Hello Hip Hop History community! HP in the building even on Thanksgiving Day here in the US to set out one that is hopefully not too vague to get a few posts going..

Today we’re talking the single. Back in the day, rappers would’ve filled entire 12″ albums with one or two songs, stretching the party out as long as possible. Albums came along and we got short skits and interludes in between songs that made the work feel like something worth sitting down and listening to straight through. In the digital age, the way many of us consume music is very different. I don’t know about you, but listening to an entire album is a very different thing than the playlists I curate for myself for lots of things, from going to the gym to meeting with the student groups I sponsor.

I often look for very different things in a single song than I do an album: it has to tell me about the artist, set a distinct tone, have a certain tempo, etc so that it fits in a playlist or just does what I want it to. It can be a tall order! With albums, I want the artist to give me the tracklist to take me through what they want me to hear. I may go back to a song or two out of order sometimes, but especially with hip hop and rap, I tend to think of individual songs as part of a whole, a piece of a larger work.

But there are still those individual songs that I like, but that I don’t necessarily play as part of a whole album. Maybe they’re fun to just sing along to, like Biz Markie’s ‘Just a Friend’, or to get everyone moving, like ‘It Takes Two’, but I’m not going to be bumping several songs by the same artist, ya know what I’m saying? It’s not that I don’t like their other songs, and it’s not a statement for or against an artist’s entire body of work- it’s just that I want to hear that one song, for whatever reason! Sometimes they’re ‘one hit wonders’, but mostly they’re just songs that push all the right buttons.

This is just a great song- I’ve heard other things from the same artist, but I always come back to this one because it just goes hard, and that’s it.

So bring ’em out! I think we can also look to ‘Songs of the Year’ lists for this one if you’re stumped or thinking “Wow HP is making no sense today!”. Something like this great list: https://rockthebells.com/articles/best-rap-song-by-year-50-years-of-hip-hop/ has a bunch of singles that give a great but brief picture of an artist, or era in just one song.

Let’s not worry too much about repeats from other days on this one! However:

In order to keep the thread from borking, please limit yourself to one YouTube/media link (putting the ‘challenge’ in the ’30 day challenge’ ) per post. If someone ‘beats you to it’ and posts a song you would’ve posted, reply under their post saying why you like this song/why it was your pick as well, etc. Let’s not give Disqus a reason to make the thread hard to navigate for those of us listening to the songs! If you want to mention some others, of course that’s fine!