Article: The Music In Me: Rap of History Backwards The

[tmtomh]

16 hours ago, Speed Racer said:

 

I certainly wasn't trying to stifle the expression of opinions!

 

Oh, I didn't think you were - all good!

[Ralf11]

So did Sun Ra make music?  If so, was it Jazz?

 

 

We will cover Varese later on...  after Phil Lesh's favorite guy...

[watercourse]

As someone that came up during hip hop's dance party beginnings in NY, through its ripples to this coast, taking on and transformed by local cultures, styles, dances, and fashion along its way, while influencing all points in between, it is a bit sad to see the depth of ignorance of this true American art form, hidden behind the angry posts. I have to think this is what the moldy figs used to say about that degenerate druggie Charlie Parker.

 

For my part, I don't understand bluegrass because it's not my culture, but I'd never go so far as to say it's not music (though the twang may hurt my ears). Just move along if it doesn't speak to you.

 

By the way, how would one explain the Hamilton phenomenon if rapping wasn't legit? 

 

Lastly, Rex Harrison was the first white rapper in a movie lead (My Fair Lady). Decades before Eminem.

[DaQi]

Ha ha, I think you are all wrong. Rap was invented two thousand years ago in China. When I lived in China I encountered a traditional style of music where the performer uses clappers to create a beat box style of rhythm and then proceeds to rap to it. Particularly popular in Shandong province this has been around for two thousand years. Not sure how it made the jump to become an African American protest music in the early 70s.

[watercourse]

16 minutes ago, DaQi said:

Ha ha, I think you are all wrong. Rap was invented two thousand years ago in China. When I lived in China I encountered a traditional style of music where the performer uses clappers to create a beat box style of rhythm and then proceeds to rap to it. Particularly popular in Shandong province this has been around for two thousand years. Not sure how it made the jump to become an African American protest music in the early 70s.

 

Shaolin monks also had "The Worm" a few centuries before break dancing crews. Perhaps examples of convergent evolution?

[LarryMagoo]

I don't care how old it it is....it's still not music....in MY book!

[Ralf11]

14 hours ago, DaQi said:

Ha ha, I think you are all wrong. Rap was invented two thousand years ago in China. When I lived in China I encountered a traditional style of music where the performer uses clappers to create a beat box style of rhythm and then proceeds to rap to it. Particularly popular in Shandong province this has been around for two thousand years. Not sure how it made the jump to become an African American protest music in the early 70s.

 

Wu Tang Clan?

[DaQi]

21 hours ago, Ralf11 said:

 

Wu Tang Clan?

Ah, the missing link!

[rando]

Nothing new under the Sun(Ra).   

[DRB100]

On 5/25/2017 at 6:37 AM, The Computer Audiophile said:

 

I'm speechless. I disagree with every sentence. 

Every sentence?  Really?   I looked up some of the things as far as the definition.  Rapping isn't singing. If you went to Julliard, Berklee School of Music, or any reputable accredited educational institution and wanted to get a degree in vocals, They don't require or even teach Rapping. It's not part of Julliard's curriculum, but jazz and blues studies is, which is the basis for most modern music like Gospel, R&B, rock, country, and pop music that came out as the music industry was created.    Rappers aren't taught how to sing.  They don't know anything about melody, scales, harmony unless they know how to sing.  It's a fact. It's rhythmic talking. And some do it better than others, but I've some that couldn't even rap that matched up with the rhythms they were rapping to.   It's not something to agree or disagree with.   Rapping isn't really poetry either. if you went to a educational institution and studied poetry as a major, I don't think they going to give someone a passing grade for your typical rap lyrics.  I just don't see the college lowering their standards.  I can only imagine a college Professor telling their students to come up with gangsta rap lyrics for a part of taking the course and they certainly aren't going to create a new degree called Street Poetry either.

