I don't like much Hip hop but TBEP's Elephunk, Usher's Confessions and anything by OutKast and Kanye West is good :)

listening to "ketto" right now, can't say just yet how i like it. The opening sounds a little amateurish tho. like they just wanted to mix a bunch of different sounds together.
Nothing against them, but back in the day my friend made beats and he was always like "and then i'm gunna put this sound" and was never consistent.
this song is all over the place, almost like it's testing stuff out.

Honest question: Is there a difference between rap and hip-hop?

oh i'm listening to flutter right now, it's old but i think i have it on my comp

not really rap is a part of hip hop nation.
beats by themselves is not rap, but it could be hip hop.
a person vocalizing in "rap" style is rap, but doesn't necessarily have to be hip hop.
hip hop is everything street, it's a way of life more than just music. it's bboying, and1 basketball, mc'ing.
nowadays rap is defined coloqially as the hard core stuff, and hip hop is more casual. outkast would be considered hip-hop but they are so different from hip hop i doubt it even qualifies as being hip hop. It is it's own.

I don't feel that as art progresses through time it is constant improvement. There are classics that stand the test of time and there is a lot of shit that is hot for a year and then disappears. Erego, you can't compare the evolution of hip hop to the evolution of software. Technological advancement is improvement about 90% of the time, and artistic advancement is improvement about 5% of the time. I pulled those numbers out of my ass, but that's how I feel.

Good art doesn't go bad as it ages. Like for example... 80's hip hop. Beethoven. Wendy Carlos. The Beatles. The Stooges. Marcel Duchamp.

There's a reason that most critics agree the greatest films of all time are Citizen Kane (1941), 8 1/2 (1963), Battleship Potemkin (1925), Casablanca (1942), and occasionally The Godfather (1972). People who aren't serious critics are very nearsighted when looking back in time, and they say dumb shit like "MGS4 is the best game ever made" or "The Dark Knight is the best film ever made." I guarantee those won't last.

Notice that both hip hop and video games have periods referred to as "the golden age" and they're both long gone. It's not just nostalgia. They've both gotten so big and commercialized that the music/games are made by studios instead of artists (for the most part).

Today's games are only ground breaking in the technological sense, in that they're bigger, faster, stronger, whatever. But they're not more artistic than the magic coming out in the late 70's to early 90's. The art took over for a while, then it got too expensive so the studios took over and the art went underground.

There are still great games out there, but now they're the exception and not the rule. The same goes for hip hop, and that's why I'm on here asking for recommendations. I don't listen to the radio, and I'll try out anything once.

Also, I did not list 100% of my favorite artists.

I love Earth, Wind, and Fire and I love Kid Koala. I've seen him live with Handsome Boy Modeling School and he's the shit.


And I've never heard of Pandora. I'm on it. Thanks.

check out the link I posted    let me know what you think

are you talking about the intro track, or the fifth track.  Becuase you're right, the intro track is just like 50 seconds on noises, it's not a song.  The fifth track "ketto" is awesome though.  I enjoy every song on the album, but track 3 is probably my least favorite.

see i think we got on the wrong foot, i simply read that you said 80's rap was the shit. And i don't think it is fair to artists like nas or jay-z (although i think jay-z is a little played out).
by the way i hope you've seen tokyo story, tokyo godfathers, and grave of the fireflies since you are into japanese stuff, they are a few of my favs.
i'm not really trashing 80's rap, but, honestly at that point in time it was all still very new and doesn't carry. if you listen to a rap station 10 out of 10 songs are going to be post 90's.
and as far as that studioxartists thing. either side can be argued which is a better environment.
but i generally live by the rule that everything is an both a pattern and an exception, so, like: any moment is just as important as another. a golden age to me, is not more important (or more likable) than an age of strife. they are both the same.

yeah i didn't realize it but i have a few of those songs on my comp. flutter is cool

i don't tend to make a note of artists or songs i like, only artists music i don't like lol.