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Originally Posted by abark000 Dalek. He has a weird style and can get repetitive, but the backing tracks are great. Constantly progressing and rarely repeating themselves.
Heirogylphics has better rappers (but there are like 6 of them vs. just one) and pretty cool backing tracks, not nearly as cool as Dalek's, but better than the Kanye's and the Neptunes of the world, who get stuck in musical ruts fairly regularly. |
I wouldn't consider Heiro avant garde, they're a great great great group. Saw them at the Mideast w/ Non-Phixion (another great group, sort of Rap for Slayer fans) Boom-bap project and the O.C. Great concert, everyone delivered, especially Opio, Pep Love and Casual. Del was there as well, but was sort of in the background but gave his support to the other guys in the group. I'm not a big Del fan, but I like the songs he does with Hiero (and Clint Eastwood, which he performed with new lyrics...hot ****)[/digression]
Anyway, if you're looking for Avant Garde rap, you have a couple of ways you could go, the ones I know are the Anitcon and Def Jux labels.
Anticon is all about lo-fi beats and weird-ass rambling 'poems' that don't really rhyme. When they do decide to lay it down and start rapping they're pretty solid. Some people dig them, worth checking out.
Def Jux is a little more straightforward, the main producer for the label; El-P is a big fan of King Crimson and a few other prog rock groups. His beats are kind of weird and off-kilter but really good. Check out Cannibal Ox's 'Cold Vein' and his solo album 'Fantastic Damage'.
The Ninja Tune and Warp labels also have a few hip-hop groups in the more electronica vein. Beans, Anti-pop Consortium, and some of the tracks on Prefuse 73's albums are good places to look.
As for Jazz rap, there's tons of groups that use old jazz tracks to rap over, most notably Gang Starr and Digable Planets. Ron Carter did a few tracks with MC Solaar (really good, better if you can speak french). Quasimoto's album "The Unseen" is definately kind of weird, but very rewarding. As is Madlib's(Quasimoto's alter ego) "Shades of Blue", where he creates a bunch of beats using the masters from old Blue Note records.
And no one raps like Tom Waits....which is what makes him Tom Waits and everyone else 'Not-as-cool-as...'
