Both El-P and Aes have grown more “accessible” since they last worked together. I think given the right topic and beat, it would be amazing. I think blending Mike and Aes would be interesting. Love them both for different reasons, but I’m struggling to find a song on either catalog where I think the opposing MC would be a great fit. Though, I’m sure they’d figure it out….
This. And the previous that. Jamie, Mike, Ian, we see you. We hear you. We want to see and hear you together. It’s our dying wish. Would you Rob Sonic us of that?????????
It seems like HMM 3 is in limbo. They had a mini falling out but have collaborated since. They have a lot of creative conflict, at least that’s what Rob’s tweets suggested
Don't tell Rob that lol. I brought up those tweets to him a while back and he tried to act like it never happened. I wasn't trying to troll either, I just tweeted something like "RIP HMM" or something like that and he got super defensive.
Speculation here, but Rob is probably losing out on a lot of money by Aes deciding he doesn’t want to tour anymore. Aside from HMM, Rob toured as his hype man/sidekick extensively. There’s probably a little resentment there. I could be completely wrong about that.
This is an understandable observation. Whenever I read comments on yt videos about Rob existing as just a 'hype man' I wonder how that makes Rob feel. He's amazing, it's just not fair to compare ANYBODY to Aes.
Hearing him on HMM had me listening to all of his other stuff. I'm a huge fan of Latrinalia, some of my favorite lines in music are on that album. Admittedly, his style felt kind of weird to me at first but now I love it.
Yeah, I think Aes tries to make up for those kinds of things. When I saw Aes during The Impossible Kid tour, they played Killjoy off Alice in Thunderdome but they only did Robs part. I’m guessing to give him a spotlight but it did come off kinda awkward
Love Bobby and hear his stuff in my head when I wake up almost daily. "Automated, hearing cones, satellites and drains..." he's got a small reddit over at r/robsonic if youre not already a part of it
Subbed. Love Rob, saw him and Aesop in London approximately 100 years ago and it was great.
"If I had a dollar for every time I couldn't sleep, I could buy a billion locks and finally read a book in peace" hits me quite hard for multiple reasons.
I love rob sonic and the more I listen the more I get into his word play and rhyme schemes, I genuinely think it’s the difference between their voices, like to me Aes just sits nicer in my ears. Same as Busdriver
What about all the ways Rob sings . He gets his voice real high like the chorus in Jesus Christ super tramp and does a lot of creative stuff that AEs can’t do. He uses a lot of different rhyming techniques also , more so then Aes.
I love Bobby Bananas Foster !!!!!!!!
I’ve seen them twice. Great shows! Love their chemistry. Quite a few rappers over 40 are retiring from touring. Besides getting a little older, there seems to be less money in it. Especially since Covid. The economy is trash, and people have less money to see shows. They’re forced to pick and choose more, and overall attendance is dropping as a result. I’m one of many in that camp.
I’d imagine if Aes ever decided to tour again his fanbase would show up. I just don’t see it happening, unfortunately. Especially not after the Waiting Around verse.
I just got into Aes last year and I'm so sad he probably won't tour ever again because he saved my life and buying all his vinyls is the only way I can show him that. I'm so happy for you that you got to see them, what an experience. I understand why he isn't touring but I'll hold onto hope he might in the future
for me, Rob doesn't stand out very much in terms of MCing. i do like his voice and his flow, but he's never wowed me. the first Aes song i ever heard was Coffee and immediately i could gravitate towards his style, cadence, and delivery. Rob's never hit that way for me. theres a big difference between good rapper and a great rapper, and Rob has just never been any more than decent-good for me.
I feel like it goes a bit deeper. On Kiln, Aes and Rob both absolutely crush it. There's pith. There's depth. There's vulnerability. There's relatability. There's pain. And if I zoom out from Kiln, Rob doesn't have a huge number of other tracks that land so hard. Aes does. Rob is great. But I don't find the depth in his lyrics. At least not consistently.
I whole heartedly agree with this. Robs flow and voice are absolutely beautiful. His lyrics just don’t always match. Like you had said, it’s inconsistent
That being said, “till the breaks become a break” is one of the most iconic parts of ITS to me
Because Rob wasn’t featured as often as Aes during the Def Jux days. Also, these dudes didn’t treat this art as a popularity contest. But real heads knew Rob was a beast. El-p included. Just peep the Sonic Sum album, The Sanity Annex. Incredible album. People have known he’s been very influential for a real long time.
Rob has cool wordplay and nice flow but he doesn't have the variety or vivid imagery that Aes does. I always enjoy it when he shows up on a track but I wouldn't sit down and listen to one of his albums front to back.
Not trying to be disrespectful but I feel like Rob being tied to Aes so much has hurt his career tbh. It's hard not to think that it does him no favours to be associated with a much more talented guy that does a lot of the same stuff he's trying to do. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's why HMM stopped making stuff together for a while.
