Rant--filthy rap performers and patrons

My complaint is that they call that music.

I like rap..... thats just me though, like most music there is good and bad. Some of it is very creative and witty...... and some of it just contains a lot of MF references lol..... I guess you were at a concert of the latter.....

That's what makes "Rap" rap. My parents used to freak out when they heard Jimi Hendrix (thank god they never saw him humping his guitar). Years later Prince is doing the Superbowl halftime show...watched by millions around the world, and there he is, humping his guitar..with a shadow screen in front of him and lights behind him it looked like he was stroking some huge alien d**k! Rap isn't for people who don't understand it, just like country, or rock, or New Age. Could they convey their rage, anger, and describe the social injustice without using the M word...probably. Could they stop referring to young women as Hos and Bs....probably. Could they get rid of the bling, the grills, the gangsta' look and characters..probably, but it's all part of the act. The more outrageous it may sound to some of us, the hotter the group seems to get..
Now can you guys keep it down, I'm trying to listen to Yanni ;-)

^^^lmao^^^

The entire industry is considered to be an embarrassment by most of the black community . Rap is considered to be the modern equivalent to doing the ham-bone and shucking and jiving .

I'll never forget the first time that I saw a Rapper being interviewed by a music reporter . Rap was so new that the reporter was asking such questions as what kind of musical training do you have and what instruments do you play . The rappers looked at him as if he was from mars . I agree that some of it is very clever but for the most part it is just angry noise . ..... D.J.

Angry nose, yes! Music..no way. They can express their ideas in a more "clean" way. To call girls a "B" and ho is uncalled for. Sorry folks but it is garbage.

Back in the 50's adults called Rock-n-Roll garbage also. They said it would never last. They would only show Elvis on TV from the waist up. They burned records, etc etc.

Will today's garbage last? Who knows! Myself, I hope it burns itself out.

Terry

Rap will endure, interesting fact but the main demographic that listens to rap is 17 year old white midwestern males. It is ironic that the origins of rap was urban protest music, "fight the man" type stuff. The man "old white guys in suits" have co-opted rap and exploited it to make money.

Rap has endured, considering it first came to mainstream light in the early-mid '80's. Is it the same as what it originally sounded like? Of course not. Then again, has any genre of music maintained it's original sound? A few have, but they died as fast as the fads they spawned, like doing lines of coke while wearing bell bottoms and sporting an afro. All music must evolve in order to survive. If it doesn't then you end up with disco. Rap has proven itself a survivor, and like it or not, it's seminal form progressed towards a more violent, profane example we see today.

I love it how all you guys say you dont listen to rap yet you know its filled with B and F words, how do you know this if you dont listen to it?

Plenty of rap does contain crap.... yes..... but plenty doesnt. Some even have a positive message....You just have to listen.

Im not trying to convert anyone... each to their own i say. But some of you are passing it up for talentless chumps. Love to see you write a rap song (a real one) lol

And someone said its not music because it doent contain real instruments, well thats pretty much all modern music: techno, dance, pop, probably even your country music

harry76 said:

I love it how all you guys say you dont listen to rap yet you know its filled with B and F words, how do you know this if you dont listen to it?

Plenty of rap does contain crap.... yes..... but plenty doesnt. Some even have a positive message....You just have to listen.

Im not trying to convert anyone... each to their own i say. But some of you are passing it up for talentless chumps. Love to see you write a rap song (a real one) lol

And someone said its not music because it doent contain real instruments, well thats pretty much all modern music: techno, dance, pop, probably even your country music

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I have to agree with you. I do have some rap in my CD tower, but like most of my music it tends to be old school. The problem that rap suffers from is that as an art form it has little or no "entry fee". You want to be drummer check out the price of a drum kit, want to be a guitar hero check out the price of an amp and an electric guitar, want to rap all you need to do is be able to "spit".

So what happens especially in a local rap show is you get a bunch of wannabes that really have limited talent if any at all. There was no "price of admission" so you just have to say you are rapper and it is so. And if you are going to "rap" and rhyme you are working with your own vocabulary, and given the limited literary exposure of your local rap heros there songs are gonna be full of that limited vocabulary.

Garage grunge bands of 90's put out some interesting music because most of the song writers for those groups tended to be well read either through school or self education. Compare that to the wannabe garage Heavy Metal bands. The "literacy" level heavy metal bands tends to be a little lower and the language in the songs a little more base very akin to low level garbage rap. Any surprise that the main demographic of Heavy metal is the same 17 year old white mid western males?

That being said look at your great "Heavy Metal" acts. Metallica love them or hate them, much of there lyrics are the product of a well read well educated song writer. Led Zepplin the "god father's of rock" (arguable point but they are hugely influential even in today's music) look at there lyrics again educated and well read, the Doors etc...

Now look at the current music scene. Most of our pop icons are singing somebody elses songs, I remember reading an article a few years ago when the same song writing team had 5 or 6 of the current top ten singles, they were writing for the likes of Timberlake and Spears. Rappers especially young wannabes write and perform their own music which shows in the lack of sophistication of the lyrics. Also look at your target audience, who is gonna buy music that makes them feel dumb, or they don't understand? Is it any surprise that Arrested Developement never realy hit it big, or that Lupe Fiasco lacks the popularity of Kanye West?

i lmao when some 17 year old (always a white boy) pulls up next to you in a 15 year old honda, it always has huge base speakers that are worth more than the car. it's booming and vibrating and sounding bad. when he pulls away theres a pile of rust that was shook off the car left in his wake.

camlifter said:

i lmao when some 17 year old (always a white boy) pulls up next to you in a 15 year old honda, it always has huge base speakers that are worth more than the car. it's booming and vibrating and sounding bad. when he pulls away theres a pile of rust that was shook off the car left in his wake.