 

 It's rhyming, but it typically uses Street venacular, or basically words that are either made up, misspellings, mispronounced,  twisted meaning of the original word.  (bad meaning good as an example) or (dis and dat, vs this or that), (axe vs ask) or (shiznit), the list goes on, you know people that speak very similar rot those that simply are illiterate and didn't get good grades in English classes or some do it purposely to "sound cool".  It's very common to hear them say the N word as that's how they refer to each other. It's also very common to hear them refer to women as the B word. Also fact. It's not in every song, but it's definitely prevalent in Dr. Dre's, Snoop Dogg's and most of the popular rappers recordings.  

 

I think it's the downfall of the music industry as it doesn't promote high quality melody lines or high quality musicianship.   It's garbage music and it's poisoning the kids growing up.  Yeah, I know, when Rock came out, the older generation said the same thing about rock.  But the difference is that rock had people singing, melody lines, and actual musicians playing the music and some of the songs have lasted the test of time.   But I would agree that rock did poison that generation as it fueled drug and alcohol abuse, but at least they didn't call people the N word or women the B word and at least they typically spoke English well, many actually had studied various forms of music and many of the people actually read books and literature for which they were studying poetry. 

 

 

[firedog]

1 hour ago, DRB100 said:

. If you went to Julliard, Berklee School of Music, or any reputable accredited educational institution and wanted to get a degree in vocals, They don't require or even teach Rapping. It's not part of Julliard's curriculum, but jazz and blues studies is

 

1 hour ago, DRB100 said:

 It's rhyming, but it typically uses Street venacular, or basically words that are either made up, misspellings, mispronounced,  twisted meaning of the original word.  (bad meaning good as an example) or (dis and dat, vs this or that), (axe vs ask) or (shiznit), the list goes on, you know people that speak very similar rot those that simply are illiterate and didn't get good grades in English classes or some do it purposely to "sound cool"

 

Degree in music/singing? How is that relevant? I'm pretty sure there are many types of Asian, African, and various indigenous styles of singing not taught at those schools. Doesn't mean they aren't singing or don't exist.

 

Check out the studies that show a larger vocabulary used in rap and hip hop than in lyrics by  Bob Dylan and other forms of sung music.

Your criticisms of slang etc are also meaningless. Just because it isn't standard usage doesn't make it illegitimate linguistically or less sophisticated than standard usage. It's just different.

I won't even get into the history of terms like "axe/aks" which are not simple mispronunciations, but are usages hundreds of years old that originate in African languages spoken by slaves. Sure, they aren't standard pronunciations, but they aren't "mistakes", either. They are simply part of a linguisitic subset of English.

I know of dozens of versions of English spoken around the world. Just because they vary from standard UK or US English it doesn't make them somehow inferior. Dialects are not, by definition, linguistically inferiror, just different.

 

Language isn't static. 

I might not use one of these dialects when writing  an academic theisis, but that is a totally different animal than spoken language. 

[DRB100]

10 minutes ago, firedog said:

 

 

Degree in music/singing? How is that relevant? I'm pretty sure there are many types of Asian, African, and various indigenous styles of singing not taught at those schools. Doesn't mean they aren't singing or don't exist.

 

Check out the studies that show a larger vocabulary used in rap and hip hop than in lyrics by  Bob Dylan and other forms of sung music.

Your criticisms of slang etc are also meaningless. Just because it isn't standard usage doesn't make it illegitimate linguistically or less sophisticated than standard usage. It's just different.

I won't even get into the history of terms like "axe/aks" which are not simple mispronunciations, but are usages hundreds of years old that originate in African languages spoken by slaves. Sure, they aren't standard pronunciations, but they aren't "mistakes", either. They are simply part of a linguisitic subset of English.

I know of dozens of versions of English spoken around the world. Just because they vary from standard UK or US English it doesn't make them somehow inferior. Dialects are not, by definition, linguistically inferiror, just different.

 

Language isn't static. 

I might not use one of these dialects when writing  an academic theisis, but that is a totally different animal than spoken language. 

