50 years of Hip Hop- How Come?

I don’t think of 98% of the genre as music. 
 

it’s also promotes violence and misogyny. 
 

I can think of only 2 or 3 artists from the genre that I like. 
 

To those who think I’m being just like my parents: sometimes something that is not a cigar really is not a cigar. 

@dabel

- The Last Poets

- Grandmaster Flash

- Africa Baambata

- Public Enemy

- Notorious B.I.G.

@dabel 

i have seen the first two perform live. Back in the 1970s. 

@dabel 

Huh? Symphonies? I thought we were talking about hip hop and rap. 
 

theaudioatticvinylsundays.com

@simao

I live in/next to … we call them “depressed areas” these days, a soft phrase in the manner of George Carlin.

The … noise … blasting out of apartment windows and car audio systems on a daily basis is predominantly full of hate, anger, violence, and abuse. I find it to be oppressive. The generalization applies and I stand by it. No, I’m not missing out on anything. I do have one Spank Rock 12” single, “Bootay”, because my step-daughter performed with him for a year. In spite of his lyrics and stage presence, he’s an oddly quiet, shy, retiring gay guy in person.

Yes, there are problems with rock lyrics but they are few and far between. And some artists have removed them from their playlists. The Rolling Stones, for example, do not perform Brown Sugar anymore because African American women object to the lyrics about raping black slave women. As Keith Richards acknowledged “I dunno what the sisters are upset about. It’s supposed to be a song about how horrible slavery is. But whatever”. Mick said “God knows what I was thinking when I wrote that. It’s a mish-mash of every offensive thing. I would never write that today.”

I am not a fan of todays rap and hip hop. 
It is violent and misogynistic. 
It hits one emotional note: anger. 
And it’s been stripped of revolutionary rebelliousness. It is just product. 
 

it wasn’t always that way. 
 

The Last Poets are considered the founders of rap. The Original Last Poets were formed on 19 May 1968, the birthday of Malcolm X, at Mount Morris Park (now known as Marcus Garvey Park) in East Harlem, New York City. 

Their first LP was issued in 1970 on Douglass, the same label that introduced John McLaughlin. 
 

@ghasley

I moved to the East Village of NYC in 1972. For one year, I lived upstairs from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe (where I got married 20 years later), where I met Miguel Pinero, Miguel Algarin, and many of the other founders of slam poetry, a closely related poetic and musical phenomenon.

I’m not a fan of Burt Bacharach, but I would never say that he’s not a great composer. It just sounds like muzak to me: why would I find “Close to You” interesting in 1972 sung by the Carpenters, when I was listening to David Crosby’s “Triad” in 1968, sung by Grace Slick?

@coltrane1 
I may or may not know how to compose, but I can say with 1,000,000% certainty that you do not know how to read.

As for the number of so-called hits, has it occurred to you that that is a contributing factor in why I loathe his work? If one grew up in the 60s, that crap was lobotomized into one's head, thanks to its ubiquitousness. Ugh.

@coltrane1

I do not use whether or not something was a hit as criteria for judging the quality of music or it’s lack thereof. Quality is not a popularity contest. The guy who was voted president at my high school in my senior year had the IQ of a walnut.

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