Pardon me while I go into a rant:
How long must we endure rap records? ( I refuse to say music cause most of it is just
talking in meter.) I watched rap take over the airwaves in 1990 and it still seems to be
going strong. Lately there has been an improvement as some of the groups combine melodies with rap but still it sucks. I have seen all the huge clothes,gangsta-attitudes,
sideways ballcaps giant gold chains and dangerous facial expressions I can possibly stand for a lifetime.I don’t want to see another person scowl at me as they perform lyrics about the police,jails,drugs,gangs,guns and violence. I don’t want to see another name with the freakin letter Z substituted for the letter S.
I mean it was ok there for a while. Maybe we needed a break from the big hair groups of
the 80’s , but shit its been ten years! When are we gonna get back to MUSIC on MTV and Radio?? And no just hold on there… I ain’t prejudice against anyone ( rap comes in black and white… remember Vanilla Ice?) I am just a poor assed music lover that is deperately dying to hear some feelgood friggin music without having to dialup an oldies station and listen to KC and the sunshine band.
Ok come on flamers beat me hit me, make me write bad checks…I can take it. I just had to get that off my chest. (Maybe I just need my blankie.)
(bracing for the onslaught)
“I think it speaks to the duality of man sir.”
(private Joker in Full Metal Jacket)
Apparantly people still enjoys rap music. If there wasn’t a demand, then the supply would dissappear. And I doubt that rap has monopolized Record Town.
Anyway, I’ll bow-out the music debate right now. Others have covered that angle better than I could.
I love a lot of rap music cause it’s the most poetic social commentary going today. It’s clever light years beyond most of the lame crap on the airwaves. It’s angry often, but with good reason. I don’t like the stuff that’s violent, especially towards women, but most of it is tremendous wordplay against a get your ass up beat. My fave is the Geto Boys out of Houston TX. They’ll tell you about the state of this country beyond the lucky Haves.
The dominant culture is only now appreciating the Blues of the 30’s, and I expect Rap will similarly be past it’s codification in the next 20 years.
I don’t care for rap. But that’s just me. It’s not all bad. I’ve heard a few things that I kind of liked.
The following is an actual conversation between me and my guitar-player husband, when a rap group started their performance on Nickelodeon’s All That TV show:
Husband: Turn that s*** off!
Me: No. This song isn’t too bad.
Husband: It’s rap. It’s not music.
Me: It is so music. Listen to this. There’s a full choir backing them.
Husband: That is not music.
Me: Honey, you’re going to have to face it. Rap is here, and it’s a valid form of music.
Husband: Says who? Teenagers and the record companies?
Me: Yeah. Teenagers and the record companies. The same people who validated rock and roll, butthead.
Husband: (dead silence)
Me: I thought so.
“The quickest way to a man’s heart is through his ribcage.” --anonymous redhead
Cristi: That’s 'cause rock-and-roll is only one step up from rap, and it’s not much of a step up. Gimmie Robert Schumann or John Rutter any day of the week.
– tracer, practicing his curmudgeoniness
My son was just an average high school student because he said classes were boring but yet he can do every word to most rap songs, where did I go wrong? There are a FEW that I like but not enough to keep a radio station in business. Good thing they have that tuner on the radio. I don’t drive my son’s car and he don’t drive mine.
Rap is music, I don’t listen to it, but it is music. My biggest problem with rap (And a lot of new music period.) is that people seem to think loud bass is all that is needed. Kids buy stereos with expensive bass speakers and dimestore tweeters and midranges because the loudest part of the music is the bass, so they think all that is important is it. The beat is important, but if that and lyrics are all there is to the song, it probably isn’t good music.
>>Being Chaotic Evil means never having to say your sorry…unless the other guy is bigger than you.<<
I’m willing to bet that Thomas Paine, Carrie Nation, and H. L. Mencken would all have a hard time getting their words to rhyme to a beat. I don’t see the real social commentary in rap–I don’t see (or hear) it in music in general,which is fine.
Music’s “job” isn’t to do social commentary. When it tries, it usually reminds me of the kind of poetry that most of us wrote when we were 13–pretentious and awful.
If rap or hip hop’s music is appealing, fine. But this is not really discourse going on here.
An innerestin’ aside… in fieldwork with Mississippi blues elders, I’ve found that most traditional musicians don’t care for rap. While I’m enthusiastic about it, most of the old guys think it’s too loud and not challenging musically. But,then, guys of the Frank Sinatra era don’t think much of Bob Dylan.
It’s funny… I’ve mentioned this before, but only two forms of music get termed “not music” by detractors - urban-based music and music made with the aid of machines.
When you combine the two - disco and rap - you get the most peoplwe claiming it’s not music.
I mean, I KNOW a lot of people who HATE country, but I’ve never heard someone say, “Country is not music.”
Bottom line: It’s been around twenty years now. You don’t have to like it, but isn’t it about time you giot used to it being there?
