# Will Rap/Hip Hop ever go stale? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 8, 2010, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-rap-hip-hop-ever-go-stale/549559 "2010-08-08T00:14:38Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 6:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-rap-hip-hop-ever-go-stale/549559/101 "2010-08-08T06:24:01Z")
I can access youtube, in that I can get to the website. My computer is just really herky jerky about playing the videos and it gets to be really annoying. I tried to watch an episode of the Office on Hulu once and it just locked up my browser for like 45 minutes. I have a really old computer. My wife’s laptop works great but she won’t let me touch it. Our ten year old is on it all the time watching videos, but my wife says **I** have to keep my fat fingers off it. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![DiosaBellissima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@DiosaBellissima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiosaBellissima)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-rap-hip-hop-ever-go-stale/549559/102 "2010-08-08T06:25:12Z")
Dad, I can’t believe you 1: remarried without telling me 2: gave me a sibling and didn’t tell me. No wonder you wanted me off your lawn. . . I’m putting your ass into a home post haste. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-rap-hip-hop-ever-go-stale/549559/103 "2010-08-08T06:26:57Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > No, that’s absolutely correct. I’ve heard them. I can name the riffs. No, it’s not, no you haven’t, and no you can’t. And I’m not going to mock you for not knowing how to use a computer. I’m actually going to commend you for recognizing an area of knowledge in which you are deficient, and admitting to it. Now, here’s the thing you need to realize: you know precisely as much about rap as you know about computers. _Precisely._ Allow me to illustrate: > [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > And There was some rap group (DMC something?) that also basically just rapped over Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way.” Real creative. That was Run DMC. They did not sample “Walk this Way,” they _covered_ it. (You do know what a “cover” is, right?) They didn’t sample Joe Perry’s guitar. They had Joe Perry, in the studio, playing guitar with them. They also did not sample Steven Tyler’s vocals. They had Steven Tyler, in the studio, singing back up for them. I know you won’t watch it, but [here’s the video of Aerosmith and Run DMC performing the song together](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B_UYYPb-Gk) anyway. So, it appears that Aerosmith had enough interest and respect for rap as a genre to participate on a rap album. I guess that means they don’t know as much about music as you do, because otherwise they’d never have wasted their time with such talentless hacks performing in such a useless genre. Right? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-rap-hip-hop-ever-go-stale/549559/104 "2010-08-08T06:27:50Z")
> [@gladtobeblazed](#): > > > [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > > > I don’t know how to do any of this. My computer doesn’t even have a line in. I tried to put a microphone in it to use Skype one, and it doesn’t have an input jack anywhere. I don’t know what you mean by “opening up a sound recorder” either. I don’t know what that is. > > Good lord, even my old Pentium computer from '96 had a line in. I assume you’re using Windows, as far as I know Sound Recorder has been under “Accessories” since Windows 95. If a “line in” is an input jack for a microphone, my computer doesn’t have one. It’s an HP 503n. It’s Windows XP. I don’t know what “accesories” is, I assume that’s on the start menu? I never use anything but the internet browser and the word processor. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-rap-hip-hop-ever-go-stale/549559/105 "2010-08-08T06:28:43Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > My wife’s laptop works great but she won’t let me touch it. Our ten year old is on it all the time watching videos, but my wife says **I** have to keep my fat fingers off it. ☹ Well, great. Go over and ask your kid to play some of these videos for you. You don’t have to lay a finger on the computer yourself, just look at it while she does the work. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-rap-hip-hop-ever-go-stale/549559/106 "2010-08-08T06:32:58Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > > [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > > > No, that’s absolutely correct. I’ve heard them. I can name the riffs. > > No, it’s not, no you haven’t, and no you can’t. > > And I’m not going to mock you for not knowing how to use a computer. I’m actually going to commend you for recognizing an area of knowledge in which you are deficient, and admitting to it. Now, here’s the thing you need to realize: you know precisely as much about rap as you know about computers. > > _Precisely._ > > Allow me to illustrate: > > > [@Diogenes the Cynic](#): > > > > And There was some rap group (DMC something?) that also basically just rapped over Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way.” Real creative. > > That was Run DMC. They did not sample “Walk this Way,” they _covered_ it. (You do know what a “cover” is, right?) They didn’t sample Joe Perry’s guitar. They had Joe Perry, in the studio, playing guitar with them. They also did not sample Steven Tyler’s vocals. They had Steven Tyler, in the studio, singing back up for them. I know you won’t watch it, but [here’s the video of Aerosmith and Run DMC performing the song together](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4B_UYYPb-Gk) anyway. > > So, it appears that Aerosmith had enough interest and respect for rap as a genre to participate on a rap album. I guess that means they don’t know as much about music as you do, because otherwise they’d never have wasted their time with such talentless hacks performing in such a useless genre. > > Right? Ok, I satnd corrected on Run DMC, but I do know that Ton Loc (I googled it) used that Van Halen riff without permission because I remember there was a lawsuit over it, and I remeber an interview with EVH where he said he had no idea until he saw the video on MTV and recognized his own riff. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-rap-hip-hop-ever-go-stale/549559/107 "2010-08-08T06:47:08Z")
But the question remains: do you know more about music than Steven Tyler? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-rap-hip-hop-ever-go-stale/549559/108 "2010-08-08T06:55:03Z")
About the business? Of course not. About music itself? Probably about the same. Maybe more. I can actually play an instrument. ---
