What you think about rap

[Sharess]

My reasons for not liking rap:

1) It sucks monkey balls
2) I like music with a singing vocals or just plain instrmental
3) no orental flair
4) did I mention it sucks monkey balls.

[Anastas]

ShonenSenshiDave said:

Ok, here goes:

SSD's reasons why he dislikes rap:

1. Absolutely no singing/vocal ability required.

2. No musical talent needed.

3. Most of the songs are falling into the oh so charming realm of "gangsta rap". I really have issues with music about shooting police, abusing women, and getting rich any way you can. This particular genre of rap glorifies criminality. It may not be representative of the whole of rap, but it's too popular to not mention.

4. No melody, harmony, musical or lyrical structure. At least some of the old school rap around in the 80's made an attempt at being music. Of some sort. Most of today's rap is too freeform for my taste.

5. Even the personalities behind the music are unlikable. 50 Cent? Eminem? And the increasing number of rappers who make the front page and end up in jail for drugs/guns/homicide. Nice. It's not up to the rappers to raise someone's kid, and I have issues with the whole "you're rich and famous so you should be a role model" belief, but this is getting ridiculous.

6. Rap Wars. Do y'all really NEED to dis each other in your music? Is it really necessary, or do you enjoy being sued? Or made fools of on international television. If you're gonna make a fool out of yourself, at least have the common courtesy to be drunk/stoned/suffering from "exhaustion" as an excuse. Try to deflect the personal responsibilty, people, lol. Seriously, no other genre of music has the hostility towards the rest of its own industry as rap does.

Do I need to go on or have I made my point, Anastas?

You do me proud. All I ask is that people articulate the why behind one and two word statements. I agree with you on many of your points and disagree on others.

The criminality and general irresponsible behavior of many rap artists is something that bothers me as well. Most of the rappers that I grew up listening to (Whodini, LL Cool J, Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five, Run DMC, Africa Bambaata) actually looked down on that sort of thing.

Speaking to your other points, the "instrument" of the rapper is his (or her) voice. That has always been the emphasis, any beats oin the background were there just to keep the rhythm of the words. Also, contrary to what you have stated, I have actually heard several recent artists whose rapping styles are actually much more complex than the "old school" stuff and even many of the current artists that get airplay. One that surprised the hell out of me was a collaborative album headed up by Quincy Jones and an artist called Guru. I forget the name of it, but it actually spawned a series of albums which included appearances by artists not normally associated with rap. One track suck out the most to me was a sort of 1930's-styled duet between Guru and Erykah Badu. As Badu is very much opposed to the kind of digital sampling that is rampant in rap (and even other kids of popular music), real instruments were recorded for that and several of the other tracks.

On the issue of "Rap Wars", those have been around pretty much since the very first rap contests in New York, Miami, and Los Angeles. In the beginning, it was just good natured jibing at the other performers, especially if somebody was really horrible. Somewhere along the line, probably about the same time that gangsta rap started to take center stage, it started getting ugly. To make matters worse, some of the music magazines, The Source comes to mind, were fanning the flames, and people started getting shot. Tupac and Notorious BIG are the best known victims of this.