What's Sup Forums's opinion of Aesop Rock?

What's Sup Forums's opinion of Aesop Rock?
Do you think he just rambles about gibberish to pass it off as 'deep'

average 15-year-old's "deep" hip-hop rapper

That's about it honestly...

One of my favourite rappers. Listening to the impossible kid right now. My AOTY so far.

No, it has been shown so many fucking times that what he says has a point, but it is just layered with a bunch of references that no one normal person could possibly know. This is especially apparent in TIK, I think it is his most direct album thus far. Also same shit with Hail Mary Mallon.

>Average Sup Forums "superior taste" opinion.

I dig his older stuff a lot more, but his new album was fantastic.

People like you should fucking commit suicide. You don't just call something shit because you're too uneducated to understand it.

Then there's these people that dismiss it because they think that they have the perfect level of "deepness" and that anything an inch below is "absolute drivel", and anything an inch above is "pretentious meaningless shit"

None Shall Pass is GOAT

Not a fan of Aesop.

I do enjoy Rocky though, I love the eerie trap beat production, god tier flow and his multisyllable rhymes.

and out come the 15-year-olds I mentioned

TIK is fucking god tier. Didn't get enough attention because Drake's mediocre Views was released on the same day.
Feels good liking both.

Give me a logical well thought out explanation as to why he's "15 year old deep". No shit posting or recycled childish memes.

Check out Aesop's song "Take Me to the Basement". One of my favorites, really eerie.

He literally reads off the thesaurus
He's garbage, get over it.

The average 15 year olds idea of a "deep" rapper is Eminem or that dude Slug from Atmosphere.

Aesop is genuinely God-Tier in every way.

I'm so mad at you, user.

Still waiting

Damage control on point.
To be fair, a friend of mine showed me that it was being promoted on PSN, we were quite surprised.
This
>HE USES BIG WORDS GUISE HAHA, MUST BE GARBAGE, R-RIGHT? NO ONE SHOULD USE A WORD BIGGER THAN SYNONYMOUS, R-RIGHT?
Go listen to Views or something.

>"They're big words I don't get it. Sucks."

PSN? That's a strange surprise.

In the psn store preview and in the banner thing at the top

Literal proof you've never looked into what he's actually saying.

Slug has got some pretty deep shit though, for the most part I see a lot of younger people dismissing him if they've heard of him at all.

Yeah i mean i fuck with some of his shit and definitely to a greater extent then Eminem, but i still feel like amongst my group of friends he is and was exalted a little too highly.

I used to think like you.
After a while shitposting like this gets boring, and you are forcing yourself to like/dislike certain things just so you can shitpost and pretend like you like/dislike certain things.
Come into it with a clean & pure mind, free of memes and shitposting.
You'll come out a new man.
Trust me on this young (you're obviously under 17) padawan.

It's a bit different for me cause most of my friend group don't even listen to rap and the few that do haven't listened to anyone that isn't already popular as hell.

Bazooka Tooth doesn't get as much love as it should.

hes ok

I get a little bothered that people use the thesaurus thing as a reason to discredit Aes. He was doing homework to better the style he was going for, what's so bad about doing research. He had a goal and rather than lowering his standards to match his ability he worked to better himself. If other rappers pushed themselves to be better we'd get a lot more quality art.

I also think that many of his entry-level "15 year old" fans miss the level of self-loathing that Aesop hides in his verses. He doesn't get up in bragadocio very often and when he does it's generally got some slant to it that shows his insecurities. He knows that his style is obtuse and just to fuck with the people who claim to get it he warps the symbolism and sprinkles references that you wouldn't get unless you were him.

The level of self awareness and the fact that he doesn't take himself too serioulsy but puts in the work as if he did shows his dedication to the craft and why he deserves the acclamation he has and much more.

He's good but Rocky >>>

True, one of his best, not that he has a bad album anyway. Super Fluke is one of my favourite songs by him,

Aesop has been the best MC/producer in hip-hop for a minute. If you didn't know, now you know.

Aesop Rock has been a respected figure in the rap game for almost (maybe more than?) a decade now, if you think it's just 15-year-olds who like him you are deluded. Labor Days is a certified classic albums and he hasn't done anything bad yet, that's more than you can say for most rappers.

Also the rappers teenagers think are deep are Eminem and Tupac and Hopsin and shit like that.

I don't think he uses big words to sound smart or deep, I think he uses big words because that's his thing and he enjoys it and its the thing which differentiates him.
I loved Asap rocky's first mixtape and I need to listen to more Aesop but imo they've both got some great tracks but can be kinda hit n miss

I remember listening to his older stuff when I first got into hip hop and it just didn't click. Checked out his latest and absolutely loved it. Where should I go from here?

I would say Labor Days then just go in order of release.

Want something close to The Impossible Kid in terms of beats and content?
>Cat Food EP (it's only two tracks but both are great) and Skelethon (make sure to get the bonus tracks too)

Want something that's even closer to the beats but less personal and deep?
>Hail Mary Mallon's Bestiary

Want more of Aesop's production but without him rapping?
>Felt 3's A Tribute To Rosie Perez

I've only listened to his older albums, NY only taste of him in the past few years coming from features and whatnot. He's obviously a great lyricist, but I've never liked his voice and flow too much. I'll still probably give his new one a shot though, seeing all the praise it's getting. Another thing about his old albums was that the production didn't particularly stand out to me, but perhaps he's gotten better on that front if what people say is true.