Um, most other countries do have their own institutions of training their forms of music.  Africa has a very prolific music studies program.  They original had drummers that were seen as the top musicians and they would teach other students. So, that was a informal studies.  But they do have colleges. I have met several that learned how to play musical instruments by attending these colleges and they were also taught jazz studies.  Many of them played quite a lot better than a lot of American musicians that studied jazz.  Yes, taking private lessons is a form of music studies and you can learn the same thing through private studies.   Japan not have music institutions that that teach the indigenous music of Japan?  Yeah, right. That's how they teach the music of Japan and they also have an education system that also teaches Classical, Jazz, etc.  India? Absolutely they have educational institutions that teach Classical Indian music.  These other countries have very rigid methods.

 

There is a top jazz musicians that said in an interview that if he wants to play with Indian musicians, he has to study the rules associated with that music so he can play with them, even though he wasn't playing traditional Classical Indian music.  He studied from several of the top Classical musicians which taught him the instruments, but the music theory behind the rhythms and melodies and structure.  But since Classical Indian music has a lot of improvisation, it can easily translate with jazz.  look at the Beatles. George Harrison studied from Ravi Shankar, they had some classical Indian musicians performing a song that was heavily influenced by Indian.  Great song too.  

 

Miles Davis had Classical Indian musicians playing with his band. So did Don Cherry, Oregon.  But Classical Indian follows the structure.

One thing that a lot of jazz artists tell people is that you learn the rules of the music system first and then you learn how to break the rules. What the Hip Hop Rap guys are doing is breaking the rules without knowing the rules, so it's out of their own ignorance, which is why they aren't really writing songs, per se, they are just doing whatever they can to create a loop and put stupid lyrics on top of it because they lack the education and ability to write songs and play an actual musical instrument.  That's why they essentially steal samples of other songs, create a loop and call it a song.  Yeah, right. That's a ignorant way to create music. Same thing with drum machines. Most of them are not trained drummers creating drum parts, and most of them sound kind of stupid. If a drummer uses a drum machine, then they are applying their expertise and can come up with something that's able to intertwine with their playing. Hence, Phil Collins as an example. 

 

But street vernacular isn't a dialect, it's just a bunch of illiterate people that never studied or weren't very good at learning the English language. Remember, most of the American Rappers are supposed to learn English while attending K-12, so it's not like they weren't given the chance. They are just illiterate.   Come on.   I just looked up Ebonics, they don't consider it a dialect.  They consider it American Black English.  But I don't know of any school that will hand out a degree in Ebonics.  It's a combination of the word Ebony and Phonics.  I just think it's a stupid because it's just glamorizing illiteracy. And no, a lot of educated blacks do NOT speak Ebonics or want to promote it. Call it what it is. A lot of it comes from gangs as they try to come up with a language so they can throw off the police that are trying to plan their drug deals and other crimes. That's how gangsta rap came out, but now I see a lot of kids that aren't black trying to ACT black by speaking the same language and copying their mannerisms, and getting involved with drugs, and committing crimes, etc. You know, monkey see, monkey do.  And it's just dumb and a lot of these don't come from ghettos, but they try to act like they did and many of them end up not doing well in school, going to college and getting a job, as they end up going to jail, getting involved with growing pot or selling it, or sponging off their parents. I've seen MANY kids do this and it's disgusting.  Some of the parents don't know what to do about it as they haven't reached a point of kicking them out of the house, which is what they SHOULD do.

 

I see nothing positive about Hip Hop/Rap and I don't hear anything that I feel is going to be a great song to listen to 40 years from now.  Great music lasts the test of time, and most of these Rap songs don't last long.

 

Heck, for grins, I watched a video of a Rap concert and I couldn't tell what they were saying, except when they yelled out something like "Hey all you mutherfuckers or bitches or Niggas!!" and then the audience goes nuts and screams along with them.  That's the only part that I could actually tell what they were saying.  The rest just sounded like a complete distorted mess. It was not enjoyable at all.  But I was just laughing at the audience, which was predominately white, getting excited when the rapper called the audience a bunch of X Y or Z.    It was a joke. 

