I love the attitude. I love the range of personal expression and the rhythmic vocal deliveries. My only problem is with the repetitive, endless Boom-Boom-Thud.
50 years of Hip Hop- How Come?
Having been a music fan for over 50 years, it’s been fun to see all the different musical genres that have come and gone in popular music.
In the the 50s it was Rock n Roll. Then in the 60s we had Psychedelia, in the 70s Punk, in the 80s New Wave, in the 90s Grunge. It was always interesting to see how music changed into the next new thing.
At the latest Grammy awards, which I did not see, there was a segment called 50 years of hip hop.
I’ve personally never been a big fan of the genre, there are some songs I have liked, but that’s ok. Everyone has their tastes. What I am surprised about is Hip Hops longevity. It just seems like for the last 25 years a lot of music hasn’t really changed much. There has been no " next new thing"as far as I can tell.
How Come? Anyone feel the same way or care to comment. Am I just getting old??
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........wait just a minute here. Please tell me that some of you are not actually comparing great jazz musicians to Hip Pop Rappers ? Please tell me that you aren't even considering this. The jazz musicians that I am thinking about and listen to actually play their own instruments. Hip Pop or Rap is all tape loops and mechanically laid down music ....there are instruments just thump ! |
Im 67 and a big soul/ Motown/funk fan that happens to be white. From what I can remember. the first popular HopHop on the radio waves was from bands like the New Edition in the early eighties. They transformed into a Hip Hop giant called Biv, Bell and Devoe. Another first in the genra was Blondies rapture. Great dance tunes from the 80's. Don't remember much Hip Hop in the 70's. |
@garebear - personally, I like rap and hip-hop more than I like jazz, which is pretty much not at all. Different strokes for different folks, and all that. But I don't dismiss anything I don't happen to care for; I still respect it - all music has value to the people who get something out of it. |
@garebear No, you’re wrong and both exaggerating and over-simplifying. I don’t know what "Hip Hop Rappers" are, but many artists (Nas, Alfa Mist, Mac Miller, Fetty Wap, Nicki Minaj, and others) are musically, if not classically trained. And yes, any creative mind with a digital audio workstation can create the genre. But any creative mind with a guitar can do the same thing. I imagine classical musicians were clutching their pearls in the 60’s. @1happyman New Edition and Bobby Brown’s artistic iterations were more accurately seen as R&B, whilst BBD is more of a hip hop act. But in the early 80’s, you had Newcleus, Run DMC, Grandmaster Flash, UTFO, Kool Moe Dee, and others. And agin, can we leave behind the battered and inaccurate chestnut of Blondie and Dylan being primogenitures of rap? It screams out-of-touch Boomer. I mean, Dylan was emulating West African griots, if anything. |
@simao Hip Hop is not rap. Out of touch Boomer :) |
I am right there with you on this. The level of musicianship between the vast majority of rap and hip hop musician, compared to jazz musicians from the past and present is pretty significant. And every time I bring this up in these sorts of conversations, rap and hip hop fans will always mention musicians like, Thundercat, Kamasi Washington, Cameron Graves and other serious jazz musicians from LA, because they play on Kendrick Lamar's albums. The thing is, almost none of the prodigious jazz chops these guys have, is actually needed to play on Lamar's album. If you haven't already heard it, you should give Kamasi Washington's "Epic" album a listen. It is a pretty impressive work.
As much as I dislike rap and hip hop, you are incorrect with the above statement. I would say, the majority of modern rap and hip hop are performed with people playing real instruments. |
Against ones’s better judgment …. :-( Lyrical truth for some officers in certain Precincts … Cypress Hill - Looking Through the Eye of a Pig. All I ask … read, no one (again) is obviously obligated to listen. For those of you willing and daring enough, I’d have to recommend their recorded live album, “Live at the Fillmore.” Yes, musical instruments will be present. Peace |
I liked hip-hop pretty much from day-1. Greatly prefer it to rap, though some rap really rocks me, too. I tend to hear hip-hop as more continuous, more part of "music/time." Some of the best hip-hop I ever heard came out of France. It turns out that the language used in the vocal TOTALLY matters. French, even slang French, sounds musical to begin with. It gives French hip-hop a particular slippery flow. Final point: I watch a fair amount of streaming content on Amazon Prime’s FreeVee (formerly IMDBtv). 1-2 months ago they relentlessly played an excerpt of a hiphop song that really really go to me. Spend way too much time trying to find what it is but never could. Think it was a Beats ad, not sure. That tune, if I ever get hold of it, is a perfect demo of the hypnotic flow hip-hop can achieve. PS: I'm >70 but my ears are forever in pursuit of sonic beauty (it comes from everywhere) |
@dabel Good call on CH. One of the few mainstream Latino-rap acts there. |
........hello all and larsman - I will dismiss the majority of that genre of music as I do try to listen to listen to it but get get past the typical lyrics and thumping noises. Hmmmm....Kanye West, Snoop Doog and LL Kool Jay to are classically trained ? Yeahhhh okay on that one. I have yet to see them play any instruments or I am missing that one too ? The majority of them ......I don't see one either ? Maybe some ..... |
@perkri "Old white guys discussing rap and hip hop. Hilarious." so you're both racist AND agist? ok, thanks for letting us know. what if somebody wrote "Young black guys discussing classical. Hilarious." ...? think about it. |
