It's rap, what else did you expect? I think that word was originally spelled with an initial "C" but it got lost somewhere along the way

 

Exactly. Horrible music. Annoying beat. You forgot to add the part about the women and booze. But I'm not going to go too far in analying this music. As long as I don't have to hear it, I'm fine.

 

Anyone that completely dismisses rap as a form is a moron, and more than likely has some pent-up racism that they try and package as 'I don't like it because it's all guns and hookers and fighting and crack and beamers'.

Still, on with the debate, gangsta rap was originated by, well, gangstas. Much like Polish common folk would compose music about Polish common folk, for Polish common folk to enjoy. Same concept, although it quickly became commercially viable, so developed a fan base outside of this community, much larger than the community itself, and through years and years it becomes a main theme of the genre and leads to many gangsta pretenders that had a pleasant upbringing talking about 'slanging gats and stuff'.

I, in general, disapprove of most of the gangsta rap thing, particularly from the last 10 years or so because of the rampant sexism, inciting of violence, idiotic butchery of language, homophobia and such.

However, gangsta rap is by no stretch the spectrum of rap and it irks me when people tend to think it is (not aimed at you violadude!) It's a wonderful art form with fine exponents numbering in the hundreds. There's plenty of cliques, with your political guys (Dead Prez, Immortal Technique, Sage Francis, Rage Against The Machine), the hippies (De La Soul, PM Dawn), the experimentalists (Handsome Boy Modeling School, Dr. Octagon, Vast Aire) and the message rappers (Grandmaster Flash, KRS One, Black Eyed Peas pre-Fergie).

Now, the 'message' you describe is indeed a poor one, but of a certain type of the genre. I listen to some of the older gangsta rap now and then, but it's entertainment. Some of my favourite films are Scarface, Pulp Fiction and Silence of the Lambs, does this mean i snort coke off a half eaten corpse whilst discussing foreign burger outlets? You don't have to practice the subject of art to be informed, amused, entertained, shocked or moved by it.

There's a similar level of talk about shady characters, murder and substance abuse on various Tom Waits albums, the only difference being he is typically the narrator rather than the participant, and i'd put them both under the 'entertainment' category, just like all other music.

And for the record, there's an enormous poster of the Notorious B.I.G on my wall. I am one to occasionally kick in the door waving a .44 and such.

 

Anyone that completely dismisses rap as a form is a moron, and more than likely has some pent-up racism that they try and package as 'I don't like it because it's all guns and hookers and fighting and crack and beamers'.

Hahaha! That's one of the most funnily ridiculous things I've read for a while (except for all the religious news I see). I always had my suspicions that you're probably racist, violadude.

 

Actually, talking about racism that's something else I was thinking of. So many of these mainstream (mostly African American) rappers rap about criminal behavior and promiscuity and drug use and such in a seemingly positive light. Doesn't this promote a negative stereotype that is already somewhat prevalent in the attitudes of whites to blacks? It seems like many of these mainstream black rappers are doing a terrible disservice to their community at large, even though they claim to be "for black people."

 

As a hip-hop fan I can safely say no, there isn't a deeper meaning to any of the rap music you mention. It is absolutely terrible and is a disgrace to the music that I do enjoy. It is a reflection of the values of corporate America and the materialists that run rampant in the country, as well as the sheer avoidance to intellectual and logical thought. There is nothing redeeming for the majority of it and I will not pretend there is. I hold plenty of hip-hop in high esteem but I will not defend garbage. I refuse to acknowledge people's arguments on hip-hop also for the most part, due to the fact that they are born out of ignorance and are formed, typically, by people who get their worldview straight from mainstream America.

 

Well I am glad to hear there is good stuff out there. I have heard some of the good stuff I think...but it looks like I have more searching to do.

 

Having met a fair share of small and mid-range 'gangsta' MCs through uni, i can confirm that some of them are indeed as vapid, stupid and egocentric as their material, but most of them are just trying to impress girls. It's the same thing as my brother being an atheist leftie such as i, but also being in a black metal 'church burning and gore' type band, because he enjoys the music. (A fair chunk of it is actually rather technical and well written stuff, and i recall a black metal version of some Paganini caprice by a group with a name to the effect of 'horse flesh ********* matricide' being quite remarkable).

 

Having met a fair share of small and mid-range 'gangsta' MCs through uni, i can confirm that some of them are indeed as vapid, stupid and egocentric as their material, but most of them are just trying to impress girls.

Isn't the latter included in the former category of vapid and stupid?

 

So if I don't like rap, I'm racist? lol What great logic. I do like Rage Against the Machine. Rap with guitars I'm fine with for the most part. Rap with annoying beats is different though.

