Archive for May, 2008

Suga Free

Sunday, May 25th, 2008

Dajuan Louis Rice is known for lyrics about street prostitution, bad language and violence. He showcases his range of emotions in works like “Dip Da”, where the words of the song delve into his emotions surrounding his abusive father, and also the sexual abuse of female friend of his.
More of his lyrics touch on intransigent street violence, domestic violence, and the time did in the jail in LA.
With an very fast delivery of lines, he uses an almost disconnected way of delivering his songs. He generally uses a style of hard and heavy syncopation. Rhymes tend to change quite a few times in one line are shown on his lyrical meter.
Sting and Richard Pryor are said to have influenced him but there seems to be very little evidence of that in his music.
He is an uncharacteristic rapper unlike those who only claim to be pimps he in reality does pimp. His music is actually comes in second place to his management of his street prostitutes.
“Street Gospel”, his first album, was produced by DJ Quick in the late 90s. It failed to reach expectations commercially. Many underground rappers supported Suga Free and praised his work.

What the g-funk?

Monday, May 19th, 2008

Gangsta funk, or g-funk, is the topic, so in keeping with the theme, let me hear a “yo, wassap?” This style of music came from gangsta rap that started over on the West Coast, and is – as is most of these radical musical movements – a product of the early 1990s. G-funk is so called because it takes regular funk music and slows that the the tempo, adding multi layers of other sounds – sythesizers, slow hypnotic grows, deep bass and female vocals amongst others.

Usually, in true gangsta style of course, the topic of g-funk song lyrics tends to be about violence, sex and drugs. Lyrical complexity has been sacrified for the sake of good ol’ fashioned rhythm and clarity. G-funk was a big subgenre from hip-hop for over four years, the landmark being Dr. Dre’s debut of ‘The Chronic’ in 1992.

The first single to be labelled g-funk was ‘Call It What U Want’ by Above the Law, which featured on the ‘Black Mafia Life’ LP and feature Tupac Shakur. Above the Law have several other g-funk songs, including ‘Black Superman’, ‘Kalifornia’, ‘V.S.O.P’ and ‘Gansta Madness’.

The g-funk style has had a long lasting impact on hip hop music. Dr Dre’s more recent music, and his 1999 comeback ‘2001’, had a very different musical style to ‘The Chronic’ but its roots from the g-funk music era were still present. Other artists such as Suga Free, Dogg Pound and Warren G all continue to produce music that follows the g-funk trend.