
A Beginner's Hip Hop Playlist - zmatilsky
https://gist.github.com/zmatilsky901/8485ba3c2a06c02e0a031cd52add4de6
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x4nt
I would have liked to see less mainstream artists and more underground
artists.

Hip hop, by definition, at least to me, is more of an underground culture
evolving from jazz, funk and poetry. I also think most people have heard these
songs because they are pretty widespread on the radio, like Lil Wayne, Jay-Z,
Outkast, Drake, Beastie Boys... etc.

A better introduction would be to move through different hip hop periods to
show how the sound has evolved as the genre has matured, including artists
that are actually in it for the art and not solely for the money.

~~~
zmatilsky
Very fair criticism, I think when I was putting this together I went the
mainstream route because I wanted to get broad appeal from people who had
never even given the genre a chance, but thinking more about it your
suggestions make a lot of sense (i.e. moving through different periods).

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bebop22
This is a really shitty intro to hip hop. Clearly the author is like 16 years
old as he neglected to include anything pre-1996 except Sabotage.

~~~
MaddAgent
It's not totally terrible, but I do think its lacking without some Tribe
Called Quest, De La Soul or maybe even The Roots for example - its quite Rap
based and Rap != HipHop.

~~~
zmatilsky
Good suggestions, definitely all worth checking out.

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neilzo
This is a decent list, though I'm not sure why Dave made it over Wu Tang or A
Tribe Called Quest.

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zmatilsky
Wu Tang and Tribe definitely should've been included, bad oversight on my
part... I included Dave more because I thought it would be interesting for
people to see an international artist, not because I thought he was better
than either of those groups. I guess I did have that covered with Skepta
though.

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norea-armozel
The list needs some Kool Keith, MF Doom, and Aesop Rock, but I'm biased.

~~~
gatesphere
Yeah, the omission of Aes was pretty bad.

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oliyoung
It's skewed heavily to really really new stuff (and they're on the money with
Kendrick, Chance, J Cole) but …

[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Qpbd-
fHbMyfWXlWPRA_X...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Qpbd-
fHbMyfWXlWPRA_XfgzYayc8cIjn8J9CuL-aNpE/edit#gid=0)

[https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ewEzXRHj8LGvUB3g9Qbn...](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ewEzXRHj8LGvUB3g9QbnIK_m89I2Q5Y2LzsgqKOG6Xg/edit#gid=0)

The best place to start is
[https://reddit.com/r/hiphopheads](https://reddit.com/r/hiphopheads)

~~~
muuck
Lists can't cover everything, even your best albums list is lacking. Where for
example are Critical Beatdown, Hard to Earn, Stunts Blunts and Hip Hop, 2000,
Paid in Full, Funcrusher Plus, Unfinished Business, Breaking Atoms on that
list?

~~~
oliyoung
not my list, that's the standard response in r/hhh to the same question

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hfourm
People being over critical here. Hip hop is great in all forms from
underground to more popular artists, mumble to conscious.

Not sure what your goal of putting this together and posting on HN was though.

~~~
hfourm
Post edit:

black thought is the GOAT though, how many rappers got a salaried day job on a
talk show

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zmatilsky
yeah I definitely should have had the roots on there, there were a few major
omissions here that people have accurately pointed out. to answer your earlier
question, no particular goal in sharing this on hn, just thought it would be
fun to encourage people to listen to music that they may have avoided in the
past and get feedback from hip hop fans.

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rohan_
This is more of a meta-comment, but is this being upvoted because it's on
github? I think this is a great list, but there are many similar to it not
hosted on github.

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grzm
I'd say it's being upvoted because people think it's a good list. I don't
recall seeing other such lists submitted to HN (which doesn't mean there
haven't been, just that my memory's not perfect and I haven't seen every
submission), and what hasn't been submitted can't be upvoted. I don't think
where it's hosted has anything to do with it.

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lawrencewu
Nice playlist!

Shameless plug, but you can also check out a collection of my favorite songs
on my Juicebox:
[http://www.juicebox.dj/lawrence](http://www.juicebox.dj/lawrence)

It's mostly hip-hop, deep house, and experimental music.

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patresi
Upvoted this only because I feel that hiphop is a genre that doesn't appeal
much to the hacker news crowd, which, from my experience, is more focused on
metal, electronic or classic.

Good playlist but ultimately (and predictably) incomplete

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Caveman_Coder
I don't get why people use GitHub for their random lists of shit they like...

