The similarities of the two genres share various similarities w/one another ranging from their simple origins to the larger white society dismissing the artforms as being indicative of America's decadent art culture...
Yes, ppl forget that Jazz wasn't alwasy embraced as it is now as being High Art due to the fact that many of the artists who played this music came from the same impoverished backgrounds that many HipHop artists come from...
w/that said, I was thinking abt which HipHop artists would be the equivalent to the Jazz artists of their day.
Lets start with 'Satchmo': His arrival on the scene in the history of Jazz is when the music becomes an artform. He was the 1st soloist artist of Jazz and everything henceforward pivoted off what he did...the HipHop equivalent to Louis Armstrong (imo) is
Rakim...
he's the 1st lyricist that made ppl start to see the poetry in lyricism and the one MC that every MC after him was in some way shape or form influenced by. He came to personify what we thought an MC should be like
Duke Ellington...the greatest American composer and the most prolific. I'd say the person in HipHop who's the equivalent to him would be:
Dr. Dre
Miles Davis...considered the 1st major star of Jazz music and the artform's most commercial artist that Jazz has ever produced. A restless artist who was always in search of new ways to bring the music to other generations. I'd say the HipHopper who can most be compared to him is...
Jay-z...he is reinventing the standard for MCs that are 40+ which is thought to be the time when MCs should move on and let the kids keep the culture going and he is constantly trying to find new ways to stay commercially relevant.
Charlie "Bird" Parker...considered the next pivotal jazz artist to come along after Armstrong. He single handedly transmuted the music and was the most influential jazz artist of the Bee Bop era.
The HipHop artist that I think mostly compares to "Bird" would be
PAC...Easily the most influential HipHop artist the genre has produced and he, like Parker, seemed to be on a death mission at an early age.
Pharoah Sanders...a saxophonist whose music had a lot of spirituality to it and he touched on themes of blk unity in his music. His brand of 'free jazz' wasn't as embraced by many of his comtemporaries as well as blk jazz radio stations as some of the other straight ahead jazz music...
I'd say the HipHop artist who can mostly be compared to Sanders is
Krs One...considered one of the pioneers of the 'conscious rap' movement and someone whose music was never embraced by blk radio either.
John Coltrane...I'd say he's the most well known saxophonist of them all. He's another jazz great that was constantly trying to evolve his sound but the evolving of his music came abt as a result of his evolving as a person...and that led to one of the most famous jazz recordings of all time: 'A LOVE SUPREME'
I'd say the HipHopper who mostly compared to him is
Nas...his debut on the HipHop scene w/'Illmatic' was widely critically acclaimed but not commercially which led him to make music in search of commercial success that many of his diehard fans eyes saw as below the standard he'd already set w/his 1st opus. Now, he seems to have found his footing again and back to making the type of music most expect from him...
Those are the ones that I can match w/one another...I'm sure some will disagree and feel free to match other Jazz artist w/HipHop artist that I left off. (like who in Jazz could you compare LL to?)
2. "Damn, man! you already know I'm tempted to ask you to explain lol" In response to Reply # 1
>dont ask me to explain > >to round out my top 5 producers id say... > >pete : herbie hancock >primo : monk >rza : mingus > >again, dont ask me to explain
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