 

I think something has been lost in majority of gangster rap. In the early days when Gambino rap was just becoming popular you had rappers that intentionally made it cinematic, as if you were listening to Scarface in musical form, and they would form loose plots and actually talk about the positives and the negative aspects of that lifestyle. These days it is used as a go-to device to get popular, form "street cred", and form a status. Majority of them are not imaginative in any manner, which is quite sad. Although, some of them really did grow up in those environments and did do the things they claim. You have a lot of emcees who see it as a means to an end, or a way to make money and don't care about the art form. The corporate side completely ruined the art in my opinion. They first killed sampling, making it expensive for anybody to do except for corporations themselves. This basically formed a monopoly on rap music and as it gained popularity they completely watered it down for mainstream consumption to the point where it is nothing but cliche after cliche. There is a formula for it in order to sell. Rap artists on major labels do not have a lot of say in their music, for its either make the song cookie cuter as the label demands or get dropped. There are large psychological reasons why the rappers act as they do and it stems from the environment they grew up in and their attempts to escape it all while typically getting subpar educations. This is no way excludes hip-hop from being a valid form of music and I think a lot can be done with it but not too many people are willing to take it there. You, as well as I, are a Jazz lover. Think about how you feel about smooth jazz for a minute and then apply it to hip-hop and you'll have my opinion basically.

 

"Completely dismisses rap as a form" =/= "Doesn't like rap"

I don't like most country music or opera, but i respect them as diverse and established forms.

^and Polednice, not exactly, how many intellectuals have done something daft to impress a prospective sexual partner?

 

"Completely dismisses rap as a form" =/= "Doesn't like rap"

I don't like most country music or opera, but i respect them as diverse and established forms.

I don't like rap music, and I don't respect it as a form. I'm still not racist. :tiphat:

 

Too bad Mesa didn't actually call anybody who dismisses rap music a racist... just a moron.

 

Mesa actually said, "moron ... and more than likely has some pent-up racism."

I was expecting at least 'I can't be racist, i have loads of black friends!' but actually received 'I know you are, you said you are, but what am i?'.

Result and a point well proved.

Result and point void. No one called you a racist. We just denied your silly assertion that a dislike of rap music probably points to racism.

 

Anyone that calls someone a moron for not liking rap is a moron.

 

I was expecting at least 'I can't be racist, i have loads of black friends!' but actually received 'I know you are, you said you are, but what am i?'.

Result and a point well proved.

 

I was expecting at least 'I can't be racist, i have loads of black friends!'

Sorry, not everyone is a strawman stereotype created to validate your somewhat self-righteous attitude. I recommend coming in swingin' a bit less when OP is asking a legit question.

 

This thread degenerated quickly...

 

It's probably my fault, too. Sorry, I'm in a bad mood and particularly cannot stand stupidity today.

 

I hate to drag this to the point of redundancy, but the public got aware of rap, it got profitable, and now it's (generally) for the lowest common denominator. I'd say the same is true of traditional rock, and numerous electronic genres.

As dumb as gold-toothed rappers rapping about their cars and hos might seem, remember no matter where you look on our cultural spectrum, there are status symbols. Does classical music need expensive suits involved and all that fancy bourgeois crap, artistically speaking? Of course not.

And I think new hip-hop is trash, but I can understand a basically good guy appreciating an artist's beats, flow, wordplay, or whatever without considering the "message" too much.

Anyway, I stand by my statement that like most genres, it basically turned to crap, if we follow the popular narrative anyway. In the old stuff, even the rappers who engaged in that sort of macho braggadocio (that now dominates rap) did so with a certain degree of humor, wit, intelligence and consciousness.

 

That it did... sounds like racism to me

 

All this name calling is really boring and unnecessary.

 

Let's instead discuss the familiarity with hip-hop of posters here and exactly why they dismiss it as a valid form.

 

OK, OK, I admit it! I'm racist! I hate black people. But, for fairness, I do also hate white people. After all, I am a pig.

 

I think you and Mesa should settle this with a rap battle.

 

We all know that I'm the undisputed king of that on talkclassical...

 

Polednice can be "The Notorious P.I.G." What does Mesa want to be called?

 

I know very little about rap. My initial response was, jokingly, that rap had replaced my favorite music, soul music (when I was young) so I wish it would go away. I always thought that rap was more about the lyrics and power for a group that has been long marginalized in society rather than the music.