 

Heck JZ refers to his fan base on Twitter as Bitches.  You think that's positive?  Really?  You think that's appropriate way for kids and young adults how to address one another?  Really?  You think that an educated person, regardless of skin color is going to do that? You think that's appropriate way to communicate in the work place?  Really?  Do you call your mother or wife or girlfriend a bitch to her face?  How does she react?  

[firedog]

2 hours ago, DRB100 said:

Um, most other countries do have their own institutions of training their forms of music.  Africa has a very prolific music studies program.  They original had drummers that were seen as the top musicians and they would teach other students. So, that was a informal studies.  But they do have colleges. I have met several that learned how to play musical instruments by attending these colleges and they were also taught jazz studies.  Many of them played quite a lot better than a lot of American musicians that studied jazz.  Yes, taking private lessons is a form of music studies and you can learn the same thing through private studies.   Japan not have music institutions that that teach the indigenous music of Japan?  Yeah, right. That's how they teach the music of Japan and they also have an education system that also teaches Classical, Jazz, etc.  India? Absolutely they have educational institutions that teach Classical Indian music.  These other countries have very rigid methods.

 

There is a top jazz musicians that said in an interview that if he wants to play with Indian musicians, he has to study the rules associated with that music so he can play with them, even though he wasn't playing traditional Classical Indian music.  He studied from several of the top Classical musicians which taught him the instruments, but the music theory behind the rhythms and melodies and structure.  But since Classical Indian music has a lot of improvisation, it can easily translate with jazz.  look at the Beatles. George Harrison studied from Ravi Shankar, they had some classical Indian musicians performing a song that was heavily influenced by Indian.  Great song too.  

 

Miles Davis had Classical Indian musicians playing with his band. So did Don Cherry, Oregon.  But Classical Indian follows the structure.

One thing that a lot of jazz artists tell people is that you learn the rules of the music system first and then you learn how to break the rules. What the Hip Hop Rap guys are doing is breaking the rules without knowing the rules, so it's out of their own ignorance, which is why they aren't really writing songs, per se, they are just doing whatever they can to create a loop and put stupid lyrics on top of it because they lack the education and ability to write songs and play an actual musical instrument.  That's why they essentially steal samples of other songs, create a loop and call it a song.  Yeah, right. That's a ignorant way to create music. Same thing with drum machines. Most of them are not trained drummers creating drum parts, and most of them sound kind of stupid. If a drummer uses a drum machine, then they are applying their expertise and can come up with something that's able to intertwine with their playing. Hence, Phil Collins as an example. 

 

But street vernacular isn't a dialect, it's just a bunch of illiterate people that never studied or weren't very good at learning the English language. Remember, most of the American Rappers are supposed to learn English while attending K-12, so it's not like they weren't given the chance. They are just illiterate.   Come on.   I just looked up Ebonics, they don't consider it a dialect.  They consider it American Black English.  But I don't know of any school that will hand out a degree in Ebonics.  It's a combination of the word Ebony and Phonics.  I just think it's a stupid because it's just glamorizing illiteracy. And no, a lot of educated blacks do NOT speak Ebonics or want to promote it. Call it what it is. A lot of it comes from gangs as they try to come up with a language so they can throw off the police that are trying to plan their drug deals and other crimes. That's how gangsta rap came out, but now I see a lot of kids that aren't black trying to ACT black by speaking the same language and copying their mannerisms, and getting involved with drugs, and committing crimes, etc. You know, monkey see, monkey do.  And it's just dumb and a lot of these don't come from ghettos, but they try to act like they did and many of them end up not doing well in school, going to college and getting a job, as they end up going to jail, getting involved with growing pot or selling it, or sponging off their parents. I've seen MANY kids do this and it's disgusting.  Some of the parents don't know what to do about it as they haven't reached a point of kicking them out of the house, which is what they SHOULD do.

