Nando's Skank

[magma]

Example is a fucking tool. One of my housemate's has to work with him occasionally... and by all accounts he's as massive a bellend as you have imagined.

Example didn't even sell out. He was born with his cock wired into the free market. No fate is bad enough for his soul.

[stappard]

It's pointless this, the only analogy I can pull out is this is comparable to trying to explain to a load of music "elitists" why someone like Laura Marling is better musically than the fretwankery of DragonForce/random prog metal band, it just goes to the heart of art.

Writing real shit leaves less space for the lyrical equivalent of fretwankery that Jehst does. Although technically very good, to me it's like listening to someone playing some bare long complicated solo during a shit power-chord based song. This is these two talking on the same theme of nuclear and this is how they do it.

Jehst:



Example (starts at 0:46):



Jehst's might seem technically more complex, but to me Example's is at a higher standard, literally for the same reasons I've given above. Jehst does too much lyrical fretwankery like Dragonforce, Example's is just real talk.

your analogy might work if example = laura marling, but he doesn't. he equals, i dunno, fucking jack johnson or something..


in any case you still havent told me why my life doesnt count as experience to you. im waiting

[wubstep]

I think this all boils down to the fact Jehst goes way over your head to the point you think he's talking abstract bollocks. Read/listen deeper.

Example made a singular...alright 'UKHH' album, then sold out harder/quicker/more blatant than any other artist I've ever known and now makes pop, straight up.

This is all coming from someone who used to dig Example, pre-pop phase.

[herbalicious]

I remember my mate putting me onto Example just after (maybe during) Sixth Form....about....03/04....I remember thinking he was distinctly average even then.

At that point my favourite MC was Jay-Z and I listened to Hip Hop all day everyday.

And I still didn't like him.

[xarcane]

Honestly, it isn't that Jehst isn't talented or using complex metaphors (or it going over my head), it's the heart of the poetry. If you translate Jehst's poetry into another language it would just be like patchy prose, but Example's would still be poetry. To go back to the original examples

So when I'm fed up I get red up
Mary Jane messed my head up
She can be my best friend forever
At times I regret that I met her
When she eats all my cheddar
But she makes life seem better
Like whatever
Stressin' me out she settles me down
Put it in the air bredder spread it around
But don't abuse it
We use it to temple ball
From Nepal there's a mental drawl
Meditated like we're mental
Just the way God intended

That would not translate and still be poetry

Shut the doors, the room is full,
And nobody leaves until,

Until the sun comes out to play,
Until then, we blow ourselves away.
At the markets of Gibraltar,
They lock up your sons and daughters,
But the reason they come back,
Is what's been pouring out the tap.

I see them laugh, I see them cry,
Been coming here since days gone by,
Come to fight, here to shout,
Or are they here to simply pout.
Lack of passion, only fashion,
People glancin' 'cross the room,
Pretty soon they'll taste the water,
And it ought to change their tune.

This would translate and still be poetry, that's why to me it's better than Jehst's flashy technique, it is just pure to me.

Jehst is a talented guy, but his lyricism to me is still just someone playing an awesome solo over a shit song.

[stappard]

Jehst is a talented guy, but his lyricism to me is still just someone playing an awesome solo over a shit song.

youre getting bogged down in an inaccurate and unhelpful analogy

[wolf89]

Umm, aside from Jehst being a fucking incredible producer and everything Example raps over sounds like fucking shit.

In all honesty if it was swapped I would go buy all the instrumentals of example tracks. Jesht doesn't wank over bad tracks. He is a hell of a good producer too. If anything he's a better producer than a rapper. Even if he couldn't rap for shit he's still miles ahead of example's piss poor tracks.

and the fact that you couldn't translate Jehst into another language easily? That makes no sense. If anything it's the other way around. You're complaining that his lyrics aren't basic enough really.

(and anyway the Jehst track you're analysing aint even a very good one. You're just trying to set yourself up anyway. Come on.)