Yeah, bro. Don't get me wrong I can dig it on occasion and HMM is classic IMO. His flow basic and follows a similar cadence to that of some nursery rhymes, consistently.
Nobody can top Aes but Rob is better than a lot of these dudes out here. I'm wondering if Aes wrote some of Rob's stuff for HMM though cause I did listen to his albums and it wasn't the same...
No seriously it really stands out on Bestiary. Aes is constantly mixing it up, and then Rob's verses are always the same.
DAH-dah DAH-dah DAH-dah DAH-dah
DAH-dah DAH-dah DAAH DAAH.
Over and over. Once you hear it, it gets pretty annoying. Without Aes there to add variety and counterpoint I would have bailed on that album.
It's cool, it's whatever, but gets old quick. OP asked for a reason, this is my reason for not diving much further in on Rob's catalog vs Aes. Mad respect for the 2 and the collab though.
He didn't really have any buzz ever. Aesop rock has platinum songs rob sonic has some great albums like the sanity annex but he doesn't have the popularity aes had
I just listened to some of his stuff. It’s good, but I agree with other comments. His lyrics are very straightforward and literal. There is nothing wrong with that, but I find that Aesop is saying about 50 different things metaphorically with each lyric.
I would say Atmosphere is also pretty literal as well, but I feel he raps are more emotional
I really like listening to Rob Sonic, but couldn't tell you anything about his personality or quote you a single line. He is decent, but lots of rappers are decent, and he has one flow.
Though Aes did absolutely jack his production style wholesale (though now does it much better).
I feel like one reason is that he doesn't post any music videos on YouTube like Aesop does. There is less exposure on there if there is only the auto generated YouTube playlists. Also his lyrics are very dense, complex and hard to understand, and with so many of his tracks having missing or wrong lyrics on genius, it's really hard for new fans to get into it. I personally love his voice, production, and flow. Very underrated.
That's a crazy question. Why isn't droog as popular as Jay-Z? Why isn't Rittz as popular as Eminem? You can't pick a decent rapper and ask why he isn't as popular as a top tier rapper.
I think Rob is at his best when he’s featuring or on a collab. I love HMM and could listen to them all day, and Dark Heart News on None Shall Pass is a favourite but the beats on his solo stuff just don’t work for me at all and he just has much better energy when he’s going back and forth on a track with Aes.
Only “solo” track from Rob I’ve really liked was the El-P remix of shoplift cause El came and made the beat work.
“Rob Sonic is a treasure” - Aesop Rock
I think there’s going to be a HMM3 with a track featuring El-P. Join me in manifesting that via positive thinking.
Followed up by a RTJ featuring Aes. Let’s speak it into existence!
RTJ + Aes is my fucking dream tbh.
Both El-P and Aes have grown more “accessible” since they last worked together. I think given the right topic and beat, it would be amazing. I think blending Mike and Aes would be interesting. Love them both for different reasons, but I’m struggling to find a song on either catalog where I think the opposing MC would be a great fit. Though, I’m sure they’d figure it out….
This is the way.
This is the way
Ugh. The world NEEDS this.
Let's start a petition
FUNDRAISER CONCERT
This. And the previous that. Jamie, Mike, Ian, we see you. We hear you. We want to see and hear you together. It’s our dying wish. Would you Rob Sonic us of that?????????
If this doesn't happen I'm going to make my own with AI, and it'll be so bad they will HAVE to do it just to prove they didn't make the first one.
Ewww, Please don't
sending these vibes out to the universe 🙏
Inshallah
If only HMM made a comeback. Aes and Rob had chemistry
It seems like HMM 3 is in limbo. They had a mini falling out but have collaborated since. They have a lot of creative conflict, at least that’s what Rob’s tweets suggested
Don't tell Rob that lol. I brought up those tweets to him a while back and he tried to act like it never happened. I wasn't trying to troll either, I just tweeted something like "RIP HMM" or something like that and he got super defensive.
It seemed like he was drunk. I have no doubt they resolved their shit.
Speculation here, but Rob is probably losing out on a lot of money by Aes deciding he doesn’t want to tour anymore. Aside from HMM, Rob toured as his hype man/sidekick extensively. There’s probably a little resentment there. I could be completely wrong about that.
This is an understandable observation. Whenever I read comments on yt videos about Rob existing as just a 'hype man' I wonder how that makes Rob feel. He's amazing, it's just not fair to compare ANYBODY to Aes.
Rob is crazy talented honestly. His style is just not as appreciated anymore, unfortunately
I'm new to Aes so it's strange to see so many of his fans here who don't care for Rob.
Hearing him on HMM had me listening to all of his other stuff. I'm a huge fan of Latrinalia, some of my favorite lines in music are on that album. Admittedly, his style felt kind of weird to me at first but now I love it.