 

I see nothing positive about Hip Hop/Rap and I don't hear anything that I feel is going to be a great song to listen to 40 years from now.  Great music lasts the test of time, and most of these Rap songs don't last long.

 

Heck, for grins, I watched a video of a Rap concert and I couldn't tell what they were saying, except when they yelled out something like "Hey all you mutherfuckers or bitches or Niggas!!" and then the audience goes nuts and screams along with them.  That's the only part that I could actually tell what they were saying.  The rest just sounded like a complete distorted mess. It was not enjoyable at all.  But I was just laughing at the audience, which was predominately white, getting excited when the rapper called the audience a bunch of X Y or Z.    It was a joke. 

 

Heck JZ refers to his fan base on Twitter as Bitches.  You think that's positive?  Really?  You think that's appropriate way for kids and young adults how to address one another?  Really?  You think that an educated person, regardless of skin color is going to do that? You think that's appropriate way to communicate in the work place?  Really?  Do you call your mother or wife or girlfriend a bitch to her face?  How does she react?  

Glad you wrote this.

First about 99% of it is a non-sequitur - has nothing to do with what I wrote about  and doesn't rebut anything I wrote. Buy hey, I'm glad you used what I wrote as a vehicle to write about what you thought, regardless of any points made by me or anyone else here.

Second, you really are metaphorically speaking, deaf. So much of what you write is full of intolerance, prejudice, and stereotypes. It must be fun to self confirm your correctness constantly.

[DRB100]

27 minutes ago, firedog said:

Glad you wrote this.

First about 99% of it is a non-sequitur - has nothing to do with what I wrote about  and doesn't rebut anything I wrote. Buy hey, I'm glad you used what I wrote as a vehicle to write about what you thought, regardless of any points made by me or anyone else here.

Second, you really are metaphorically speaking, deaf. So much of what you write is full of intolerance, prejudice, and stereotypes. It must be fun to self confirm your correctness constantly.

Deaf?  Hardly.  I hear quite fine. I just don't prescribe to crap.   If the person(s) can't play a musical instrument (singing) with a certainly level of proficiency, then I simply don't think it's good enough for me to listen to it. The music industry allows too much crap being sold.  

 

Intolerence?  What's wrong with not tolerating prejudgice?  These rappers are racist.  They are disrespectful to the educational system, women, other blacks, whites, the English language, which by the way is the chosen language of the USA.  They glamorize shooting people with guns, they glamorize hitting women, they glamorize smoking pot, etc. etc.  

 

Stereotypes?  Show me songs that Dre. has his name on it, that is a well written song with lyrics that shows he's got a solid education.  Go ahead. Same goes for Snoop, Ice T, Ice Cube, Eminem, and the rest of them. It doesn't exclude white rappers or other people of other nationalities.  I have not heard a rap song with any musical intelligence behind it where it didn't have sampled music that someone else unrelated to the band was on.  

Go ahead and live in your own world of Musical ignorance.  I was just giving examples of how the Hip Hop/Rap culture is screwing up society. Just to prove how stupid it is that it exists as a culture and as a form of musical expression.  To find ANYTHING with a rapper is hard to convince me that's it's worth taking seriously.   again, when is it appropriate to speak Ebonics?  Ebonics is the basis for most rap lyrics. Just in case you didn't know.

[DRB100]

-

35 minutes ago, firedog said:

Glad you wrote this.

First about 99% of it is a non-sequitur - has nothing to do with what I wrote about  and doesn't rebut anything I wrote. Buy hey, I'm glad you used what I wrote as a vehicle to write about what you thought, regardless of any points made by me or anyone else here.

Second, you really are metaphorically speaking, deaf. So much of what you write is full of intolerance, prejudice, and stereotypes. It must be fun to self confirm your correctness constantly.

