Thanks! Always willing to learn…
You know what would be a really fun absurdist idea?
Get him a lot of foreign-language rap CDs. Then you don’t have to worry about his morals, just his seething rage for you.
An ex-roomie had a French rap CD by some white French guys. It was alright. In a horrible way.
There is a lot of Japanese and Korean rap music out there, too. Truly bizarre stuff.
Things your son won’t understand :
Japan: Zeebra, M-Flo
Korea: Drunken Tiger, CB Mass, JooSuc (hahaha), Honey Family, JinuSean
Poland: £ona, Grammatik, Pantofonika, Fisz
Yeah, Nelly is not so bad. I was looking for an idea for a Christmas present for my brother a couple of years ago (he was a teenager) so I listened to a few songs before picking one of the artists he liked. Nelly seemed to have the fewest bitches/hoes/niggas/jigga-and/or-boos (ain’t it sweet how most rap has so many slurs towards women and minorities in it?) and so on mentioned, so I picked that one since I knew the entire house would be hearing it. It’s definitely the least offensive new rap I can think of.
Someone mentioned Arrested Development, and if you can get him past worrying about it being “old” (their most popular album came out over ten years ago- the one that mentions a time period in the title, something days, hours…) it’s pretty nice for the genre. I don’t like rap much, but it is one of the few rap albums I bought as a teen.
Agreed, and I’d recommend the simular Jungle Brothers as well. I don’t know about their earlier stuff, but V.I.P. is completely clean. Only one song even mentions sex, the rest is about partying, “keepin’ it real”, and staying straight. And no, the album is not as lame as I just made it sound.
As fun as the Beastie Boys are, I just can’t recommend License To Ill (Their old school stuff) for a kid. Their newer songs are cleaner.
Hell, you could always tell him to go old school, and get him some Grandmaster Flash…
LOL @ this thread
As far as foreign rap goes, your sonmgiht actullay like M-Flo. There more on the R&B tip but still good. Also Suite Chic is cool
As far as here in America goes:
Any rappers from Early 80’s
Any Walmart CDs. (They did a good job of Editing Eminimen, but they went overboard on Limp Bizkit)
Linkin Park: Yea I know not true rap, but you might like it too as it’s closer to Rock.
Any Christian Rap. Not all of the Lyrics are preachy preachy. T-Bone and B.B Jay is good.
DEFINITELY Lauren Hill,Black Eyed Peas and Mi-Phi-Mi. He was actullay slated as a “rapper for children” and use to do a lot of PDA’s.
I know you like the rock and roll, but I can’t abide by those The Rolling Stones, so I bought you this record by a group called the Monkees. They’re such nice boys.
(I mean, y’know, some fine suggestions in this thread, but not anything a ten year old would be into.)
Jurassic 5? They are kind of “alternative rap,” in that they don’t talk about thugs/hoes/pimps/gats/bling bling/mad scrilla/shizzle dizzle like everyone else. Their lyrics are very witty, and the music is excellent. However, I’m not well-versed enough with them to know if all their stuff is clean. The few singles I’ve heard from Jurassic 5, such as “The Influence” and “What’s Golden” have been great, though.
Judging from the his choices, i think he wants to listen to “cool” music, because those are two very popular artists right now. I’m not sure any other rap will suffice, unless it’s equally popular.
What’s sad about this is if you gave your kid De La Soul, Black Eyed Peas, and Jurassic 5 albums, he’d be forever biased against them cause its music his mom likes.
dragongirl, you’re going about this all wrong. If you don’t want him listening to Eminem and 50 Cent, just pretend to enjoy them. The dirtier it is, the louder you sing along.
How about A Tribe Called Quest?
Oh, you know me so little… 
I think so too. But it is absurdly funny in the same that “Rocky Horror Picture Show” and “Pulp Fiction” are, and I wouldn’t let my (theoretical) 10-year-old watch those.
dragongirl, people are suggesting that if he wants Eminem and 50 Cent, “cleaner” rappers won’t do. Maybe you could explain to him that they do cover more mature material and you didn’t think it was appropriate for his age, period, but he could listen to all he wanted when he turned thirteen. Then turn to the cleaner stuff, which you are admitting is a substitute. That way he knows you are not trying to pull anything over on him.
I don’t know. That was how my mom handled it when my too-young self wanted to wear make-up and read true-crime stories. Sadly, though, I suspect I thought I would die before the magic age came. And she had to listen to a whole lot of whining for two or three years.
If he doesn’t speak French, then I’d recommend MC Solaar’s album Prose Combat. (I’ve heard from native French speakers that MC Solaar is an outstanding poet and that his lyrics are amazing. But, the album is great without knowing what he is saying. I don’t speak French, BTW.)
In public, especially. Bonus effect points if picking him up/dropping off at school.
Turn him on to Public Enemy. They’re smart guys, they don’t rap about bitches or hos, and over all their message is pretty positive. Another good 80s rap band were the Disposable Heroes Of Hypocracy (and their earlier incarnation the punk/rap band The Beatnigs).
Neither of these bands are sanitized-for-your-protection, but then again, neither is the real world.
Check out Public Enemys message board at their website. Its always an interesting read.
Jon
Just to voice another perspective, I’d have to say that if my parents had tried to pull that on me, I’d have gone ballistic. I think that’d be a dead sure way to turn your kid onto more of the music you hate - it’s like the ‘anti-smoking’ Phillip Morris ads that really encourage smoking by depicting it as something only adults and mature people do.
Like a lot of kids around here, I got into rap (at age 11). Didn’t last very long, but I was into the really obscene stuff. [A little secret: kids still want that stuff most of all BECAUSE it provokes such reactions in their parents. Don’t overreact to it.]
I can’t imagine my parents particularly approving, but they didn’t really seem to care. And you know what? It had zero effect on my life in any way. Long as your kid knows that music is music, maybe this shouldn’t be a crisis…
Another good album is G. Love & Special Sauce’s self-titled album. It’s pretty much all clean stuff. You can read the album lyrics here. It’s more blues/rap than m&m, but unlike m&m it doesn’t suck.
In regards to what marley said, maybe if you get outraged and give him a spanking for listening to relatively mild stuff, he won’t be interested in the more prurient stuff, if he is indeed testing boundries. Ms. Manners makes a similar argument in her book Ms. Manners Saves Civilization (or something to that effect). IIRC, her argument basically is that if you do as advised by marley, your child will keep going further until he hits your boundries of what is acceptable. Therefore, if you set your boundries clearly and forcefully, i.e. have a hairy cat-fit, over something more acceptable than what you want him to avoid he won’t be so inclined to pursue the more outrageous stuff.
Of course, many may make the “forbidden fruit” argument. I can’t comment on its validity or strength. But I’ve mentioned Ms. Manners to a few parents and a child psychologist and they all seemed to agree that kids need and look for boundries and that it is up to you to set them.
Another good band to look into is Jurassic 5. I’ve got one of their albums, Quality Control, and it sounds pretty clean to me. It has a parental advisory, but I don’t really see much to object to on it. Compared to, say, Funkdoobiest, it is a pretty clean album. And it is really, really good.