Satan…
My apologies, I was too vague. I wasn’t referring so much to the subject matter as I was referring to how some rap artists don’t have a very diverse base of themes to their music… that is, they stick with a single message, and keep running it into the ground. With any musical medium, with any subject matter, there comes a point where one would think that they can find something else to say. It’s for this same reason I’m not a big fan of country or punk music, either.
Since I am driz nunk, I need to respond to stylus.
Stylus, the reason that this shit sells is the white boys with too much money driving lowered hondas who want to look like they’re bad ass. They hear the bass, see the guy is black, and BOOM they buy it and it’s cool. Who cares if it’s good? It’s cool because they’re white and the rapper is black. That’s why Best Buy and Sam Goody sell the fuck out of this worthless shit. See my first post in this thread. That will allow you to separate the wheat from the chaff.
–Tim
A bit off topic, but…
I know this is paraphrased from a song, and one I’ve heard relatively recently, but I can’t think of what it is, and it’s driving me crazy. Any help?
Lauryn Hill the rapper of Fugees (Refugee Camp) is also a pretty good singer. She did win several Grammys reflecting her wide and solid range of expression.
Here is generally how the first part of a bragging rap go:
This is where I begin: the top of the page
Where I tell my fans not to rush the stage
Here I say that I’m taking over the mike
And say that I going to rock the party unlike
A sucker MC. Then I tell them my name
I tell them my game and that any sucker I will maim
Now I claim that I am taking over the charts,
Getting paid, getting laid and landing acting parts.
Yes, it is deliberately generic.
Hey GaWd,
Why don’t I break some of your ribs instead, you fuckin’ piss ant.
Still trying to de-fossilize your dick?
If I ever go to Cali, I’ll be sure to pour sugar in your gas tank, and kill your dog and stuff it in the fuckin’ mailbox…
beefy-ass.
p.s.- just kidding.
Zenster, I could see from your OP that you were giving props to some of the djs and turntablists out there. My comment, about turntablists actually being musicians, came from zwaldd’s post. He said he’s played guitar in bands before, and knows that most rappers and their music is not “real music”. I just wanted to end that generalization by mentioning the tablists and the music they created. It’s just amazing to see someone with the ability to chop bits and pieces of an instrumental or vocal samples, into a million more pieces and put it all together in a way that still posseses rhythm and creativity. I wish I could give you some of my samples, but I don’t have the equipment nor the knowledge of how to set that up. You can go to a search engine and search under turntablism though. Then check out some of the truntablists I mentioned in my post.
Stylus, zwaldd, please weigh in on this one along with everyone else. I have had to think about this one carefully. The turntable is not a musical instrument so much as it is an electronic instrument (as in the sense of a laboratory or analytical instrument).
I know that this seems to be splitting hairs, but the turntablist is not technically CREATING the music, just as the turntable does not originate the musical tones (like a musical instrument) that it, instead, reproduces. So, the turntablist is only manipulating pre-existing data, as a scientist might read data from a lab instrument and print it out to create a chart. The samples being produced might be rich in information, but they are not music in and of itself.
That said, the immediate title that I will grant an accomplished turntablist it that of “Arranger”. Yes, this is splitting hairs, but if you have ever arranged music, you know that it is an art in and of itself. It’s just that the scratcher is not going through the agonies that the original artist had to endure to produce that precise tone sequence. The scratcher has the luxury of taking someone else’s work and excerpting it (oh boy, this is close to a Napster debate, all of a sudden). To actually execute music in real time is a demanding skill and differs from the ability to sample it.
Still, I am still VERY interested in hearing some of the instrumental scratchings that you chaps are talking about. Could be a lot of fun, and I mean it.
Rap is for people incapable of nonlinear thought.
zenster… that special secret sauce… could it possibly smell worse than my grandma’s super creamy chicken shit sauce? She had a lot of chickens…
I’d classify an arranger as a musician. Also a scratcher. I simply classify someone who makes music a musician. Mind you, there are many distinct classes of musician, and so many ways of looking at it. I know guys that could out-play Yngwie Malmstein (sp?) but couldn’t write, much less arrange a song if their life depended on it.
That being said, I would like to make it perfectly clear that I have the utmost respect for musicians who have mastered an actual musical instrument. Conversely, I laugh at, sneer at and generaly dis record-scratching imbeciles that run one looped sample over an entire song and spend the whole time engaged in arrogant self promotion.
