Since when is the mark of a great artist the fact that nobody wants to buy their shit? By that reasoning, I should win a grammy because nobody in their right mind would spend a dime on anything with my singing on it.
I’m not saying that every successful group really deserves to be, but that doesn’t mean that just because a group is successful they’re incapable of creating solid art.
This is a description that can be used for a pretty big chunk of rock music as well. With a few exceptions I’m not a huge fan of rap either, but just as with music from any other genre there’s going to be a vast majority of crap that makes it harder to pick out the truly good songs.
Calling it a non-music is a pretty sweeping generalization. Just because you don’t like it, doesn’t mean it’s without merit.
Rap is absolutely crap. Think of what other great heights of artistic expression music has brought us too, it has made people cry, laugh, and be inspired. Think of where great artists like the Beatles, Zeppelin, and Floyd have brought people to. John Lennon for example had a profound philosophy driving all of his music, “All you need is love.”
Then, think about the place listening to Ashanti or 50 cent brings you to. Ashanti callin’ her boy cuz she lonely and 50 gettin his G’s does not exactly stir the soul. If they even bothered to think of a philosophy, which I’m sure they did not, it would be “make lots of money”. Not quite the pinnacle of human thought.
So Ashanti and 50 Cent suck? Fine. I won’t argue that. But are you really going to condemn the entire genre on the basis of two artists, regardless of how popular they are?
And for all those who say “Rap isn’t music” - look, who died and made you the OED? Rap, like any other music, has melody, harmony, and rhythm. The difference is that the voice is used to carry the rhythm, and not the melody. You may not see the musicality of it. Doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
I’m sick of the overgeneralizations. Not all rap is shouting and swearing over a heavy bass line. Not all rap relies on samples. Not all rap is violent and thuggish. There’s good stuff out there (like, say, Talib Kweli or Ms. Dynamite), if you’re willing to look. And if you’re not, then you’re not. But at least have the decency to say “I don’t like Jay-Z/Nas/whomever” instead of making the blanket generalization “Rap is Crap.”
I’m an old man here, a buyer of oldies and country music primarily, but one who has given many thousands of records a spin. Rap, like any genre from polka to death metal, has potential for greatness. Aceyalone’s All Balls Don’t Bounce is one of my all-time favorite albums, extremely musical and definitely rap (or hip hop, as you may prefer). The lyrics are great, the samples are clever and surprising, the dude even raps in waltz time. It’s sophisticated, well-crafted, artistic.
Hip hop and rap are popular for the same reason lobster is a popular seafood, people like it people will and will listen to and eat what they like and the artists or chefs will make it for them.
Also it seems most people here are putting all hip hop r&b and rap into one category :smack:
Because rap has NEVER done that before?
Cry, Tupac - Dear Mama.
Laugh, 50 cent -21 questions (i heard my mum laugh on the “i love you like a fat kid loves cake” line.)
I couldn’t agree with you more. I used to play keyboards and guitar: piano for 28 years, synths for 12 years (no samplers either except for a Alesis HR-16 drum/percussion sampler: I did my own synth programming as well as composition/recording) and 12-string acoustic for 18, so I DID trouble myself to learn to play, and on the piano I was classically trained. So I speak with at least some amount of musical knowledge here.
I’ve spent the better part of the last two years miserable at a job where my coworkers loved to play the radio all day, every day, and they had a definite fondness for rap. Praise Ratness today was my last day at this job. The stuff (I won’t even use the word “music” in the same sentence as “rap”) makes my nerves feel as if they’ve been soaking in pure capsaicin. UGGGGGH!!!
And I’d like to add that the people who BUY this garbage are least-common-denominator types with no taste whatsoever – this is the market for it which you mention. As is the market for virtually all popular music. I don’t listen to popular music at all anymore, not voluntarily, anyway. I stopped listening to the radio (other than occasional classical and jazz stations, plus one college station which had a cool electronic music show on Monday nights) by choice in 1980. I was forced to listen to current popular music – “alternative” rock and “club” as well as rap at my newly ended job, and the experience didn’t increase my tolerance or broaden my musical horizons, so to speak. My reaction was to see that people are even more idiotic than I already thought they were, as evidenced by their soaking what’s left of their brains in that stuff. If you ask me, they don’t have the mental ability to appreciate actual music.
What do you think the hardcore fans of classical music would say about Led Zeppelin or the Beatles? I have a pretty good idea it would sound something like the exchange going on above this post.
LOL. I like how the argument for rock has three of the all-time great bands, and the rap representatives are… Ashanti and 50 cent. Right. That’s fair. I don’t think anybody short of 50 cent’s immediate family would name him as one of the all-time great rappers.
For those who hate club music, listen to the Dust Brothers and tell me you can’t find some sequence of electronic weirdness to like in it. For those who hate rap music, listen to the Typical Cats and tell me there’s not something beautiful in the way unconventional beats are grafted to meaningful lyrics.
Writing off a a whole genre of music as no talent crap is just closed minded, and it saddens me. Your musical horizon is so much more constricted that way.
In response to the question of whether or not Outkast is rap, might I suggest that based on what little I’ve heard of them (read: care to subject myself to) I would be willing to compromise and classify them as a blend of styles.
I do not consider rap to be music (primarily because the words are not sung) but would be willing to consider certain artists “rap-music” style in much the same way as exist country-rock, country-pop, blues-rock, blue eyed soul, and so forth.
