Hey, it’s fine if you want to listen to test-marketed corporate rap, but that’s just not my thing. Just like I don’t listen to American Idol winners or test-marketed corporate Album-Oriented Rock music.
That was an interesting 180 by devilsknew.
No worries. I seem to be blessed with the ability to like almost everything. Along with Doctor’s Advocate, the CD case in my car has music by Steely Dan; George Thorogood; Mark Morrison; Stevie Ray Vaughn; Earth, Wind & Fire; ZZ Top; The Jazzmasters; George Michael (Older, an excellent album, btw), etc., etc.
And one of these days, who knows…maybe the Pipettes. 
Marketing tip: Motown was the new sound, they sold the records to those white, liberal, longitudinally coiffed dudes. It was a richer more pop sound than the skinned down Blues that came before. Great Melodies. But for some reason I really don’t like hip hop sound…rather hear some old shit. I see the same thing happening nowadays, between Rap and Hip Hop.
(b.t.w. I am using Rap and Hip Hop as musical categories in order to speak about them objectively. You can load those words with your social categories, too, but I’m talking music.
Oh, there was no 180. I don’t like rap, you could even say I hate rap, and I’ll tell it to your face. I can appreciate it… but would I listen to it, consistently? Hell to the NO!
How do you divide “rap” and “hip hop” as two different categories, then? What belongs in one vs. the other?
I know this has already been done, but here’s my thinking (and like a previous poster, I’m limiting this to a discussion of the music rather than the entire culture).
Hip hop is a subset of the rap genre. Hip hop, in my mind, goes two different ways. It can either be
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a song where an equal emphasis is put on both the rapping and the entirety of the instrumentation, as opposed to just the beat (a lot of Kanye West’s music qualifies; also think of Outkast’s “I Like the Way You Move”); OR,
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a genuine cross between rap and R&B (The Fugees/Lauryn Hill, Erykah Badu’s “Love of My Life Worldwide,” Snoop Dogg/Nate Dogg’s “Never Leave Me Alone”).
I can’t think of any music by The Westside Connection or Public Enemy, for example, that I would consider to be Hip Hop.
As everyone else has said, I don’t think it’s easy to define, but I know the difference when I hear it. I certainly don’t expect everyone to agree with me, however.
That is a perfect example of what I said I wasn’t looking for. I looked up the lyrics just to make sure I wasn’t misunderstanding. It’s about getting wasted (I like the line about smoking dope since he was 13), calling women bitches and whores, toting guns, and beating people and it’s filled with profanity. If that’s the best example of rap for people who aren’t gangsta wannabes, then I’m not interested in the genre.
(Note to VCO3: I haven’t listened to the stuff on your list yet. I’m hoping you understood what I was asking better than Lakai did.
Interesting ideas, but unfortunately I don’t think that anyone else out there agrees with it.
Hip Hop is the black urban subculture out of which came rap music, graffiti, turntablism/scratching and DJ’ing, pause tapes, and breakdancing.
Aside from the profanity, is it really all that different than this?
More or less what I came in here to ask, Miller. When it’s all said and done, the basic message is the same in music. The more things change, the more they stay the same.
I fell away from music as a whole, but I did listen to a ton of hip-hop back when I was a sprout. VCO3, you’ve got to include some Tupac or some Biggie in your list for the twicks. I’d also put in some Bone (christ, what happened to them? Flesh-n-Bone gets thrown in jail and they completely suck?) but it’s your list, senor. If I may be bold enough to throw in some other suggestions, some Slick Rick, Outkast, Rakim, and some Method Man might be fun.
I specifically omitted things from the list that would be off-putting to someone over 40 or 50; profanity, gangsta posturing, excessive violence/misogyny/etc. That’s why you’ll notice that it leans more toward the Native Tongues type stuff. Trust me, if this were a “rap essentials” list, it would be completely different.
Well, I wouldn’t be suggesting anything from Makaveli or “Dead Wrong” for twickster. I was thinking some “Dear Mama” or “Sky’s the Limit”.
