Yeah, give that poverty crap a rest. School music programs, while not what they used to be, can expose you to formal music lessons for next to nothing.
And as far as rap being music…
I don’t know why rappers aren’t content to call themselves poets or performance artists and leave “musician” to someone who plays an instrument or sings (neither of which I’ve ever heard a rapper do). There’s no shame in being a poet or a performance artist. Really. (That is, unless you perform rap. Bwahahahahaha!)
Mr. Myth said, "A whole album full of fucking cricket farts could get released and win a Grammy nowadays. I won’t think its music, but some new-age cricket-fucker probably will. "
If that ain’t a sig line, I don’t know what the fuck is.
Hey MonkeyMule, I just wanna say I really like your sig a whole lot. It makes me giggle like a schoolgirl every time I read it, even if I just read it and then read it again.
Ok, I’ll let y’all get back to ragin’ and rantin’ and whatever.
OK, you got me. I only got 999 gold and platinum albums. Damn You Britney Spears!
Bubba
I did notice however that you seem to be very passionate about whatever you think is music.
Anyone who thinks rap isn’t music should throw in a roots album and shut the fuck up already.
Even if they don’t throw in a roots album, they should STFU.
[hijack]According to my music professor, Ms JL Smith, rap (while highly entertaining and and enjoyable, most of the time) isn’t music not because of its lack of traditional insturments, but because the form lacks melody (or harmony, I forget.) It is more akin to a highly paced spoken word system. Everything else which does encorperate the missing link isn’t rap, it is ‘hip-hop.’ Just my .02.[/hijack]
UncleBeer, in my admittedly fuzzy memory, I do believe sampling is under a six-second rule. Sample any more than six seconds and your ass will get sued. Steal a whole bassline and prepare to pay royalties.
Other than that its legal.
Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the world’s greatest jazz trio - the NoTones!
Here’s T-Bone on the nothing, you’ve got Screamin Joe on the nothing, and finally, Bob on the nothing. Let’s hear it folks!
Can you tell me the name of a jazz band that doesn’t use those pesky instruments? Or was jazz created by rich folks who could afford a fleet of snappy tubas?
Before rap, there was doo-wop, which also requires no instruments. People in the 50’s seemed to really like it, so maybe it isn’t just the lack of instruments that turn people off. The lyrics in many modern rap songs are offensive and childish, and I find that a lot of them sound exactly the same. They’re hard to sing along to, and in the end, I generally don’t like a lot of it. You do, and obviously plenty of people do otherwise it wouldn’t have been around for so long.
Perhaps the musical ear that’s used to make mixed tapes and cut samples would be better used creating something original. I liken rap to collage. I enjoy a nice collage now and again, and rearranging pictures from magazines is fun and certainly takes an artistic eye to make it look good, but I don’t know if I’d consider someone who makes collages an artist based solely on collages. I mean, they seem to be artistic and recycling is nice, but I guess I’d like to see something more. Finding out that Jackson Pollock could draw and paint in a more traditional sense helped me appreciate him more because I knew he understood what he was doing and was doing it very thoughtfully rather than just splattering paint all willy-nilly.
I don’t think it’s worth getting all biled up about. You’ll ruin your esophagus that way.
Maeglin
But that’s the point. It is one of the few outlets for poverty-stricken people. It is also one of pretty much only two ways for someone in that situation to really get ahead in life, and the other one ain’t that appealing.
MonkeyMule, you need to get a little bit of a grip.
Are you saying Rap is the only accessible music to the poor? Riiiiight.
Even your example is ridiculous. 80-120 for an instrument plus records at 5-10 bucks a pop? I could get a guitar or almost any other mainstream rock instrument for around that kind of money.
Perhaps rap is a legitimate art form, perhaps not (I’m inclined to believe that it is), but to insinuate racism and classism just because someone doesn’t value rap is totally off the wall.
Get off your high horse.
MonkeyMule said,
It’s precisely because of this that Vanilla Ice makes up the backbone of my rap collection.
Jesus H. Christ, man. Why don’t you grab the end of that stick, remove it from your rectum, and give yourself a few decent whacks over the head with it instead. It’s a long shot, but perhaps it’ll beat some sense into you. If I may be so bold as to speak for “Whitey,” I don’t think the majority of people who dislike rap have racism as their underlying motive.
