People and rap music.

[Himu]

Yup, I discovered this too. While I could appreciate rap from every era, most guys listened to the current albums. I remember one time when I was at my nephew's place and dl'ed Straight Outta Compton for him. He listened to it for 20 seconds and bursted out 'this fucking sucks'. The rage I felt at that moment was so big. And he listened to shit like Fabolous and Lil Zane

Fab and Lil Zane are fruits

[Phoenix Dark]

Lil Zane

The first rap song I liked was Gangsta's Paradise, which my dad would play for me and be like "see, being a gangster isn't a good idea. Stay in school nicca." Outside of that my parents weren't fond of me listening to any modern "worldly" music at the time, so I wound up sneeking the radio into my room and listening to soft rock/pop till I fell asleep. Later a friend introduced me to Britney Spears and Eminem, both of whom I loved. This was like in 1999. Later I fell in love with the Marshall Mathers LP, which is an undeniable classic as far as I'm concerned.

But the first time I really fell in love with rap is when I heard Tupac for the first time. I was in Ohio with my AAU basketball team, and everyone had walkmans and CDs except me. So while one of my teammates was sleep I stole his walkman and listened to the first disk of Until the End of Time. At the time I didn't know it was a posthumous release, I just liked what I heard. That first disk has some definite bangers on it, and I was most impressed with Lil Homies at the time lol. Later I wound up exploring Tupac more, and I also consider him to be the greatest rapper of all time. And it's not that he was the greatest lyricist or rapper, but he was the greatest rap artist by far. He forced the establishment to look at rap as art.

For awhile I was heavily into the gangsta posturing of mainstream rap. An older friend of mine who was on the varsity basketball team (I was JV) would drive me home from practice, and he had tons of rap CDs. So he introduced me to DMX, Nelly, Bone Thugs, and everything else that was popular at the time. In fact my tastes didn't really change until I heard Kanye West in 2003; while some critisize him, he definitely introduced me to artists like Common, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, The Roots, Dilated Peaples, etc - for which I'm greatful lol. After that the dam essentially broke as I went back and explored the roots of the genre. Even to this day I'm still looking up classic albums, trying to digest as much as I can. I heard The Imfamous and 36 Chambers for the first time this year; I had heard singles like Shook Ones before, but never the entire album.

Now I'm into a lot of underground, "backpack" stuff like Brother Ali and Atmosphere as well as underground alternative stuff like MF DOOM. And I can still bounce my head to TI when in the mood :p

[Powerslave]

That second paragraph is my story exactly. First Pac album I listened to was Until The End Of Time.

Also Bone Thugs 
How could I forget.

[hyp]

hiphop just gets a bad "rap" in general.  most people associate the music with materialism, sex, and  living a thug life.  there's a lot more beneath the surface though.  many of my favorite artists aren't even black and there's a whole subculture of socially conscious, abstract and intellectual rappers who offer something to those that aren't into that cash money thug shit. but the hiphop stereotype is too strong for people to even think that there could be anything of value or substance in the culture.  you can thank popular culture and its shittastic artists for that.

[tiesto]

I always had a rather shallow view of rap (that it was unmusical, annoying, promoted thug life) up until 10th or 11th grade or so.. then a friend let me borrow Wu-Tang Forever and I'm like "wow, this is pretty good!" Since then, I keep up with the stuff, just don't follow it with the same zeal I do EDM.

[Himu]

Remember a time when hip hop used to be POSITIVE? Yeah.

[demi]

straight thuggin

[Powerslave]

Positive Contact

[drew]

I fell in love with rap this past summer when I downloaded the drought 3 after I saw it was album of the month in vice magazine.

It's a "guilty" pleasure I guess, not really guilty, but you won't see me at stop signs blasting it.

  (this is his new stuff which I fiercely look forward to and I can't figure out how to embed youtube videos)

[hyp]

(Image removed from quote.)

straight thuggin

i can hear the sample playin' in my head.