BTW< I'm not prejudice against Blacks.  I have had many friends over the years. I just can't stand igorance in music that's created by those that are of ANY skin color.  Rap is just what was started by a certain group of blacks and now people of other races and skin colors do it, but they follow the same rules of ignorance. I don't want to deal with ignorance. If you want to wallow in your own ignorance, that's your issue, not mine.

[DRB100]

I pose this argument.  If you want to listen to music, the conventional way of thinking is that music is performed by musicians playing a musical instrument (singing is also included).  Now, in order to become a musician, one must learn how to play a musical instrument and be able to play various forms of music. If you aren't singing or playing a musical instrument, then it's not really music. I just don't' see how a rapper or even a DJ would qualify as a musician unless they can prove they have a proficiency to play a musical instrument or sing.  So, why listen to music that's performed or created by those that haven't studied how to play a musical instrument. 

Just like if you needed brain surgery, wouldn't conventional thinking mean that you would be better to seek the help of a professional medical doctor that specializes in performing brain surgery, or would you just seek someone that has no training in that area of expertise?   Or would just get a rapper to perform it, since they create great music without being a musician, so they can do anything even without having any education in that area of expertise.

While music isn't a life or death situation, it still holds true.   Rapping is not considered singing. Even DJ's don't require any knowledge of how to play a musical instrument or know any music theory to play a record, so they really aren't performing music. So why pay them money?  Well, I guess if you have a private party, or wedding and you are cheap where you can't afford to hire a band, then maybe hire a DJ, but they just put the records you want to listen to on a turntable.  That's not that difficult of a job, one just has to have the right record collection and know how to operate a turntable and maybe introduce each song where they get the audience to enjoy themselves.  That's about all a DJ might be good for.  

Sorry for those that think I'm racist, but I'm not.  Some of the best musicians in the world are black that I admire greatly, and they don't speak Ebonics, nor do they get involved with rap music.  If they did because they sold out, then they would drop a notch or two for selling out.  But most of them don't get involved with that.

 

Sorry, but I have standards buy which I measure what music I will pay for and enjoy and what music I will not. If I find the lyrics to be offensive, then why should I listen to them?  

 

Carlos Santana said in an interview, in the music industry there are artists and con artists, know which is which.  

[ShawnC]

26 minutes ago, DRB100 said:

I was just giving examples of how the Hip Hop/Rap culture is screwing up society. Just to prove how stupid it is that it exists as a culture and as a form of musical expression.  

Don't let the cast of Hamilton hear this.  

[firedog]

1 hour ago, DRB100 said:

 

I pose this argument.  If you want to listen to music, the conventional way of thinking is that music is performed by musicians playing a musical instrument (singing is also included).  Now, in order to become a musician, one must learn how to play a musical instrument and be able to play various forms of music

 

Nope. Sounds like a 100 year old Western culture only definition. 

In spite of what you think, rap/hip hop is a type of singing. 

 

Define: musical instrument.

A computer or synthesizer can be a musical instrument.  I only need to understand how they work, have ideas, and be able to press buttons to play music.

Is it music.?:

1. I can play a simple tune with a computer keyboard and then software  scores it for symphony orchestra and creates the appropriate digital file. Is it music? 

 

2. In fact, the machine can also play back the music it is creating ibased on a large number of samples of every instrument in the symphony playing it's actual range of sounds. The resulting file sounds like a perfectly played real orchestral performance of the score.  

Is it music?

 

3. A "DJ" uses 8 computers and 8 turntables to improvise a performance. He has all 16 devices playing back at once and is constantly changing what he is "playing".  The different devices play off one another, create rhythms, polyrhythms, harmonies, and other complex musical relationships. All of it unique, improvised, and unrepeatable. 

But all of it based on sampling of songs, synthesized percussion, sampling of instruments, samples of various singing and lyrics. 

Is it music? 

 

Guess what the correct answer to all three is? ...Yes.

 

[LarryMagoo]

Hey firedog,

 

....Not even close...

1 hour ago, firedog said:

In spite of what you think, rap/hip hop is a type of singing. 