**Author:** ![gladtobeblazed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/85f322/32.png) [@gladtobeblazed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gladtobeblazed)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 7:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-rap-hip-hop-ever-go-stale/549559/109 "2010-08-08T07:04:11Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > If a “line in” is an input jack for a microphone, my computer doesn’t have one. It’s an HP 503n. It’s Windows XP. I don’t know what “accesories” is, I assume that’s on the start menu? I never use anything but the internet browser and the word processor. Yes, accessories under the start menu. Sound Recorder is there along with Calculator, WordPad, Paint.. Yes, a line in (audio in or microphone in) is an input jack, usually 3.5 mm. mini stereo. I looked at the HP website for the specifications of that model, and I couldn’t find what sound card you have. Fortunately it looks like you have 4 USB inputs. A quick google search turns up a [USB sound card adapter](http://www.overstock.com/Electronics/USB-to-Headset-Microphone-PC-Sound-Card-Adapter/2507197/product.html). ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-rap-hip-hop-ever-go-stale/549559/110 "2010-08-08T07:06:15Z")
I don’t know what a sound card is. I don’t think you understand the depth of my ignorance here. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-rap-hip-hop-ever-go-stale/549559/111 "2010-08-08T07:06:32Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > About the business? Of course not. About music itself? Probably about the same. Maybe more. I can actually play an instrument. Steve Tyler plays the drums. Or at least, he used to, before he became a singer. Granted, that was forty years ago. I don’t know if he kept it up. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-rap-hip-hop-ever-go-stale/549559/112 "2010-08-08T07:07:12Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > I don’t think you understand the depth of my ignorance here. No, I think we have a pretty good handle on it. ---
**Author:** ![woodstockbirdybird](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/woodstockbirdybird/32/7905_2.png) [@woodstockbirdybird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woodstockbirdybird)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-rap-hip-hop-ever-go-stale/549559/113 "2010-08-08T07:14:26Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > About the business? Of course not. About music itself? Probably about the same. Maybe more. I can actually play an instrument. And yet you literally don’t know shit about hip hop. You bring up Tone-Loc and Puff Daddy to bolster your argument? _Nobody_ takes that shit seriously. I _do_ know about music - I even play an instrument! - and I can categorically state you’re dead wrong about everything you’re claiming. I’d link to examples of creative sampling where a song is made by using hundreds of brief bits from songs and piecing them together to create something entirely new, but you apparently are too old at 44 to be bothered trying to navigate something as user-friendly as Youtube, so screw it. But DJ Shadow’s _Endtroducing…_ is made entirely of “borrowed” music, and if you think you could do anything remotely as good I’d pay to hear the results. That album - hell, any 2 random songs by De La Soul, or Outkast - has more musical variety than the entire recorded output of Slayer. Shit, blues is much more “all sounds the same” than hip hop by a huge factor. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 7:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-rap-hip-hop-ever-go-stale/549559/114 "2010-08-08T07:20:37Z")
Slayer at least writes their own songs. Stealing other people’s shit does not become more creative just because you steal a whole bunch of it. If a student plagiarizes a paper from dozens of sources, it’s still plagiarism and he still didn’t do any work. ---
**Author:** ![woodstockbirdybird](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/woodstockbirdybird/32/7905_2.png) [@woodstockbirdybird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woodstockbirdybird)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-rap-hip-hop-ever-go-stale/549559/115 "2010-08-08T07:24:44Z")
If he cuts and pastes hundreds or thousands of single words from disparate sources and painstakingly creates an essay that makes sense that way, he did do work, and creatively to boot. You obviously haven’t heard anything other than a few hacks who sampled entire riffs, and are basing your entire position on your own ignorance of what actually exists in the genre. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-rap-hip-hop-ever-go-stale/549559/116 "2010-08-08T07:33:29Z")
What would be the point of plagiarizing a single word? That doesn’t even make sense. I don’t even think that’s possible. ---
**Author:** ![DiosaBellissima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a8b319/32.png) [@DiosaBellissima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DiosaBellissima)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 7:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-rap-hip-hop-ever-go-stale/549559/117 "2010-08-08T07:35:25Z")
_Oy vey_. . . :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-rap-hip-hop-ever-go-stale/549559/118 "2010-08-08T07:37:14Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Stealing other people’s shit does not become more creative just because you steal a whole bunch of it. If a student plagiarizes a paper from dozens of sources, it’s still plagiarism and he still didn’t do any work. Calling what DJ Shadow does “stealing” or “plagiarism” is really profoundly ignorant. If you want to compare it to a student writing a paper, it would be more like a student turning in a paper consisting entirely of his own ideas and words, except instead of typing the paper, he went through thousands of magazines, cutting out individual words and parts of words, and pasting them together like a giant, insanely complicated ransom note. That’s what sampling is. Yeah, technically, what Tone Loc did was also sampling, in the same way strumming the same note over and over again is technically playing the guitar. Neither begins to capture the sophistication and artistry that’s possible within the medium. ---
**Author:** ![woodstockbirdybird](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/woodstockbirdybird/32/7905_2.png) [@woodstockbirdybird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woodstockbirdybird)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-rap-hip-hop-ever-go-stale/549559/119 "2010-08-08T07:39:27Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > What would be the point of plagiarizing a single word? That doesn’t even make sense. I don’t even think that’s possible. What would be the point of a single word? A single word that doesn’t even make sense. I don’t even _think_. That possible? What I just did is more along the lines of what I’m talking about (though you didn’t give me much to work with). ETA: Thanks, **Miller** , you explained it better than I did. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [August 8, 2010, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-rap-hip-hop-ever-go-stale/549559/120 "2010-08-08T07:45:56Z")
If they’re taking so little, and if, as you say, they’re not actually using other people’s compositions as compositions, but just small components to create something else (which I am kind of starting to get, so don’t think I’m completely turning a deaf ear), then why bother to sample at all? Why not just compose a song and play it? Why cut and paste from magazines if you can just write the ransom note with pen and paper? What do they need those other people’s work for? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-rap-hip-hop-ever-go-stale/549559.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/will-rap-hip-hop-ever-go-stale/549559.md?page=7)