I agree with this - but the issue I have is that rhythm isn’t what it’s about. Lyrics are crucial. If it wasn’t for the lyrics, there would be no rap and there would be no hip-hop.
You know, this is my take on it to. Because I’ve heard rap songs that don’t “ping” as true hip hop to my ears, like old school rap where the beat is very simple and the sampling is limited. I would categorize “Christmas in Hollis” by Run-DMC as a classic hip-hop song. But the minimalist “Brass Monkey” by the Beastie Boys, just as classic as the before mentioned, is more pure rap than it is hip-hop rap, in my non-expert opinion. A sing-songy, melodic hook makes my brain think hip hop. Just rapping over a beat isn’t enough.
To me, the difference between hip hop and rap is kinda like the difference between soul and r&b. Explaining how the two different is difficult, and the latter is often used as short-hand for both. But if you listen to the music long enough, you can see how someone could learn to differentiate an Al Green or Aretha song from a Teddy Pendergrass or an Anita Baker. I think nowadays, people automatically lump all hip hop into the rap genre, but as time goes on people will start doing less lumping and more splitting of both forms (it’s already starting to happen).
That’s another thing. Lyrics in rap are deficient. The lyrics are rhyme motivated not content motivated.
Re: The difference between Rap and Hip-Hop; I always understood rap to be considered a ‘softer’ sound. more pop-y. Hip-hip is hard, gritty and raw. It still holds on to the essence of what the original Boom Bap brought.
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VOC3**, I just want to say, right on! about MF Doom. Have you checked out his collaberation with Ghost Face? The album More Fish is damn near classic.
How long has hip hop been around? DJ’ing and graffiti have been around longer than I have, and I was born in 1958. I don’t really think you can attribute them to hip hop culture. Until the last 20 years or so, most of the graffiti I saw seemed to be either gang territory marking (certainly not tied to black culture) or decorative (largely Hispanic).
Interesting song. Never heard that one. I’d say there’s one big difference:
Johnny Cash’s message: Drugs and alcohol make people do bad things. Stay away from them or you’ll pay the price (read the final lyrics).
Notorious Big’s message: Drugs and alcohol and guns and whores are cool! Let’s party! Whoo!
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a Puritan out for cleaning up all of the music (won’t somebody think of the children?). It’s just that I generally listen to music I can relate to in some way. If the lyrics are in a foreign language or just plain unintelligible, then I don’t really care what they say. I’m just not going to sit and listen to music that is totally focused on the lyrics when the lyrics glorify a lifestyle I don’t like.
I’m not really enough of a rap connoisseur (thank you dictionary.com!) to properly assess his chops, but I like a bit of rap and hip-hop, and am also generally put-off by gangsta stuff (but when it’s really good it can overcome my hang-up). I would like to recommend MC Frontalot, he’s a unabashed nerd who writes light-hearted funny rap music about nerd-culture.
He’s become a kind of representative figure for a subset of indie rappers who refer to their style as nerd-core. However, don’t mistake him for a satirist like Weird-Al (not saying that’s bad, but there is a distinction), Front’s music is genuine rap/hip-hop.
He’s got some free download songs on his site you can sample. It strikes me as a good candidate for accessability for the average doper.
Lyrics are supposed to sound good in every genre of music. In which genre is content more important than sound?
What do you think about the first song I posted?
You don’t have to be a gangsta wannabe to enjoy rap music. Are people who watch gangster movies gangsta wannabes?
I posted Notorious B.I.G. just so that people can understand what good lyrics are supposed to sound like. If you are looking for Hip-hop/rap that you can relate to then you’ll have to look harder. B.I.G was one of the first that started the whole “let me explain why I am the man” aspect of rap. Unless you are really rich I don’t think you’d be able to relate, but it is fun to listen too.
I find it hard to believe that you won’t enjoy a song because of it’s message. What about the sound of it? Does that matter at all?
I mean I love Cocaine Blues, but I never used cocaine. There are songs I like because I can relate to them and then there are songs I like because they sound good. You make it sound like you don’t have any songs you like just because they sound good.