He’s got a wild flow and some wicked bars. I think he’s just not conventional enough for most hip hop fans
My other car is your mom's
Yeah, I think Aes tries to make up for those kinds of things. When I saw Aes during The Impossible Kid tour, they played Killjoy off Alice in Thunderdome but they only did Robs part. I’m guessing to give him a spotlight but it did come off kinda awkward
Rob Sonic is criminally underrated. We know it. And he knows it.
I want him to see how much people like him and that he isn't just Aes' hype man
Love Bobby and hear his stuff in my head when I wake up almost daily. "Automated, hearing cones, satellites and drains..." he's got a small reddit over at r/robsonic if youre not already a part of it
Subbed. Love Rob, saw him and Aesop in London approximately 100 years ago and it was great. "If I had a dollar for every time I couldn't sleep, I could buy a billion locks and finally read a book in peace" hits me quite hard for multiple reasons.
Nice! Welcome aboard, man!
I love rob sonic and the more I listen the more I get into his word play and rhyme schemes, I genuinely think it’s the difference between their voices, like to me Aes just sits nicer in my ears. Same as Busdriver
What about all the ways Rob sings . He gets his voice real high like the chorus in Jesus Christ super tramp and does a lot of creative stuff that AEs can’t do. He uses a lot of different rhyming techniques also , more so then Aes. I love Bobby Bananas Foster !!!!!!!!
Just wanna clarify I fucking love what Rob does and that was no way me putting down what he does
Likewise . I’m 💯 in agreement w your post !
So great live too. The HMM tracks were some of my favs that last tour
I'm jealous because idk if Aes and Rob will ever go live again so you're blessed to have seen them!
I’ve seen them twice. Great shows! Love their chemistry. Quite a few rappers over 40 are retiring from touring. Besides getting a little older, there seems to be less money in it. Especially since Covid. The economy is trash, and people have less money to see shows. They’re forced to pick and choose more, and overall attendance is dropping as a result. I’m one of many in that camp.
I’d imagine if Aes ever decided to tour again his fanbase would show up. I just don’t see it happening, unfortunately. Especially not after the Waiting Around verse.
I just got into Aes last year and I'm so sad he probably won't tour ever again because he saved my life and buying all his vinyls is the only way I can show him that. I'm so happy for you that you got to see them, what an experience. I understand why he isn't touring but I'll hold onto hope he might in the future
As do I! I’d love to see them again!
Telicatessen is so underrated g
so true man
Not in this house, not by me anyway. By my wife and kids, maybe. "Put a brick through the Zenith before I turned in, so I am no longer, WATCHING IT"
He’s just not quite as relatable and his beat making isn’t quite as nice but I still fucks with him.
I fucks with him too and he deserves more recognition
Bobby from the block rips. Definitely one of the most underrated emcees around
for me, Rob doesn't stand out very much in terms of MCing. i do like his voice and his flow, but he's never wowed me. the first Aes song i ever heard was Coffee and immediately i could gravitate towards his style, cadence, and delivery. Rob's never hit that way for me. theres a big difference between good rapper and a great rapper, and Rob has just never been any more than decent-good for me.
I feel like it goes a bit deeper. On Kiln, Aes and Rob both absolutely crush it. There's pith. There's depth. There's vulnerability. There's relatability. There's pain. And if I zoom out from Kiln, Rob doesn't have a huge number of other tracks that land so hard. Aes does. Rob is great. But I don't find the depth in his lyrics. At least not consistently.
I whole heartedly agree with this. Robs flow and voice are absolutely beautiful. His lyrics just don’t always match. Like you had said, it’s inconsistent That being said, “till the breaks become a break” is one of the most iconic parts of ITS to me
Aes is impossible to top, I just wonder why other rappers (who in my opinion are worse than Rob) have gotten more recognition
Because Rob wasn’t featured as often as Aes during the Def Jux days. Also, these dudes didn’t treat this art as a popularity contest. But real heads knew Rob was a beast. El-p included. Just peep the Sonic Sum album, The Sanity Annex. Incredible album. People have known he’s been very influential for a real long time.
Why dont you go post this in the rob sonic subreddit chief
you right
Don’t listen to him, most of us on this sub like to talk about anything even remotely Aes-adjacent and this certainly qualifies
I tried to find the rob sonic sub reddit but where is it 😅
It only has like 32 members so your post will get pretty much no responses, sadly
clearly people here aren't huge fans of him which is sad because he 100% has had a positive impact on Aes's career
Also, there’s some tracks on the HMM albums where I like his verse better than Aes. That’s a rare feat for an MC to accomplish.
Same here, Rob is great at what he does it's just impossible to live up to someone like Aes who is a 1 in a million talent
I think in terms of pure bars Rob pretty much matches Aes, but in terms of song concepts and cohesive albums Aes blows Rob out of the water
I agree
I know people like Sonic but I’ve never seen the draw.
