Lil'Hawk hat geschrieben:
von wo kommt Hoop La ??
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California -- the birthplace of gangsta rap -- has long shone the spotlight on gangsta rappers like Ice-Cub, E-40 and the late Tupac. But the West Coast has also given us uplifters like Coolio and Skee-lo. Now comes the Bay Area-based group Hoop-La with their new album, "Coming from the G-Side."
Sound familiar? Well, in Hoop-La's case, the "G" stands for something other than gangsta. "G" stands for God.
The members of Hoop-La are Damon Pierson and Robert Bess, both 26-year-old natives of Daly City. Their sly remarks and jokes during our interview made it impossible for me to keep from laughing. They kept reminding me of the cartoon magpies Heckle and Jeckle.
Damon and Robert are also producers and the owners of their own record label, Dee-Bess records. They consider themselves "socially conscious rappers." As Damon puts it, "We try to let people know that there are other ways of dealing with problems; other ways than violence."
They also see themselves as role models. "I hate anybody that stands in the public eye and denies being a role model," Damon explains. "You don't have a choice. Once you choose to be in the public eye, it goes along with the territory."
What is it that makes them so positive in a world filled with so much negativity? They credit the older boys in their neighborhood who gave them a sense of what life is supposed to be. "They taught us how to look out for one another, how to take care of our own." In return they took a few younger brothers under their wings when they first started to make music. "We are showing them something that they normally wouldn't learn until many years later."
Pierson and Bess think gangsta rap exploded when the music "went too far to the pop," with artists like Hammer, PM Dawn and Vanilla Ice. "I personally was like, 'Man, what's going on with this rap?," Damon says. "This is not the direction it was meant to go in.' So we cut off Vanilla Ice, we cut off Hammer and turned to Dr. Dre; we turned to Too-Short. We turned to these people to give us our vibe back, give us our feel back that we'd lost."
Now many fans are wondering whether rap has gone too gangsta. For a while, it seemed as if even Bay Area stations like KMEL and Wild 107 would have sold their mothers' kidneys to play gangsta rap back-to-back. As the new reaction sets in, these stations are drilling listeners' heads with "Macarena."
So where did gangsta rap fail?
"The only thing it lacked is the vision of some hope," says Damon. "I believe in the realism -- if you've lived that lifestyle, I feel you. But we don't always have to be hangaing out on the street corners, selling drugs and shooting each other."
To me, "Coming from the G-Side" embodies this evolution of California rap. On side A, which Hoop-La has entitled the "Then" side, the songs are about generic (though non-violent) rap themes -- smoking blunts, sleeping with somen and dealing with playa haters. But on the B side, the "Now" side, Hoop-La gets into their relationship with God -- a reason to hope for the better.
Some listeners might say that Hoop-La's stuff is wack because of the spiritual content, or maybe because there are no phat bass lines, or because Hoop-La uses a lot of unusual drum riffs. But maybe it's their hearts resisting the message from the G-side.
"There's no cussing on the whole tape," Damon exclaims. "We're going to show how to be tough and rough without any cussing."
Then Robert starts to go off deep. "Tough is a father taking care of his child. That's real. Walking away from a fight is real....It takes a lot of 'ummmph' to walk away from a fight. Telling a brother to put down a gun -- that's real!"
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