But this is IMHO so just saying “rap is crap” pretty much sums up my opinion in a nutshell.
But I will answer Canvas Shoes, who seems to honestly be asking a question.
If rap is synonymous with hip hop (and unless you get down to nitpicky credibility arguments, it is), Outkast are most certainly rap. While Hey Ya, and much of the album it is drawn from (Andre 3000’s half of their latest: The Love Below) does not contain much rapping, they are a rap/hip hop group. In a rough analogy, while The Clash may have done songs on London Calling that could be more correctly considered ska, etc. they were still a punk band. Likewise, just as Outkast has strayed a little from their rapping origins (but just a little), they are still hip hop.
I also find it hilarious that so many people who complain about rap’s “sex rhymes” come from the generation that rocked to “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction.” I mean, the only thematic difference between that and a lot of commercial rap is that the rapper scores whereas Mick Jagger doesn’t.
I love classical music and never particularly got into the Beatles or Led Zeppelin, but neither do I have the same kind of “This isn’t music, it’s noise, it’s crap shut it OFF!” reaction when I hear them the way I do with rap. I find the Beatles and Zeppelin tolerable even though I don’t and wouldn’t own a single album by either of them
Of these two bands, I “like” the Beatles better; namely because they SING MELODICALLY, whereas in many instances Robert Plant of Zep seems to prefer screaming and hollering rather than singing, and while I find most Beatles lyrics to be “bubblegum,” at least I can UNDERSTAND what they’re singing! But really now – “I love you, yeah, yeah, yeah I love you…” is an example of really profound lyrics? --NOT–
Even though I’d rather listen to most classical music than most contemporary music, I don’t dislike ALL contemporary music nor would I even come close to calling all of it noise even though I DO feel that way about rap. I will state a decided preference for instrumental music, however, and even among bands which do have vocals, I like the ones with complex instrumentality. Rock music? Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Yes (pre-1980). Kansas (especially the album “Leftoverture” – check out that song Magnum Opus willya?). Rush (didn’t someone say something about complex rhythm patterns and profound lyrics? I highly recommend the Rush album “A Farewell To Kings” on both these counts. Music like this just isn’t made anymore, with only one exception I’ve heard so far (believe me, in the last two and a half years, I’ve had LOTS of exposure to what passes for music these days):
The only recent music I’ve been exposed to which I WOULDN’T say is mediocre at best, or trash at worst, is a band called Bond, their album “Shine.” Wow, can those women play their instruments! Nope, I didn’t “find” them on the radio at work; I happened to get in a car with my best friend on a Saturday afternoon this past spring and she had them on her CD player. I was mightily impressed. I have the album now.
Man I don’t see why you guys are dissing rap so much. Some of you must have never heard good rap. I know this is my opinion but being able to flow and freestyle is a talent. Not anyone can do it. Snoop Dogg is a very good freestyler. Listen to some of his earlier stuff. Listen to the power and passion that Tupac brings to his songs. Before you can diss rap you have to give it a chance first. Don’t just base your assumptions and what you see on MTV or hear on the radio. There are many great rappers out there.
Well, I don’t have cable (therefore I lack MTV) but I heard lots of rap on the radio at work and it was from there that I came to my “rap is crap” conclusion. And one of the rap stations my coworkers put on often DID play Tupac on numerous occasions.
But anyway, so what would a person who’s only heard rap on the radio (or maybe even MTV as well) and hated it there do to “give it a chance” – do I start spending my hard-earned money on albums by “artists” I know I hate to see if anything else on the albums are “better” than the songs I heard on the radio and absolutely couldn’t stand? And why should I believe that the other songs on the album ARE “better” than the awful ones I heard on the radio?
Sorry, but what I heard on the radio has provided me with more than sufficient evidence to decide that “you can’t spell ‘crap’ without ‘rap.’” Not only wouldn’t I spend a dime on that garbage, but I wouldn’t take a rap album for free.
I suppose instrumental music isn’t music either, then, since words are not sung.
Rap artists didn’t invent the practice of speaking rhythmically in song. Phil Harris, Tex Williams, Chuck Berry, Jerry Reed, Cab Calloway and the Big Bopper all did it long before the first rap record was made.
Oh, Okay, thanks, that makes more sense then, I’ve always pretty much separated (in my mind :D), hip hop from rap. I like a lot of hip hop, especially the late 80s, early 90s stuff.
To me, and I’d guess, to a lot of middle aged white folks, “Rap” is that which is accompanied by overbearing bass, talking only, and violent and/or graphic sexual lyrics.
Someone else mentioned that they thought it was ironic that 'we" complain about Raps sexual lyrics when bands like the Rolling Stones were well, rolling in them.
There’s a difference between the graphic, negative, woman/white/cop/authority hatred of much of Rap’s lyrics, and the sensual and more relaxed “Let’s Spend the Night Together”. That’s a simplified, but accurate way to put it.
But, I guess that with a generation that thinks it’s hilariously funny to hear the word “f**k” 1400 times throughout one of Eddie Murphy’s stand up routines, maybe that kind of violent expression of sexuality isn’t as heinous to them.(or so I’m guessing).
What pisses me off about rap is how rappers claim there christian and all wearing their huge crosses made out of diamonds and yet their music videos show them to be hoes, bamming with the hottest gals around. They all jokes as far as im concerned.