-ellis
Bobby McFerrin. :eek:
DeskMonkey, I understand where you’re coming from. A lot of mainstream rap is extremely juvenile. I have some friends who are into less mainstream stuff, though, and it’s pretty good. Not my cup of tea, sure, but there’s some pretty awesome stuff.
Also: If someone just rips off a part of a song? Feh. But listen to Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, by Kid Koala, and tell me that that’s not art.
The point is that the above is a steaming load of crap.
Bobby McFerrin? He is not a jazz band. He does sort of an interpretation of jazz using his voice, but that’s not the root of jazz.
Now I’m going to have that horrifying Bobby McFerrin video looping through my head. :eek:
Ever seen Def Poetry Jam? Those folks fucking ROCK. They call themselves performance artists, but I’d rather listen to a week-long show of their stuff than five minutes of rap. I’m not saying rap isn’t real music - I don’t care enough about it to listen to much of it (but I’ve listened to enough to know what it’s about) - however, I’d love to see rappers take a clue from these guys.
Maybe rap’s lyrics used to have deeper meanings that stemmed from their roots, but for the most part, they’ve lost that.
Dude, chill out a little. Hate people, hate everyone, whatever, but keep in mind that not everyone is going to share your opinion all the time. It’s not enough to give yourself an aneurism over.
(Oh, and I’m sorry, but it’s the French hornists who control the music world. How else do you explain my awesome job as an administrative assistant? I played the right fucking instrument in high school and college - tell your kids.)
Ava
My old man used to say the only thing he knew how to play was the turntable. He didn’t mean scratchin’ I guess.
I don’t much care for Rap. Sometimes, though, it feeds a disturbed part of my soul that craves such delicious and misogynistic tidbits as “We don’t love dem hos” and “When da bitch step up I’m smackin da ho.” Not that I think it’s cool to refer to broads as “ho,” but the lines are hyperbolically funny. Anyone who thinks in terms as extreme as much of the Rap I’ve heard, well, they’re silly. I’d probably get myself shot if I were to visit da 'hood and someone came up to me all rappity…but I’d die laughing! I prefer really hard Rock like The Who or Iggy Pop because it speaks to a part of me that I just don’t get to express in my current lifestyle–I can relate to it and know I’m not the only one who feels that way.
Beastie Boys I like…cuz they seem to know theyr’e comical.
I agree with Da Monkey that Rap is music and to deny this just because it doesn’t normally use traditional musical instruments like tubas is nothing short of eletist and narrow-minded. What exactly is a banjo fer cryin’ out loud if not a bunch of noise makers thrown together and then eventually refined into the fine classical instument we now enjoy (played by lotsa good White folks on the Country scene). So what’s the difference between the banjo which started as a field expedient music maker, and the tape recorder & turn table that is currently tortured by Rappists? And who needs instruments anyways? A Capella is most certainly accepted as music, and YES even did a voice-only release of “Leave It.” American Indians didn’t exactly have brass bands and yet are credited with having music in their culture.
I think that suggesting Rap is “the music of the poor” is ridiculous. It isn’t only for violence-prone Black Urban Males (no acronym there!) any more than Reggae is only for impoverished rural Black folks who’ll give da man a beatin’ just as soon as the dope runs out.
Rap is agressive and dominant and belligerent communication. And while all of its adherents are certainly not agressive and dominant and belligerent, it DOES appeal to that side of a lot of people who, for their own individual reasons, need to recognize that aspect of their psyche.
Cricket farting isn’t music to humans because it is not conceived by and manipulated by humans with the intent to communicate on multiple auditory levels.
I LIKE rap music. It speaks to how I feel. I am angry. I have many violent thoughts. It’s calming. When I was less angry, I liked the Beach Boys. Music is whatever floats your boat, even cricket music.
Care to elaborate why?
I enjoy some rap music. Usually, the songs I enjoy are the songs I can laugh at/with. I don’t know if it is supposed to be taken light-heartedly, but that is the way the songs come across to me.
So, in all seriousness, does it calm you down because it is ligh-hearted, or because it speaks to how you are actually feeling?
I am kinda trying to figure out if I am laughing at something I shouldn’t be laughing at.
Examples:
Welcome to the SDMB.
—Daniel
P.S. I have been playing all styles of guitar for going on 17 years now. Most of the song I play are covers, because I can change them and make them “mine” (and because they’re fun to play). I have a few original pieces that I have written and thought enough of to keep around, but mostly I play song written by others. I consider myself a musician and what I do as playing music. Just like I would consider rap to be music. They just use a different instrument.