IMO, Rap and Hip Hop both have their merits, but it’s coming to a point where it’s Boring. Hey, and rock is just as Boring too, to be fair.
Like there’s only so many variations you can do of the same thing before it becomes tiring, it’s mainstream, saturated the entire music market, and permeats everything so much, I mean ok, I’m going to generalise a little bit, but aren’t some major black musicians\producers\artists thinking ‘Ok, this is kinda ridiculous, is rap/hiphop the only avenue we’re ever going to go through?’
I like some HipHop songs, I’ve lived most of my young life with it in every club and every other music venue promoting it, talking about it, doing it, but you know I question why can’t something else come along and ya know, just be a nice change, and hiphop do what rock did, still major but kinda faded back. Some variety on a large cultural level would spice things up.
It’s not how you got it, it’s what you do with it. And sampling DOES take talent. I know, because most tracks I made sound like shit. Besides, the difference between sampling and “stealing” a riff is pretty much nill. At least when you look at composition.
But you’re beyond reasoning with here, Dio. I’m calling Rap a style of music that will not only never die but will stay relevant for a long time. If only, and yes, I’m granting you this, because basic rapping is easier than “real singing”. Rap is a tool, just like punk and blues, to get your stories out.
I will admit that I have fallen a bit behind in my music current events, a shortcoming I plan to remedy. But, I wake up every morning to the radio. I picked the most irritating station I could find so that I don’t just hang out in bed. This is a local black station (does every black station play over-the-top gospel stuff on Sunday morning or is it a southern thing?) and they play um…
It’s not rap. It’s not hip hop. What is that horrible pop autotune stuff called? Is that the modern R&B ? (I hate all pop music of any type, something to do with the corporate machine). Hopefully, that crap will be the Whitesnake/ MC Hammer/ O Town/ Spice Girls genre killer.
How bout stir up a big pot of acid jazz, Cuban beat, funk driven soul. Make mine extra spicy.
Back to the OP, a lot of the more interesting rap I’ve heard in recent years has been in languages other than English. There is some fantastic German, French, Arabic and other rap music. I can understand some of the French and German stuff, but even the sounds are often fantastic to my ears with non-Anglo rap.
Again, rap is a broad church. Elements of it will go stale, but as has happened within Country and other genres, new practioners often rail against the worst elements of popular subgenres of the form and create something fresh.
I don’t know how to put anything in my computer in the first place. I don’t have any files. I don’t know how to make them and I don’t have a camera anyway, and I’m not going to waste money on one that I’m never going to use again.
Spoken word poetry has been around since the 60’s, and has been credited with the origin of modern rap and hip-hop music:
If we look at poetry as the spiritual successor to rap/hip-hop, then it’s been around for quite a few centuries, even back to the days epic poems like Chaucer that were heard, not read.
But, this is not unusual. Many art forms morph and evolve to become popular to a new generation of fans. Rock and roll, for example, started as blues, which started as jazz, which started as African tribal music. Paintings became photos, but before that it was drawings. Sculpture begat architecture.
FWIW, KEXP occasionally does brief audio documentaries about various musical genres. There’s only so much you can cover in a few minutes, but some of them can still be pretty good. They’re currently doing a series on various artists in the Seattle hip-hop/rap scene, so if you’re not familiar with it you might find it interesting.
You don’t quite have that right. Blues didn’t start as jazz. Jazz was influenced by blues and several other traditions. At best, they were contemporaneous, but I’ve always learned that blues predates jazz, and it makes more sense to me, as the blues is the simpler form. Blues’s roots are in the the slave work songs, spirituals, field hollers, etc., and those in were influenced by the African tradition. Rock and roll didn’t come straight-up out of blues, but obviously was significantly influenced by it. Rock-and-roll was more an amalgam of blues and country traditions (with some jazz, gospel, and Afro-Caribbean traditions thrown in as well.)
I was going to try to stay out of this thread, because I get all worked up about hip hop, and I get all frustrated, but with this, you pulled me in.’
Some hip hop artists simply call it ‘breath control’ (or 'breath control stylee, big up KRS). It is about the ability to bring the hip hop with the proper style, pauses, emphasis, all that good stuff.
Of all the female hip hop artists that I ever heard, Lauryn Hill is the only one that I ever considered much better than some very good male artists. But I will say this for Lil’ Kim, whose lyrics I always found lacking…she had terrific breath control style and she really owes a lot of her success to that, I think, as much as she owes to her raw sexuality.
People who think hip hop is all garbage now should try looking at it this way.
In the 80s there was good hip hop that we considered ‘underground’. When underground style hip hop found commercial success, that was awesome. Let Rakim and Boogie Down Productions and Kool G Rap and Public Enemy get some time in the sun, they deserve it. And also, let true commercial party rap have it’s sun too. No problem with Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince back then. But when the garbage takes over on the radio, the underground keeps churning on. It may not get the radio play and money and MTV play, but it is still hip hop and the culture still thrives, albeit underground. Sean P will still come to a club in upstate NY and rock the party. Doesn’t matter that he’s not on the radio…real hip hop heads are used to a lot of music they love not finding the radio. So from a hip hop head’s perspective, it’s the same as it ever was. Real hip hop is available for those that love hip hop, and those who prefer a more commercial style rap can go get that on the radio. That is exactly the way it was in the 80s.
And when I say underground, I don’t mean obscure. I don’t think Doom is obscure anymore, Sean Price is definitely getting more exposure. We just mean underground as in ‘not commercial garbage rap’. That is what ‘underground’ has always really meant in hip hop. I can only speak from my own experience in hip hop culture, but I have certainly been all in since I was about 6.
So, no, I don’t think hip hop is getting stale, or ever really will. I think classic hip hop rhymes will be dropped for decades and decades to come, and some of the better stuff may even find its way back in to the commercial sunshine some day. Or maybe not. Either way, I love hip hop.
I can easily see hip hop last for a long, long time. I like the genre, however, I am very much itching for something else to make a break or a revival. I feel like I’ve gotten the “point” of hip hop by now.
Exactly, there’s only so many times I can hear about how some guy’s gettin out of the hood, gettin clean or how violent it is where they live
Or on the flip side
How they made/make so much money doin drugs, livin’ the big life or how they’re down on their luck and they’re going to make it big and again you can flip that
Now again, it’s a crass generalisation, but that’s pretty much what it is over and over, and there’s only so many times you can hear that until you get bored of it.
Give me any topic that any rock or blues or R&B song deals with, and I will find a hip hop equivalent. It is ok to just not like something. One doesn’t have to invent reasons not to, your own actual reasons are perfectly valid.
Ryan_Liam, maybe you just don’t like hip hop. That doesn’t mean all of hip hop is pretty much violence/selling drugs/making it big.
I’m not singling Hiphop out, and it’s perfectly valid to say the same things about Rock and whatnot, but it has become more tedious in the last couple of years.
As I said in the previous post is was a crass generalisation. I do like some Hip hop, I like Kaynes Good Life for example and D12.