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Exactly. A 17 year old white boy that has the disposable income for a 15 year old Honda and base speakers also has the the disposable income to buy the latest Pitbull Album. That is why "The Man" produces and markets Rap.

At the end of the day, I believe that rap, just like the various sub-genres of metal, and some rock follows the Elvis Presley or KISS formula. It is all about shock value.

Elvis of course brought hip gyrations that parents of the 1950's viewed as vulgar and obscene. The kids of that generation ate it up. The more television and parents censored him, the more fame he got; all from the youth. Shock 101.

KISS took the formula to another level, by the use of make up, theatrics, and Satanic innuendo. Once again, parents didn't grasp it, viewed it too literally, tried to restrict the children and kids gravitated towards it more. Shock 201.

Slick Rick comes onto the scene, shortly later N.W.A. breaks out, and rap goes from the relatively placid roots of its beginning and starts going in two directions that parents hate. Slick Rick of course goes the sexually explicit route, while N.W.A. aims more for the hard, vulgar, violent street life route. Parents are enraged, kids flock to it.

It turns into a matter of one-upping the previous 'leaders' of the genre at this point. The only way many feel is going to garner fame & fortune is to be more violent, more explicit than the last act. And it works. Kids eat it up, parents hate it. Proof in the pudding is that you don't see any Christian rappers out selling Eminem, do you? As such, this is why you have kids as the major demographic. Artists and promoters aren't stupid. They catch this and cater to what will sell the most records.

After all, if children only listened to what their parents listened to, we would see Glenn Miller's Orchestra still #1 on the charts, and Elvis, The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Guns 'N Roses, Marilyn Manson, ect. all being unheard of for mainstream.

ferball said:

Exactly. A 17 year old white boy that has the disposable income for a 15 year old Honda and base speakers also has the the disposable income to buy the latest Pitbull Album. That is why "The Man" produces and markets Rap.

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More than a little has been written academically about that topic. I know it has been posited by some scholastic observers that early rap and hip hop performers were too vocal about social ills, tending toward what might be construed as 'revolutionary', and were quieted in one way or another by a music industry that saw dollar signs rather in common and profane vulgarity, misogyny and violence, and the industry did all it could to promote that ethic while shutting the others out.

There's a documentary on netflix streaming "Punk: The Early Years". At one point they have Marc Bolan of T-Rex commenting on the new punk movement. He says punk retains the violence of the Mind at its core, as opposed to physical violence. A distinction he believes that all good Rock has at it's core. As always there are people that confuse this with physical violence, and he condemns this, but he asserts that is not what makes these artforms tick. Its about the rebellion to status quo, and we MB'ers are more likely to be associated with the rebels.

It's funny, my Dad always told me the story about when his father told him "Son, Rock and Roll... It's just not going to last." Then my fourth grade teacher who I admired for his musical taste told me: "Rap just doesn't have the lasting power of Rock and Roll."

That said, here's a good tune that's in my head when I'm cruising on my bike:
http://youtu.be/71ubKHzujy8

i dont think the point is if rap is music or not,or if some of us are told old to "get it". the message here is the lack of morality and ignorance that is associated with rap. songs that encourage beating on women,pimping,hard drugs and drug dealing,violence,rape,underage sex and murder is leaving its mark on so many weak minded people, they are following this life style as if they are some harden Compton gangbanger when in all reality they are some upper middle class white boy from Iowa. so now these days we got these wannabes running all over the place thinking cool cause they slaughter the english language with slang,knocking up 2 or 3 different teenage girls at a time,or getting involved with some type of criminal activity to show how "hard" they are. oh and how i also love being woken up cause i got to hear "boom boom boom,ya! ya! kill the police" at 3am.

it confuses the heck out of me how people who would say "oh well rock n roll can have the same effect". really? cause last time i heard of rock n roll involved with an act of stupidity or violence was charles manson with the song helter skelter or those couple times where some teenage kid blew his head off listening to a judas preist record and even then,wow,one last gas station employee in the world we are really loosing out there.

how would they like it if i was out in front of they live while they sleep blasting slayer's reign in blood or angel of death from a 5 grand stereo system in my car. oh but now im the bad guy right? this country's ass backwardness is getting out of hand,and all i know is the duke is rolling in his grave right now.

Jerks in cars with loud stereos are definitely disruptive to everyone, whatever it is being played at high decibels. Troubled youth do embrace the culture from violent music like gangster rap as a badge of honor. Gangs and movements associate themselves to all sorts of genres. Definitely Rap. Neo Nazi's are into punk, metal and industrial.

I just don't think the music should take the blame.
Look at the attention that was focused on goth and industrial music like Marilyn Manson and KMFDM after the Columbine shooting. The blame seemed misdirected to the music, the art, not where it belongs with the problems with society, parenting, economy, and education.

Rap music has changed a lot since the gangster rap movement of the '90's. Ice Cube does children's movies. "Cop Killer" Ice T plays a cop on Law and Order SVU. Its seems whether indirectly related or not, things changed after the shootings of Tupac and the Notorious BIG. That was in my opinion the tragic crossover of violence from art to reality, kind of what Marc Bolan was talking about. The suicide of Kurt Cobain is another painful example of that. This is interesting though also in context of the fact that we just lost another pop star to the 27 year old club.

I mean no offense to anyone. I'm just enjoying being part of the conversation.