Fun Fact: Chilly Tee gave up rapping after his Bomb Squad produced LP tanked and got into the movie business, serving as the Lead Animator for stop motion films Coraline, The Boxtrolls and Paranorman (which is one of the better kids films I’ve seen in recent times).
No Country For Old (Rap) Men: The Lessons That Hip-Hop Forgot
HIP HOP HAS BEEN COMPLETELY SUPPLANTED BY EDM. NOT SAYING IM HAPPY ABOUT IT BUT FACTS ARE FACTS. YOU CANT DOWNLOAD A RAVE FOR FREE ON YOUR IPHONE WORD TO SFX ENTERTAINMENT AND AFROJACK GETTING PAID 7 FIGURES A NIGHT TO PRESS A SPACE BAR IN VEGAS.
good article Robbie, hip hip had really lost it.
The industry has taken our codes, this shit is so fucked up…
peace D
Hip Hop’s a culture predicated on appropriation and disrespectful arseholes taking other people’s words/sounds out of context. Ghostwritten manufactured pop rap has been part of the culture for as long as I can remember (and probably since day one). Everybody’s particular notion of “real” hip hop is/was simply people making the most of the resources they could access at that time. Don’t get me wrong, for the most part, I am most likely a Boombap/Conscious rap dinosaur but I’m open to new and interesting stuff. Too many rap fans/acts confuse the time when they were most excited by rap with the best era of rap. Heads decide a certain aesthetic/style/values is “real” hip hop because those sounds/ideals tie in with their formative years.
Just talking with the wifey the other day… cant listen for too long anymore cause its boring/repetitive. .. been getting into classic rock a bit…
Edm is the new! But lets not forget hiphop pushed disco and house outta the way over 30 years ago.
I guess the hunger is gone, and the good new stuff aint sticking.
Good points raised all round. Think we’ve just gotta get over it. The music that pissed Authority figures off in the 80s/90 will not have the same effect when those same people these days either grew up with it (or acting like they did to be ‘down’).
Internet kills the whole sub-culture / rarity thing too. For me as a suburban kids growing up in Australia half the fun was in the missions into the city -import record stores etc- to buy that album / graff mag that no one else had. These days it just seems too easy.
Coraline, The Boxtrolls and Paranorman were all released by Laika, which is owned by Phil Knight, Nike co-founder and chairman. His son, Travis (Chilly Tee) acts as its president and CEO.
@Fosterakahunter: So the ‘Lead Animator’ credit is some ol’ bullshit or no?
@Robbie, ehh, he could wear multiple hats.. Truthfully, he could be whatever he wanted to be at his old man’s company.
@Fosterakahunter : I like to imagine he walks around the office blasting ‘Audi Like Jetta’ and telling the staff to “Just do it!” whenever they complain about something.
Before Coraline, Paranorman etc, Travis/Chilly cut his animation teeth on The PJs. What I find interesting about Chilly T is that while most of his album is ghostwritten by YBT’s Firstdown, the strongest cuts are the two which Knight himself penned. If I were to enlist a ghostwriter, I’d seek to enlist somebody from a higher rung on the credibility/skills ladder than myself. Go figure….
Speaking of YBT, please find those cats and do a piece on them…and find out about the whereabouts of crew member Shorty Dog (Shorty Dog is in the cypher so you better not skip)…word!!!
First Born was his name.
My bad, yes, First Born. Either way, it struck me as odd that Chilly/Bomb Squad enlisted him.
hip hop was corporatized and watered down starting 25-30 years ago, is it any real surprise that there’s only small amounts of quality new material now released to us old heads? you know it’s over when the biggest market for fans over 30 y.o. is reissuing old material on vinyl. i agree with tom silverman’s assessment that hip hop will likely be usurped in time, but by what i don’t know. maybe it’s just me but i’d rather not see a piece about ybt, i still remember them from the first time around and feel queasy just with that thought.
So, Mr Tee is actually the son of Phil Knight, AND lead animator for The Boxtrolls & Paranorman. Makes perfect sense how/why Nike had those limited edition Roshe & Foamposite tie-ins with those movies.
Yeah, it might seem strange, although Bomb Squad handled production on both of YBTs albums(even signed by them if Im not mistaken?), so they probably thought First Born would be a great fit for this new signing then.
It would be interesting to read about YBT, to find out first how they came to link up with the Bomb Squad, and then to knoe what happened after Tap the bottle, which was huge, when they just fell off the face of the earth. I remember Ed Lover on Yo MTV Raps once, saying something during the end credits to the effect of “No thanks to Rush management, for screwing up Young Black Teenagers career”, I always wondered what that was about.
@PAS: Shout outs to DJ Rectangle for his work on The Cindy Margolis Show and for paving the way for the GOAT DJ Pauly D.
Haha, damn thats harsh haha
@PAS
I believe the story goes YBT were discovered by Public Enemy on Long Island. So there’s the Bomb Squad connection. Busta once talked about how LONS (who were also discovered by PE around the same time) originally had the YBT name, but Chuck D switched the group names.
I remember Kam’Ron had the part in House Party 2 & then disappeared. DJ Scribble had the MTV gig.
@PAS
Just looked at the Busta interview. Both LONS & YBT wanted the LONS group name & Chuck D made them battle for it by making a song dissing the old school. Busta’s group had the better song & won the LONS group name.
Kamron is a DJ & is currently managing/producing/touring with Pharoahe Monch.