The issue of racism is interesting. I have some sympathy for Mesa's comment about racism, but I would state it differently. To the extent that groups of people respond to certain music with excessive shows of displeasure, there is likely some underlying cause in addition to simply disliking or hating the music. I remember during the disco era (late 70s) there were large events where people brought disco records to a stadium, for example, and burned them while cheering. All of my friends hated country music, but we'd simply state (sometimes emphatically in arguments) that fact and let it go. We would not gather country albums, drive to some location, and burn the records while insanely cheering. I strongly suspect that those record burnings were motivated by racism. That does not mean that everyone who disliked disco music was racist or even that everyone who went to the record burnings was racist (although I believe the vast majority of the latter were).

So... unless violadude is planning to don a hood and sneak off with ipods laden with mp3s of rap music to burn them along with a cross and taping the event to put on youtube... well maybe he just doesn't like rap music. I don't much either.

 

I honestly don't think anybody in here was targeting violadude. He posted that he thought there were some valid artists in the genre. I'm sad to see his thread get turned into mockery.

 

This woman has to be a joke

 

BTW way back in the late 70s, the Sugarhill Gang released a rap (or hip hop) single called Rapper's Delight. According to Wikipedia that single was the first hip hop record to make the top 40. I thought the song was great - fun, very funny, and danceable! You could actually hear the lyrics easily and many parts were hilarious. The tone was more upbeat than in your face.

Do any rappers make rap songs anything like that now?

 

Yes, they do make songs like that still.

 

I'm going to do a bit of generalizing here, so sorry if that bugs you. My current roommate listens to nothing but rap music (not the good kind that some of my fellow TCers of introduced me to) and I've had to listen to this crap for a few months now.

I don't get what the message is supposed to be. The only thing I can gather is that the main message of most of the music he listens to is "I've got money and a big dick so I'm better than everyone else. And I may or may not have obtained my money illegally" Is there something I'm missing here or is that really the message that these rap guys wanna put out there.

My roommate seems like a nice enough guy, I don't know why he would want to fill his head with that junk...

I think it's the fact that music is a private thing. Everyone has different taste in it. & living within those close confines with the roommate, it's bound to be an issue. Also overexposure. If he had variety in what he listened to, it would probably be better. I mean I like 50's rock once in a while, or Charlie Parker, but not all the time.

I'm no expert on rap or hip-hop but I'd repeat what some others have suggested. There's cliches in it, there's conventions, and these ultimately get hackneyed and tired after a while. I think a lot of those things you mention, violadude, it can be about humour, almost sending up the genre, a spoof of the cliches of the genre. I think Kanye West does this a lot, eg. in his song Monster (which also gets into vampire territory, it's a kind of post-modern thing, wierd but I like it sometimes).

I'm not a huge fan of the swearing but it's part of not only hip hop now but many other genres, eg. many types of rock, of course metal, stuff like that.

As for this, not strictly on topic, but I liked this post, and I'll respond to it by keeping it semi-relevant -

I hate to drag this to the point of redundancy, but the public got aware of rap, it got profitable, and now it's (generally) for the lowest common denominator. I'd say the same is true of traditional rock, and numerous electronic genres....

...and also classical. Eg. the genre of Holy Minimalism was an interesting reposte to the avant-garde and serialism when it first appeared around the 1970's and '80's, but now for the last 20 years we've been in rehash territory with that, seriously. There's nothing new to be said in this style, but it keeps repeating, and being rehashed by one of it's founding fathers, Arvo Part, and also others mimicking him.

So I agree with the premise of what you say. Easy to do the highbrow thing and dump on non-classical - which a good number of people here will ultimately be biased against - but harder to face the facts that similar thing goes on in your beloved classical. Plenty of rehash composers out there, and I try to avoid them like the plague, esp. as they take themselves waaaaaay too seriously compared to the product they're giving us, which is the equivalent of last night's - or last millenium's - dinner, old and stale, just repackaged. Sorry, I am not a fool guys, give us something other than rehash.

 

I think it's the fact that music is a private thing. Everyone has different taste in it . . .

Wholeheartedly agree with that.

I really don't care for Rap - it's not my thing - but it can be other people "thing" and I respect that. At the same time, those who play their Rap stuff, need to also respect my rights not having to listen to it while driving about town. The "rap" people find they need to open all their car windows (even when it's 114° outside) and play that 'crap' (it's crap to me) at full volume with pounding bass thumps (which give me a headache) and force me to listen to it as well, basically, not giving me a choice in the matter.

If they love their rap music that much, then close the windows and enjoy it - I don't go around playing my Messiaen organ recordings at full volume in traffic - it's a private thing for me and I will not deliberately force someone else to listen to what pleases my ears in musical taste.

Kh