The Art Of High Fidelity (Or: My List Of Favourite Rappers)

I couldn't sleep last night. I was in bed reading for a couple hours after I wanted to be asleep, and then I put the book away (High Fidelity by Nick Hornby) and tried to fall asleep for what seemed like eternity. My thought tree always sways kinda crazy at these times. At one point I was thinking about the rappers that I like and which ones exactly I frequently return to on my iPod. Then when I got to work today, I went through the Hip Hop artists on my iPod and constructed a (definitive?) list of my favourite rappers. Mind you, I am a fan of a lot of them. My iPod has 432 separate recording artists rappers listed in the Artists category.

I've divided the list into two. One category for those I've been listening to since I started listening to rap in the 90s (The All Time Favourites) and one for rappers I discovered or who only dropped after 2000 (The New School). I'll link each name to a YouTube video and beside the name I'll include my favourite album, mixtape or song of theirs that you should check for.

The All Time Favourites (alphabetically)

• Big L - Lifestylez Ov Da Poor & Dangerous (album)
• Big Punisher - Capital Punishment (album)
• Canibus - Rip The Jacker (album)
• Chino XL - Here To Save You All (album)
• Eminem - The Slim Shady EP (extended play)
• Jadakiss - Kiss The Game Goodbye (album)
• Jay-Z - Reasonable Doubt (album)
• Nas - Illmatic (album)
• The Notorious B.I.G. - Ready To Die (album)
• R.A. The Rugged Man - Die, Rugged Man, Die (album)
• Ras Kass - Soul On Ice (album)
• Royce Da 5'9" - Death Is Certain (album)

The New School (also alphabetically)

• AC - This Is AC Pt. 2 (Staten Lives) (mixtape)
• BadNewz - Falling Down (mixtape)
• The Catalyst - Fuck The Radio Vol. 1 (mixtape)
• Copywrite - The High Exhaulted (album)
• Dr. Becket (aka Doctor Becket / Docta Bec) - Creativity / Bad Muthafucka (vinyl single)
• Emilio Rojas - Recession Proof (mixtape)
• Jay Electronica - Act I: Eternal Sunshine (The Pledge) (mixtape)
• Joell Ortiz - The Brick: Bodega Chronicles (album)
• Rhyme Asylum - State Of Lunacy (album)
• Theology 3 - Featuring No Features (mixtape)

It almost undermines just how many different artists I really like. There are so many, some had to miss out. I could easily list double the amount of artists whose entire discographies should be owned by fans. Would be good to get some reaction from rap fans regarding this list.

I just realised that the book I'm currently reading (High Fidelity, which was made into a movie starring the awesome John Cusack) makes a lot of sense being mentioned in this blog post. It's about a 30-something guy who owns a music store and makes lists (both in and out of his head) constantly. Wouldn't be the worst thing to happen in real life, either.

Pretty Pictures

I've been reading blogs since before they were called blogs. I'm also aware that writing for the web is different than writing for any other medium. You need to grab people's attention as quick as possible. That goes for pictures and videos too. Apparently they need to be all over blogs, and I do see the appeal, but I'm more interested in producing slabs of text for everyone to read. I was thinking about this today and figured I might as well figure it out by writing it out.

Take this post for example. What type of imagery would suit? Would it make anyone want to read the words? Does any of that even matter? I could post links to other sites if that helps spice things up. You know, I could link you to a video on YouTube or a song on MySpace. Maybe my Twitter or Facebook profile? What about other slabs of text? I'd be happier linking one person to an interesting author or a well-written poem than I would linking 500 to the latest Lady Gaga video. Not that I have anything against Gaga. Well not as yet anyway... I'm still gathering evidence.

Here's an artist's impression of part of a sacred peyote ceremony. Just because.