[xarcane]

With the best poets, Rumi, Hafiz el-Shiraz, Octavio Paz, it doesn't matter if you translate them, because the poetry is pure poetry, it transcends language. If you can't translate it into another language and retain the poetry, it relies on tricks too much.

It's not a useless analogy, because that's really what Jehst sounds like to me, someone playing a good solo over an average song. All the "elitists" can only hear the solo, and talk about how brilliant it is, but to me it's still very good, it just doesn't feel real in the same way most progressive metal might be technically good but still not sound like real music.

[wolf89]

Yeah but think about something like Yes's Close To The Edge or Jethro Tull's Thick As A Brick.

Where it's both technical and great music. I don't see how you think the two can't go together.

[capo ultra]

With the best poets, Rumi, Hafiz el-Shiraz, Octavio Paz, it doesn't matter if you translate them, because the poetry is pure poetry, it transcends language. If you can't translate it into another language and retain the poetry, it relies on tricks too much.

It's not a useless analogy, because that's really what Jehst sounds like to me, someone playing a good solo over an average song. All the "elitists" can only hear the solo, and talk about how brilliant it is, but to me it's still very good, it just doesn't feel real in the same way most progressive metal might be technically good but still not sound like real music.

will you please stop using that analogy, it does not apply to this particular situation

[xarcane]

How is it not applicable? Of course it's applicable because that's what it sounds like to me. Poetry as an art form evolved as a way of storytelling. Rap in it's pure form is a way of storytelling, a way to say things you couldn't otherwise communicate through song, otherwise singing is superior. Jehst doesn't say anything that requires rap as a vehicle, his lyrics are literally only held together by their complexity. In that way it is the rap equivalent of prog metal, and its fans have that same type of "elitism" as people that only listen to prog metal.

If you get a true poem, you can condense it almost infinitely, and it'll still be poetic. That's how people like Carol Ann Duffy roll, that's true elitist, hidden from the public. The average joe will see a short and snappy poem by Duffy that doesn't look much, but to a poet there is so much information and allusion on every line, that you can expand it in your head into a full poem, so basically you make your own poem every time you read a Duffy - that's why she's poet Laureate. After doing that you realise you can do it with any poem of reasonable length. With Jehst you can't condense it that way... you try and translate it, like you can with any good poem, it'll read like some patchy prose. His amount of lyrical skill is astounding in that same way that a brilliant solo is, but to me it is just that -it ain't real.

[magma]

Honestly, it isn't that Jehst isn't talented or using complex metaphors (or it going over my head), it's the heart of the poetry. If you translate Jehst's poetry into another language it would just be like patchy prose, but Example's would still be poetry.

What you seem to be implying is that it's better to make generic art rather than to learn your language so well that your art could only have been spawned by it. Example says "things" that everyone already knows, so all languages have words and turns of phrases ready to go... Jehst writes English poetry. He could exist nowhere else. No other culture would fully get him... that's how good an English poet he is.

Shakespeare sonnets sound shit translated into French because he had to invent a lot of the English words he was using.. our language is incredible. Ease of translation is no signifier of artfulness.

[capo ultra]

How is it not applicable? Of course it's applicable because that's what it sounds like to me. Poetry as an art form evolved as a way of storytelling. Rap in it's pure form is a way of storytelling, a way to say things you couldn't otherwise communicate through song, otherwise singing is superior. Jehst doesn't say anything that requires rap as a vehicle, his lyrics are literally only held together by their complexity. In that way it is the rap equivalent of prog metal, and its fans have that same type of "elitism" as people that only listen to prog metal.

