You should explain this one. Gangsta rap is not about excess nor is it artistically bankrupt. You can say this about mainstream rap today, but not about the all gangsta rap.
If you take the time to listen to TuPac, NWA, Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg (their early stuff), and the Notorious B. I. G. (who possibly kicked off the rapping about wealth thing, but started by rapping about the streets) you’d see that their rhymes have nothing to do with excess. Living in the poor neighborhoods of L. A. and New York is anything but excessive.
The culture of the streets wasn’t heartbreak and recreational drug use. It was and still is violence, drugs and sex. These aren’t worthwhile values, but after listening to NWA, no one was going to argue they weren’t reality. Such vivid portrayal about the life these guys were living can be a lot of things, but it can’t be artistically bankrupt.
Look, the problem with kids in general isn’t that they like rap, it’s that they like awful rap. Believe it or not, there is some good rap if you go around looking for it. Especially French rap. Although it’s not nearly as popular. Hip hop isn’t a terrible genre if it weren’t so ridiculous nowadays. Listen, when kids listen to country they listen to Toby Keith (sorry if there are fans here) or whatever kind of plastic country garbage the industry is pumping out now. I like old school country, to be honest. Johnny Cash and George Jones are awesome, because they have some stories to tell, and while maybe it could be embellished, I have a lot more respect for those guys. Electronic music too. Ever hear the crap coming out of a German teenagers souped up rice-burner? It’s complete garbage, but there’s many better alternatives. Same goes for every other type of music. Ever hear Nickelback? They are absolute shite, yet pretty popular.
I think that hopefully when the RIAA model of forcing crap music down our throats is rendered obsolete we can have better alternatives. They take bands that would appeal to the lowest common denominator and shove them down the throats of teens (why isn’t it illegal for them to advertise to youngsters when it is for cigarette companies?).
So what is the offical “genre” of mainstream rap if not gangsa? Jay Z (who is, IMHO, a hack) used to rap about being a drug dealer and being on the streets. Now he raps about his great clothes and expensive cars. Frankly, if all you have to rap (and/or sing) about is how fucking rich you are (or how rich you want to be), why the fuck should I care?
So, setting aside the term “gangsta”, my point still stands. The reason rap sales are down is because the stuff on the radio and getting pushed by the record companies is old and stale. Yes, I’ve listened to lots of rap. Yes, there is good rap and hip hop out there. Plenty of it. But not what’s on the radio.
The operative phrase is “their early stuff”. NWA was the bomb, Dr. Dre was always massively overrated, TuPac was OK, Snoop Dogg was awesome, and I never cared for B.I.G. The operative word repeated in that last sentence is “was”. The folks on the radio now–50 Cent, for example–are pale imitations of what was cutting edge in rap while Clinton was president. The paradigm is played out. You want to know when I came to this conclusion? When I saw Kanye West playing with a huge string section.
I’m going to get my Memphis citizenship reovked for saying this, but I can’t stand Three Six Mafia, either. I’ve seen them live three or four times and it has always been without fail the worst, laziest, crappiest live experiences of my concert-going life. And I’ve been to a Widespread Panic show.
I don’t hate rap. I don’t wish hip hop ill. I love Madlib, MF DOOM, Talib Kwali and hell, I even came to like Gnarles Barkley. But the gold-plated thug thing is boring.
Ok, I thought you disliked all of gangsta rap, including the stuff that came out in the early 90’s. Except for your thoughts on Dr. Dre and B.I.G., I can pretty much agree with you on everything else.
It’s just regular hip hop or rap. Gangsta rap is just a sub-genre of hip hop where you basically talk about destroying all your enemies. Rapping about going to clubs isn’t gangsta rap.
If it’s that, it’s probably just a case of the pendulum swinging the other way. AFter all, rap’s been in the catbird seat for ages now. I don’t know enough about emo musically to really discuss it intelligently, but if it’s anything like a getting back to basics rock-n-roll trend, then it’s not surprising. Actually wasn’t Nirvana’s music somewhat in an emo vein? I seem to remember a lot of lyrics about being depressed and bewildered, and Cobain did off himself in the end.
But musically, rock-n-roll seems to reassert a basic version of itself every 10 or 15 years.
I think you’re probably using the word emo the way people were used alternative (or grunge, for that matter) 15 years ago, when it was applied to almost everything. Alternative music was introspective, but it was more aggressive and rough than the emo stuff I’ve heard.
The following doesn’t refer to anybody here, but: I don’t like more than a handful of rap tracks, but I’ve gotten so tired of people saying ‘it’s a fad’ (a 20- or 30-year-old fad??) and ‘it’s not music’ that I hope it stays popular out of spite.
Classical Music was the only segment that gained in sales last year.
Of course, that doesn’t make it the next big thing. But even if you strip out the Bocelli/Groban/Il Divo crowd (as the link above points out, their records are responsible for the big sales increase, which some are hastily reporting as being nearly a 20% increase) “regular” classical music still grew by roughly 4% last year, which still makes it the only growing market segment for music sales.
What exactly is emo anyway? I know it’s supposed to be short for ‘emotion’ but what is it musically? I read that it was a punk outgrowth which you would think means that it has a hard edge to it.
Can anyone name any bands in the last 20 years that are emo or emo-ish, at least musically? I’m more interested in the sound than the lyrics.
Then why do so many of the same people like classic soul, R&B, blues, jazz, ragtime, etc. etc. etc.? I don’t think there are many people who hate rap because it’s made by black people. But many people probably do imagine, presumably incorrectly, that rap is nothing more that the saga of the “get-toe” repeated ad infinitum, and don’t want to hear it.
Can you blame them? Even the most urgent social issues get tiresome.
Well, for one, those genres are no longer exclusively Black. About the only genre that’s as Black as rap - if we’re looking at that subgenre of hip-hop - is gospel. Like Kirk Franklin-type gospel.
That sort of reasoning is so stupid I can’t stand it. It’s like saying that country is all about cheating and drinking. Yeah, a lot of it is, and some artists really milk that angle. But there’s so much more, and if someone puts country on blast I generally dismiss their perspectives on music.
I personally can’t stand 90% of the rap that’s played on MTV or the radio. But I can’t stand 90% of the stuff of any genre on MTV and the radio. I have to listen to classic rock pretty much, because that more or less guarantees the music’s of some quality. We’ve done this a million times on this board. Some folks are quite happy dismissing a genre of music with virtually no knowledge of it… that’s the way of the world, I guess.
IMO, blithely stating that a genre is crap just shows how provincial one is. It’s fine to decry the current state of popular music, because it does seem that there is this lowest denominator thing that’s going on, but even there, there’s gems to be found. Hell, I thought I hated country until I heard Little Texas and Brad Paisley. I thought I hated Christian rock until I heard Jars of Clay. Bottom line is, if you listen long enough, and careful enough, and you’re not a complete philistine, you’ll find some good stuff in all the established genres.