>NY

*my, autocorrect being weird

If he digs Aesop's newer sound, he should start off with Cat Food, Skelethon and Bestiary since they are closer to what he's doing now. Then he could move on to None Shall Pass, Are You Gonna Eat That? and Fast Cars, Danger, Fire and Knives. If he still likes what he's hearing, he should give Labor Days, the Daylight EP and Float another chance.

this desu.

Thats fair, I was just going off my experience,at first I hated Labor Days, eventually I really got into None Shall Pass and went back to Labor Days and loved it.

Why though? is the only reason you think that because of his use of "big words"?

I'd never heard or listened to Aesop, only Rocky. So I'll comment in that order:

Rocky: Great first mixtape, meh releases since then. I like his ear for beats, he has good flows, and overall is probably one of the better rappers doing their thing right now. He raps about stupid stuff to much, and his subject matter is starting to get a bit old. I'd consider myself a casual fan.

Aesop: Never listened to him until I heard TIK this weekend. Hooked. Loved it. It's rare that an album from an artist I haven't heard clicks for me on the first listen, but this one did. I'll admit I'm a fan of lyrical rap more than other styles and this album delivers. Aesop's got a new fan in me. I'll be seeking out his other work when I finish listening to my Spotify backlog.

Listen to it all eventually, but make sure you hit Hail Mary Mallon. It's a collab between Aesop Rock and Rob Sonic and they have some heavy hitters on both of those albums.
Check out Grubstake, Whales, and Used Cars.

His old music was all (I think) produced by Blockhead, but his last two albums have been self produced.

Released AOTY 2016

That's not true. He's always done some of the production himself -- sometimes even most of it -- but he used to be far less consistent in quality than Blockhead, for example. Some time around None Shall Pass, he became much better at producing and has delivered near flawless production since. I like that he's doing all of the production alone for his albums now but I'd like to see another project like Cat Food again too where him and Blockhead share production duty. Maybe another EP but with more tracks than Cat Food.

Oh damn, good to know homie.

What did you think of the Lice EP?

I thought it was okay but didn't feel some of the beats. Also, I'm not really convinced yet that Aesop and Homeboy Sandman's styles mesh too well. At least not on some of the beats they used for Lice.

I thought their chemistry was better on Syrup, the bonus track on TIK. Aes is also featured on Sandman's new album; so let's see how that track turns out.

To be completely honest, I had hoped to see other projects first. For example, the collabo EP with Blueprint that will drop later this month but in a very different form than what I had expected (I had expected both of them to be rapping and producing but Aesop will only provide the beats this time around). Or maybe a project with other old collaborators like Breeze Brewin' etc.

The Impossible Kid is an entirely average Aesop record, a disappointing effort and not even close to one of the best albums of the year

If you disagree please get off this board

Impossible Kid wasn't "deep". I don't get why people complain about rappers trying to be "deep". "Deep" is when you talk about intense existential or philosophical shit. Impossible Kid was a lot of self-reflection and vaguely autobiographical, but doesn't that just make it extra real cause it's a dude who is being open about himself and his experiences?

Anyway, it was a really solid album, and a lot less "gibberish" than Labor Days, which was also a good album anyway. I like that he's finally opening up a bit and letting his music take on an autobiographical tone.

Biggest downside is how he treated the instrumentals. They were okay but he could've made them a bit more complex (I think he'd take an interesting turn and goes a bit math-y, like Sooper Swag project or something).

Although I suppose when you're known as the rapper with the broadest vocabulary in their songs it is something you probably don't focus on as much.

>If you disagree please get off this board

You're a special kind of faggot, aren't you?

>trap beat production

My sides is trap the new buzzword for people who are ignorant about hiphop production. Its like when people used to just label everything as "beats".

They hear the chittery high hats and think, this mist be what they mean by trap.

Criticizing his use of a thesaurus is literally the stupidest thing ever. He's a fucking rapper. Words are his profession.

That being said, a broad vocabulary doesn't mean shit if you don't know how to use it properly. Aesop does for the most part, but there are times when he's just using words to make things fit without actually adding to the substance of whatever he's saying at said moment.

The hardest part of any Aesop album for me is his voice. It just gets so grating and has little to no variation. His flows are decent to good most of the time, occasionally reaching bad but even more occasionally reaching excellent.

People either hailing him or criticizing him for his "deepness" are both using the wrong word. Sure he can elaborate on a topic with ease and impressive wordplay, but very rarely are the ideas he's conveying actually "deep".

One might also mention his frequent usage of references that seemingly only seem known to him. To me that does little more than subtly alienate the fans from the artist, but only if said references are truly unknowable to the listener. I could write a song consisting of nothing but inside jokes I have between myself and my cat and not a single person would get it, not even my cat. Sure one can apply ones own meaning to said references, but is any artistic message being conveyed at that point?

One more thing is the huge praise for his self-production. While I fully agree with and support the notion of pure artistry with little outside factors, his beats are, well, less than impressive. Typically adhering to the same idea throughout the whole song, his beats fail to be even mildly adventurous in anyway. That being said, he's clearly not trying to be sonically adventurous in his production, merely giving himself a platform to express himself via what he does best.

Overall an above average hip hop artist. Hip hop could use some more people like him. The Impossible Kid is definitely a standout in a sea of stagnancy.

ASAP is better
I don't like Aesop's flow

shit, didn't expect that to be so long. don't take adderall kids

I love Aesop's production of the last 10 years or so. Some of his older production isn't my cup of tea but most material he has produced past ~2007 is great, imo. He's since become one of my favorite producers.

Impossible kid was okay. Labor days is alright. I sell acid to kids at my college who worship A$AP for supposedly making albums on LSD. Makes me feel like I'm wasting my time.

Labor days is best*. Just finished my first final. I'm burned out sorry.