If you get a true poem, you can condense it almost infinitely, and it'll still be poetic. That's how people like Carol Ann Duffy roll, that's true elitist, hidden from the public. The average joe will see a short and snappy poem by Duffy that doesn't look much, but to a poet there is so much information and allusion on every line, that you can expand it in your head into a full poem, so basically you make your own poem every time you read a Duffy - that's why she's poet Laureate. After doing that you realise you can do it with any poem of reasonable length. With Jehst you can't condense it that way... you try and translate it, like you can with any good poem, it'll read like some patchy prose. His amount of lyrical skill is astounding in that same way that a brilliant solo is, but to me it is just that -it ain't real.

you think you are railing against rockism but in fact you are engaged in popism yourself, elevating simple commercial acts simply because there is the equivalent of no solos in it

next you'll be telling us Britney Spears is the greatest poet that ever lived

you believe that Ed Sheeran is not only a Grime artist but that he is the BEST Grime artist, which is absolutely ridiculous. Your justification is that he speaks the 'truth.' Yes he speaks the truth for people like you, well off posh middle class kids.

Working class culture always gets appropriated by the more well to do as they wish to appear 'real', and then the original culture gets forgotten because it doesn't actually apply to those that have appropriated said culture, so they appoint their own artists that water down the concepts to make the culture more palatable ie Example

[xarcane]

I never once said Ed Sheeran was a grime artist, or the best grime artist. I said "if you don't know Ed Sheeran you don't know grime", because he's worked with pretty much all the top heads in the grime scene, I also said he was "one of the best things to come out of grime", because grime elevated him to the point where he is now. He doesn't have to necessarily be a grime artist to be one of the best things that has come out of grime. Him coming up through grime is responsible for lyrics like these:

"Ripped gloves, raincoat, tried to swim and stay afloat
Dry house, wet clothes
Loose change, bank notes, weary-eyed, dry throat
Call girl, no phone"

Brilliant lyrics in stark contrast to the shit generic private-school indie-folk that comes out these days. In fact I'd rather listen to those lyrics than Jehst's as well. Why? Because they're talking about real shit.

I'll tell you now Shakespeare's sonnets translate a lot better than Jehst's do because they have better concepts. Stop being such "elitists", and accept that I'd rather listen to Wiley or Example talking about real shit, than Jehst's massive gesticulations about nothing, it's like watching a film with amazing special effects and no plot. I've explained thoroughly why Jehst's lyricism, though impressive does not move me, and I doubt that kind of thing moves anyone to real emotion. It's prog metal rap.

[capo ultra]

Please don't mention Example in the same sentence as Wiley, thanks

[magma]

I'd rather listen to Wiley or Example talking about real shit, than Jehst's massive gesticulations about nothing

That's fair enough... taste is taste... but if the definition of "real shit" is stuff that the MC can actually relate to, then Example is probably the least likely of the three to be spitting "real shit".

He's the least real musician I've ever seen... and that's corroborated by the personal experience of my housemate who dreads having to smile to his face at gigs. He's a pretender... a very good pretender... but he's not an artist... he's a businessman.

[Coppola]

If you don't think that Jehst raps about real shit then you aren't listening properly.

[herbalicious]

*actually, I refuse to let myself get dragged into this nonsense, troll fest any more!!

[Trichome]

Ok everyone just shut the fuck up. I posted this for a laugh and now its getting out of hand.
There is no good music and no bad music, theres just music you like and music others like. End of.

[xarcane]

Bruv, everyone calls anyone famous they know a dickhead. Laura Marling's a dickhead too, so's her ex, that dude from Noah and the Whale, he's the biggest dickhead on the planet. However I will allow this discussion and accept that prog metal fans have now infiltrated rap. Jehst is not rapping to say anything to anyone, he's only playing a rap solo. I will leave Example to say it for me with this fine example of real talk (altered ever so slightly).

The Jehster got wasted, penned a paper
Concocted a notion to make him greater
He knocks up a beat, but he has no story
Gets a leaking erection, writes "Mourning Glory!"

I reel off a list of the usual suspects
Subjectively speaking they all got defects
They all cavemen in a suit and tie
Saying why you opposing, conform or die!

I know I’ve put it simply and quite condensed
Cos rap was a brainstorm of commonest sense
But now we have a Prog metal Rap defence
So somewhere rap went wrong…