[Vizzys]

Positive Contact

Deltron Z

[demi]

[youtube=425,350]gl9m-NC0VGE[/youtube]

:thug

[etiolate]

It is because if I listen to the local hip-hop station, it will be only commercial crap and there will be nothing that I can enjoy. If I listen to the local rock station, there will be commercial crap, but there will also be good stuff mixed in. Even some of the commercial rock is listenable, tolerable, while commercial rap is not listenable at all. It is purely image designed and as thus doesn't bother with audio factors. So since radio is probably the broadest source of music people hear, they never hear good hip-hop and thus think the genre is absolute crap.

[hyp]

The sounds of highschool.

tell me about it.  i dunno if you were around the bay when HOT 97.7 (the hiphop/r&b station) was still on the air, but man did they play some now-classics on the radio.  i remember hearing the pharcyde, souls of mischief, nas, and too short for the first time on that station.  those were the days.

[hyp]

It is because if I listen to the local hip-hop station, it will be only commercial crap and there will be nothing that I can enjoy. If I listen to the local rock station, there will be commercial crap, but there will also be good stuff mixed in. Even some of the commercial rock is listenable, tolerable, while commercial rap is not listenable at all. It is purely image designed and as thus doesn't bother with audio factors. So since radio is probably the broadest source of music people hear, they never hear good hip-hop and thus think the genre is absolute crap.

that sucks.  commercial radio for the most part is garbage no matter what city you're from.  if you have any college radio stations available in your area, check those out.  where i live i can pick up stations from 3 major universities and the music they broadcast over a variety of genres is for the most part independent and underground.  i've discovered some gems by listening to college radio.

[Fresh Prince]

Remember a time when hip hop used to be POSITIVE? Yeah.

Lupe Fiasco, Common, Talib etc. still doesn't mean the majority of their new stuff isn't shit.

Hip-Hop is ending up like Jazz with a bunch of old black and white men talking about the 'glory days'. It had it's swing phase in the late 90's and is now incorporated as 'urban' (or pop for darkies).

[Candyflip]

It is because if I listen to the local hip-hop station, it will be only commercial crap and there will be nothing that I can enjoy. If I listen to the local rock station, there will be commercial crap, but there will also be good stuff mixed in. Even some of the commercial rock is listenable, tolerable, while commercial rap is not listenable at all. It is purely image designed and as thus doesn't bother with audio factors. So since radio is probably the broadest source of music people hear, they never hear good hip-hop and thus think the genre is absolute crap.

I can hardly stand anything on 98.5 or 106.5. But you're right, 102.5 and 103.5 are even worse. Someone at The Bomb has a massive hardon for T-pain.

[Himu]

Remember a time when hip hop used to be POSITIVE? Yeah.

Lupe Fiasco, Common, Talib etc. still doesn't mean the majority of their new stuff isn't shit.

I'm talking about in general. I mean, even the more extreme groups like NWA, Public Enemy...they did a lot of positive songs. 2Pac did plenty of positive songs. I think this didn't start until a bunch of Pac wannabes came out and didn't exactly fully understand the dude's music.

[etiolate]

It is because if I listen to the local hip-hop station, it will be only commercial crap and there will be nothing that I can enjoy. If I listen to the local rock station, there will be commercial crap, but there will also be good stuff mixed in. Even some of the commercial rock is listenable, tolerable, while commercial rap is not listenable at all. It is purely image designed and as thus doesn't bother with audio factors. So since radio is probably the broadest source of music people hear, they never hear good hip-hop and thus think the genre is absolute crap.

that sucks.  commercial radio for the most part is garbage no matter what city you're from.  if you have any college radio stations available in your area, check those out.  where i live i can pick up stations from 3 major universities and the music they broadcast over a variety of genres is for the most part independent and underground.  i've discovered some gems by listening to college radio.

Actually a local sports show guy plays the best hip-hop on local radio here. He runs a weekend show and plays it as background music and bumpers. He uses a lot of underground and new hip-hop.

[Himu]

Yeah we've got a College Radio station back home called KTRU. I love it. They play underground stuff. In fact, they play stuff from every genre: from underground hip hop, GOOD mainstream hip hop, and jazz to reggae, punk rock, metal and even electronica... it is an AWESOME station

case in point:

http://bang.rice.edu/schedule.shtml