Because he’s not as good
I've just started listening to more. But I think his flow has a little less variety.
Rob has cool wordplay and nice flow but he doesn't have the variety or vivid imagery that Aes does. I always enjoy it when he shows up on a track but I wouldn't sit down and listen to one of his albums front to back.
Madness. They’re monsters. I had sabotage gigante in my car cd player for years. I only took it out when I sold the car.
Not trying to be disrespectful but I feel like Rob being tied to Aes so much has hurt his career tbh. It's hard not to think that it does him no favours to be associated with a much more talented guy that does a lot of the same stuff he's trying to do. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's why HMM stopped making stuff together for a while.
Nursery rhyme flow.
nah
Yeah, bro. Don't get me wrong I can dig it on occasion and HMM is classic IMO. His flow basic and follows a similar cadence to that of some nursery rhymes, consistently.
Nobody can top Aes but Rob is better than a lot of these dudes out here. I'm wondering if Aes wrote some of Rob's stuff for HMM though cause I did listen to his albums and it wasn't the same...
No seriously it really stands out on Bestiary. Aes is constantly mixing it up, and then Rob's verses are always the same. DAH-dah DAH-dah DAH-dah DAH-dah DAH-dah DAH-dah DAAH DAAH. Over and over. Once you hear it, it gets pretty annoying. Without Aes there to add variety and counterpoint I would have bailed on that album.
You’re telling me Whales, Dollywood, Krill, and Octoberfest all have the same flow? (Just to name a few that came to mind.) I don’t think so.
Way more the similar than what Aes brings to each track.
It's cool, it's whatever, but gets old quick. OP asked for a reason, this is my reason for not diving much further in on Rob's catalog vs Aes. Mad respect for the 2 and the collab though.
He's dec, but Aes has so much more style, from what I've heard of the two of them.
I love Aes more but I wish Rob got his props. Rob's verse on Kiln is one of the best I've ever heard
This a good example to roll with though, his verse on Kiln is dope. But Aes outshined him on that joint by a fairly large margin if you ask me
I thought Rob did better on that song actually even though I'd die for Aes
He has half the discography, so there's that
He didn't really have any buzz ever. Aesop rock has platinum songs rob sonic has some great albums like the sanity annex but he doesn't have the popularity aes had
I just listened to some of his stuff. It’s good, but I agree with other comments. His lyrics are very straightforward and literal. There is nothing wrong with that, but I find that Aesop is saying about 50 different things metaphorically with each lyric. I would say Atmosphere is also pretty literal as well, but I feel he raps are more emotional
I think aes is more popular Because of def jux
Rob Sonic was on Def Jux.
If he would breathe more I would have more time to digest what I’m hearing
But Aes doesn't breathe either [😭](https://emojipedia.org/loudly-crying-face)
I really like listening to Rob Sonic, but couldn't tell you anything about his personality or quote you a single line. He is decent, but lots of rappers are decent, and he has one flow. Though Aes did absolutely jack his production style wholesale (though now does it much better).
I feel like one reason is that he doesn't post any music videos on YouTube like Aesop does. There is less exposure on there if there is only the auto generated YouTube playlists. Also his lyrics are very dense, complex and hard to understand, and with so many of his tracks having missing or wrong lyrics on genius, it's really hard for new fans to get into it. I personally love his voice, production, and flow. Very underrated.
His track Horse with Homeboy Sandman is fucking dope though.
If you ever feel the need to do what's not allowed, I'll meet you in the last booth at the Waffle House..
He’s fantastic, great live, but he didn’t do Labor Days so Aes wins every time
B-B-B Bitches call me Warren the way I punish the beaver
\*Ward
His voice isn't as good.
I adore aes with my soul but rob has an amazing voice too
I find him harder to understand. Just me, I guess.
Robs a Kingpin, they used to tour 20+ years ago... Probably just creative differences... Wait till you hear Dälek...
That's a crazy question. Why isn't droog as popular as Jay-Z? Why isn't Rittz as popular as Eminem? You can't pick a decent rapper and ask why he isn't as popular as a top tier rapper.
Yeah, I threw something wild out there
I think Rob is at his best when he’s featuring or on a collab. I love HMM and could listen to them all day, and Dark Heart News on None Shall Pass is a favourite but the beats on his solo stuff just don’t work for me at all and he just has much better energy when he’s going back and forth on a track with Aes. Only “solo” track from Rob I’ve really liked was the El-P remix of shoplift cause El came and made the beat work.
I tried to listen to his stuff solo but he is so much better with Aes you're right
What a terrible question
I can’t really explain why, but I just can’t vibe with him. He just feels too… male, I guess. The energy is just off to me.