Music

Bruce Springsteen loves hip-hop

by Jeremy Mersereau

When you ask rock legend and prototypical Jersey boy Bruce Springsteen about his favourite musical artists, you can definitely expect the expected, mostly: of course bands like U2 and Green Day both get name-checked, but so do two of today’s most relevant hip-hop artists.

In a sit down interview with Apple exec Eddy Cue Wednesday night to promote his new memoir Born to Run, as you do pretty much daily if you’re a musician on the Boss’ level, Springsteen was asked to name some of his favourite contemporary artists. Of course, The Boss loves his fellow megastar rockers:

“Green Day, they make great records and they’re always thoughtful and intense and they have a band that plays great together. Also, my old friends from U2 are still doing just fine. They consistently sound great and are creative. I have an iPod full of things that can’t come to mind right now”.

Yep, checks out… but things got more interesting when Bruce branched out after admitting his love for standard arena rock:

“I like Kendrick Lamar a lot. He’s intense. He’s a great rapper, very intense. I like Kanye West, I think Kanye West makes great records. I love his records. Those are just very, very creative, amazing records”.

That sound you hear is the collective hive mind of Tramps everywhere being blown. “But wait…isn’t rap – actually CRAP?” Now all we need is Kanye to rap over an unaltered “Streets of Philadelphia” sample to really get Springsteen fans going.

[H/T Consequence of Sound]