After rereading this 3-4 times, I came to the conclusion that I disagree. I was exposed to a wide variety of rap over the summer and I found that as the style of music is picking up influences from other styles of music, the artists are starting to ‘play’ with the beat a little more, pushing the limits.
As a music listener, I’ve always liked to have some rap in my eclectic collection. As a musician, I’ve lately started to have some respect for the rap genre.
About the DJ: he can actually make or break a rapper. Vanilla Ice can’t get over to this day because, besides his self-inficted wounds, people realized that his DJ butchered “Under Pressure” by Queen and David Bowie, for the song “Ice Ice Baby”. The Dust Brothers, though not technically DJs, enhanced Beck’s and others’ musical ideas to the hilt. Eric B was nominated for president by the great rapper Rakim, for good reason. Imagine Chuck D and Flavor Flav rapping about revolution without Terminator X assasinating with his turntable anybody who doubt that their messages are not for real. And where would Wil Smith be without his DJ Jazzy Jeff? Oh, he might still be a star, but it would have taken him much longer.
"Rap is for people incapable of nonlinear thought. "
and
“So, the turntablist is only manipulating pre-existing data, as a scientist might read data from a lab instrument and print it out to create a chart.”
I think that this is all based on the presumption that rap is a regurgitation of pre existing tunes. Many rap groups now include original artists. In fact, most of the groups recognized as being of the highest quality use original composition in their works.
The Roots are probably the best all around rap/hip hop group around today and they are noted for their use of Jazz-like instrumentation. They often collaborate with well known jazz artists. They also have taken the art of vocal manipulation (think of that guy from the Police Academy series) to an unbelieveable level.
anyone know where I can get a portable/directional EMP generator? I have a few cars to take care of. It is eather that or play the theme to “Apocolyps Now” very loud, ya know the part where they are invading the beach. Nothing like machine guns to get attention. But seriously, some of my coworkers ask me why I don’t like "C"rap, I tell them that just becouse someone can spew out rymes to a 4/4 beat, does not an artist nor good music make. And why do they have to tear up good songs to do their “art”? Though it is fun to mess with the youngsters minds by playing the original, or just a bit and have them name that tune.
so now folks want to call a turntable a musical instrument? if i asked a turntablist ‘hey, play me an A so i can tune to it’ would i get an A?. and if i said ‘ok, play these chords’, would he be able to play them? i guess a turntable could be used as a percussion instrument - scratching is a kind of percussion.
Yes. Look in the yellow pages under Nuclear Bombs.
Is there a way to permanently silence somebody’s loud car stereo?
Every month we get a reminder that the SDMB as a whole hates rap. Or at least “doesn’t get it”. To each his own, I guess.
I just hope The Source has a MB where people post stuff like “How can anyone listen to that crap Dave Matthews puts out? There’s no soul! No beat!” Or Third Eye Blind. Or Matchbox 20. Or Barenaked Ladies. Or whatever the hell else you Wonderbread midwesterners listen to… 
Alphagene you are now my favorite moderator.
Not the whole SDMB, now. Just the cracka-ass crackas. 
Honestly, trying to define music is as useless as trying to define art as a whole (which, of course, means that I’ve spent a considerable amount of time doing both). Singing, obviously, is not required for something to be music. Nor, in my opinion, must it be written out in musical notation. You can dance to hip-hop. If that doesn’t qualify it for the status of music, well, actually I don’t really give a shit. If the Bee Gees made music and A Tribe Called Quest didn’t, it doesn’t say a whole lot for the stamp of “real music” as a source of legitimacy.
Rap is for people with bad hearing. You can tell because you can hear their car radio a block away, and feel it shake you from two car lengths.
Hmm. Since the drummer in your average rock band, unless he happens to have some tympani or some other tuned drum, couldn’t play you an A (and even then, not a 440), I guess drums aren’t musical instruments either, huh?
You know, if I didn’t know that the “theme from Apocolyps[sic] Now . . . the part where they are invading the beach” was the incredibly famous “Ride of the Valkyries,” from Wagner’s “Ring” cycle, I would be hesitant to present myself as an authority on what is and is not music.
good argument, except that in the referenced post, i already acknowledged that a turntable could be a percussion instrument. i think the posters claiming that the turntable is an instrument believe it is more than that which, imho, it ain’t.