But that’s nonsense. Hip-hop is the single most popular genre of music today. It’s inescapable. Maybe that was a little true in the past, but even then, not really–Black music has long had a massively outsized influence on American music, at least back to the jazz era.
Doesn’t any unfamiliar style of music sound strange and off-putting, at least at first? The OP has mentioned that he detests opera. I happen to love opera, but I know that’s largely because my parents played it all the time when I was a kid.
I can highly recommend the Netflix series Hip Hop Evolution. It’s well made and takes you through a bunch of hip hop genres in roughly chronological order. It has some fantastic interviews too with people who were there right at the beginning.
Between movement, weird camera angles and always holding the microphone in his right hand, it took me some time just to read GLORIA on the varsity jacket. First I thought it said LOBO. Then LOBLA. Like the grocery chain Drake shops at?
Yeah I recommended this one earlier in the thread. Seems like he doesn’t have Netflix. Not sure he’s willing to subscribe for a couple months to watch it. So if you have any other recs you should share them. Or a book. Or a podcast. I don’t know any off the top of my head.
I still say it needs to be a genre-encompassing work and not focused on one artist, album or style.
In fairness, that’s the most difficult of eighteen chapters, with Proteus maybe a close second. Getting that far is an achievement, but no point in sticking with it if it leaves you cold.
Oh I missed that. Sorry
Something From Nothing is not the same but also pretty good. It’s available on many streaming services.
Thank you so much for logging in to post this. You’ve explained more and made mores sense than all (three!) of the mainstream media articles I’ve read about the halftime show. Those articles read like, “let me explain the halftime show: first he played this one song, then he played this other song, and there were people dancing. This was a comment on the world today.” Uh, thanks, I kinda figured out that part…
Just mentioning that context is a key factor is more than I had before.
So to continue the analogy bouncing around this thread, I don’t need a 100,000 word explanation of every reference and detail in Ulysses, but a 500 or 1000 word explanation about what Joyce was saying and why it’s a classic is all I want. No, I’m not going to get any appreciation for the artistry, but that’s not what I want out of it.
For me that isn’t the case. Every once in a while, when I’m in the mood for novelty, I’ll listen to a style of music that’s new to me. Or maybe I’ll just hear something that’s being played while I’m out and about, or something that my wife or daughter want to listen to, and so on. Every once in a while I’ll run across something that instantly clicks with me as being enjoyable. When I first listened to J-pop that happened. Same thing with bachata when my wife introduced me to it back when we were dating. I’d go so far as to say that the large majority of music that I like is music that just clicked with me the first time I heard it. Admittedly that happened more often when I was younger, but even now at 47 it still happens on occasion.
You comparing KL to jazz is interesting to me, because I was in a jazz combo for a while and appreciated the complexity and philosophy behind how it was played. Classical musicians have to devote themselves to constant training and research to master the genre, but Delta Blues musicians didn’t have that level of education to master theirs. They lived it.
He, at some point years ago, dated a teenager while in his 20s. Slow danced with and expressed attraction to a 17-year-old at one of his concerts. And Millie Bobby Brown said they texted each other in her early teens and he gave her boy advice.
That’s pretty much it, as far as evidence goes.
He may have some ephebophilic tendencies, but 99% of his known relationships are with grown, age-appropriate women (e.g. Serena). In a world where there’s way more smoke and fire around way more people with way stronger evidence, singling him out only works because he’s not well-liked.
I didn’t even watch it. I switched over to the Tennis Channel for 20 minutes or so. LOL
As a fellow aficionado of old time I had to smile at this a little bit. How many times has my left hand gone numb playing the same two goddamn chords over and over at a square dance? 
Try playing cello on Pachelbel’s Canon in D sometime.
Your explanation is very interesting and cogent. You might not have the time or inclination to do a lyrical analysis. But if you did, I’d be interested in hearing what you have to say.
I’ve seen that video.
This is a great point! I try to avoid recommending anything that requires extra background research. I usually start folks out with artists that either employ a more traditional storytelling style to their music or I’ll suggest something more melodic to make the transition less jarring. Tiny Desk Concerts are also a great entry point for folks that are curious about Rap and Hip Hop artists.
YES! Great call
Playlist of their hip hop concerts
Vince Staples
Run the Jewels
Freddie Gibbs
Flatbush Zombies
Lots more worth a listen but those are good starts
This is definitely a good point. Along similar lines — many years ago, for a film-nerd website, I wrote a multi-article series, many thousands of words, explaining the “Westerns” genre and providing guidance for understanding and appreciating it, including recommended viewing. The Searchers was not the first movie to watch. It wasn’t even the twentieth. It was deep in the canon.
“Watch the best thing right away!” is definitely a mistake aficionados make when trying to indoctrinate newcomers in their favorite media. Start simple.
Currently, I learn lyrics mostly by listening. I primarily listen to music when I’m out for a walk or a run but I also listen at home when I’m cleaning or cooking. Spotify and Pandora can show lyrics right on the display when they’re available.
As an elder millennial I often have to remind myself that I can easily perform a lyrics search, but this approach was unreliable and clunky in the early days of the Internet so we tended to rely on inserts and good old fashioned listen and write it out.
I’m going to try to keep this as brief as possible, but there are definitely regional differences that will impact your enjoyment and understanding of the genre.
I grew up in NJ but my family used to spend most of our summers with relatives in South Carolina. From my earliest years I remember bouncing around between my siblings’ rooms as they packed and worked on radio mix tapes for our cousins. All of the content was from artists in NY and NJ. When we got to South Carolina we would trade them with our cousins for southern artists from Atlanta, Miami, Memphis, and Louisiana. My eldest sister was living in Oakland and she always brought music from the East Bay (and LA to a lesser extent) when she joined us. We’d get music from our mid-west cousins during our less frequent, but still regular, trips out to St. Louis to visit the other half of our family.
I attended a PWI (Predominantly White Institution) so our numbers weren’t impressive (~150 out of ~5000 undergrad), but we all brought regional and international rap and hip hop to parties. I was in school in the early 2000s so we had many options for downloading and sharing music. Most of us knew all of the popular LA and NYC artists along with some of chart-topping rappers from the south and mid-west. Most of us didn’t hear much outside of our region on the radio (or TV) unless the artist managed to break into the mainstream. College was the first time I ever heard any song that was Chopped and Screwed, but they had been going strong in Texas for at least a decade by that point. It was jarring for all of us from the NY metro area because we didn’t really have anything comparable. Likewise I remember a lot of confused faces when the DJ would mix in some Jersey Club music but all of us NJ kids were out there on the dance floor having a blast.