
was dog a doughnut - jellybean (thick bass with nice HF percussion & synths)
 
transform gravity - metabass & breath (crisp sounding acoustic beatboxing with ambient vocoder)
 
state farm - yaz (dynamic drum rolls & analogue synths. not hip-hop, but people used to break to this in clubs all the time)
 
 
EDITED:   beat goes boom (stupid fresh remix) - alex schmitz (punchy bass drum & synth sounds NOTE: the youtube video that CLAIMS to be the stupid fresh mix is an extra lame techno mix & it's no longer available on juno for CD quality downloads)
 
clek clek boom - voltaire (HF percussion & handclaps)
 
no links for:
 
breakdance (flexin' limbs mix) - prisoners of technology (full range SFX, interesting bass. used to be on grooveshark. there used to be an edited version online somewhere, but apparently that's gone too... vinyl only... good luck finding it. it's like there's a conspiracy to keep it from being heard!)
 
say that then (instrumental) - giant panda (bouncy bass & smooth HFs. used to be on grooveshark... might be on juno)
 

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