You can't be serious....Singing????   That's laughable...

[The Computer Audiophile]

Grammy - Album of the Year

Grammy - Best Rap Album

Grammy - Best Urban /Alternative Performance

 

#1 - US Billboard 200

#1 - UK Albums Chart

#1 - US Billboard R&B / Hip-Hop

 

Over 11,000,000 sold in the US (Diamond)

 

246,000,000 views on YouTube

 

I'll stop here because I don't think it will matter to you, but this is straight factual evidence going against what many are saying. Rap is real, rap is music, rap takes talent, etc...

 

 

 

[wwaldmanfan]

2 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Grammy - Album of the Year

Grammy - Best Rap Album

Grammy - Best Urban /Alternative Performance

 

#1 - US Billboard 200

#1 - UK Albums Chart

#1 - US Billboard R&B / Hip-Hop

 

Over 11,000,000 sold in the US (Diamond)

 

246,000,000 views on YouTube

 

I'll stop here because I don't think it will matter to you, but this is straight factual evidence going against what many are saying. Rap is real, rap is music, rap takes talent, etc...

 

Grammys and Billboard rankings do not represent talent, artistic merit, or quality. They are marketing tools and indexes which were created and exist only to self-serve the music industry (not that there is anything wrong with that). Oscars, Emmys, Tonys--same thing.

 

Rap is real, and probably here to stay. Whether it has any redeeming value is subjective, and cannot be argued. Whether it qualifies as music is a semantic argument which must be considered within a social context.

Does it take talent? I look at it like graffiti. That was once nothing more than an affront to society. Eventually, it became socially acceptable at a certain level, and was even elevated to an art form by the likes of Keith Haring. On the other hand, many people find it offensive and ugly, and wish it away, ignoring it as best they can.

 

Why is rap and hip-hop so popular and successful? Kids like what they are taught to like by their friends and by what they are fed by the media. It has always been this way.

My young nephew first exposed me to rap when he played for me a tape of a new group called Two Live Crew. He said he loved it. I realized then that this might be the beginning of the end of a civilized culture, and it was at that moment that I chose not to have children.

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

3 minutes ago, wwaldmanfan said:

My young nephew first exposed me to rap when he played for me a tape of a new group called Two Live Crew. He said he loved it. I realized then that this might be the beginning of the end of a civilized culture, and it was at that moment that I chose not to have children.

 

I own the long out of print album As Nasty As They Want To Be. I saw the album as a big F-U to the man and to those who tried to ban free speech. 

 

I love their response (Bruce Springsteen granted them permission).

 

 

[watercourse]

Maybe you should look up The Roots... only been on TV for a few years now. 

Like any other music genre, do your homework, follow the crumbs from one song you like, and they may lead you to other acts beyond the gangsta rap that seems to stick around as representative of a genre, even though they're so 2000s.

Oh and while gangsta rap had its day, maybe you should also look up Digable Planets, who were the antithesis of the gangsta sub genre.

There's a lot out there if you want to inform yourselves.

[Jud]

As I've said before: Rap and hip-hop have rhythmic sophistication way beyond 99% of "pop," "alternative," etc., offerings, and are very close to the rhythmic sophistication and variety you get with jazz.  If you listen, there are intertwining rhythmic parts as there are intertwining melodic parts in other forms of current popular music.  If it's not for you, great.  But it's not the collapse of civilization, sophistication and intelligence in music.

 

If you can get yourself to do it, listen to 20 minutes of music on a rap/hip-hop channel.  Then go back to your normal musical diet, and this time, concentrate on the rhythm.  Unless you've got a heavy diet of jazz, you're going to find there's a real sameness to the rhythmic side for most of the music you normally listen to after hearing what's going on in rap and hip-hop.

[Jud]

10 hours ago, DRB100 said:

Every sentence?  Really?   I looked up some of the things as far as the definition.  Rapping isn't singing. If you went to Julliard

 

This would have more resonance if you spelled "Juilliard" right.