sure... here’s my questions instead: Why would you post such a comment in the first place? Why is it "hilarious" and why the focus on age and race? Are you saying that hip hop and the related rap really is race-based music and anybody not of whatever "race" in question ought butt out and not discuss it... because why? Since I'm not an ancient Greek, ought I not discuss Plato? And since I'm not Jewish, I ought not discuss Genesis and Exodus? |
@garebear - again personally, I don't care at all who plays, sings, or raps what. I don't care if anybody is classically trained or not trained at all. All I care about is the end result; the song itself. Other folks have other criteria as to what they like. |
I like what I like and feel no need to rationalize nor apologize for 'deviant taste'. 😏 Halfway to 72, better condition than I deserve to be, considering taking up a less 'emphatic' version of shuffle dancing to maintain that. ;)
Not black...'white', but prefer 'beige'....more accurate, anyway...*G* Going to the symphony to absorb some piano on Saturday, but will likely de-rez later with some loudness and shake off seat stasis.... A little Tina ought to do the trick, Slick....;)
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@garebear sorry, i failed to mention any of those artists you pointed out. because they're not. Please read more carefully. Also, your label of "typical lyrics and thumping noises" sounds like what Boomers' parents labeled rock. I guess getting old has the same cultural myopia no matter what generation you belong to. And to @curtdr 's point about hiphop and rap being race related; well, it is to a large extent. Rap morphed into a language of social protest when PE came on the scene in 84 and really accelerated with NWA's social commentary starting in 1988. The art form is inextricably linked with social and political commentary across the globe; Balen in Nepal, Sendata in the Phillipines, or Ukraine's Shevchenko. Just as rock was the art of protest 60 years ago, so has hiphop and rap become the same. It's just, as @perkri wrote, Black Americans have been subject to marginalization far more than other populations. Including, I assume, most Audiogoners. |
Very good comment, @simao The silly stereotyping of Rap music (as in the quote that you included) is a dead giveaway of the cultural myopia to which you refer. There are countless examples of Rap that shatter such stereotypes, and I will offer one that does so on a variety of levels: Anthony Joseph. Not only is the music that Joseph produces (at times in collaboration) often very different from stereotypical Rap, but he teaches creative writing at the University of London (as in England), has published at least four volumes of poetry (which clearly inform his music), and a novel. Readers should have a listen to TIME, which he produced in collaboration with the excellent NY-based American bassist and singer Meshell Ndegeocello. |
I am not a fan of todays rap and hip hop. 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.
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@unreceivedogma thanks for posting. There is a good history of hip hop in a documentary on PBS. IIRC Chuck D produced it?
Like you eloquently stated, there is a great deal of the genre that I don’t personally enjoy. Others on this thread are mistakenly confused…that if they don’t enjoy this genre it isn’t music when in fact its just music they dont enjoy.
I dont enjoy Ornette Coleman or Kenny G or Wagner or Guns n Roses or Twisted Sister or almost any C&W (but Bluegrass was different to me for some reason). I recall my parents threw up in their mouth the time they found a Lords of the New Church album in my room. The irony was that my father was borrowing some of my albums and the Lords album was sandwiched between the London Symphony and the Los Angeles Philharmonic (I know, I should have had my albums filed by genre, conductor or piece of music). The moral is its music to whom its music. To bitch about it or debate it is silly. I think what really pisses people off is they think of all the starving artists who had deep talent and messages and yet, someone they view as lacking in both are buying multiple jets, vacation homes and other swag. Thats life and thats free enterprise. |
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? |
Motown, the greatest soul that ever lived, along with the Philly Sound of Gamble and Huff, had at most a 15 year run. That entire period spanned my entire youth, even though I didn’t just listen to soul, I listened to everything, and knew all the groups from Creedance, the Mama’s and the Papa’s, to everything in between - You couldn’t miss it, for it was all over AM radio. The 60’s were far more than Psycho whatever, it was the most diverse period of music ever recorded. That said, I still listen to my recording of Rapper’s Delight. Do you watch tv? The RD soundtrack, still some 53 years later, is used in several upscale fashion companies commercials that you would immediately recognize. Yes, hip hop still lives. Who doesn’t like Rappers Delight? I wasn’t into HH but a hit was a hit, and I still dug it! |
@unreceivedogma, how can you say Burt Bacharach wasn’t a great composer? He only had every other hit on the radio throughout the 60’s. How many hits have you composed? How can you be so musically closed minded? |
@perkri, Many in this group probably thought Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On was too radical to listen to. Hilarious indeed! |
@coltrane1 I love Marvin Gaye’s music and am still sad about his tragic death... I wouldn’t classify his music overall as hip hop, though... |
@curtdr, hip hop no. I was commenting about What’s Going On as commentary music, like rap and hip hop. Perhaps even angry to those who misunderstood it. Still, a classic album in the RS top 10 ever. |
@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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@simao: “Ready for some blasphemy? I prefer "Mercy Me" over "What's Going On" -- and Robert Palmer's cover of it over the original.” Yeah, you’re right. At least you’re self-aware. |
@perkri Hilarious. You do all realize, it was born out of jazz? It is the urban music of our time and is a reflection of the disenfranchised of large groups of people.“ Ay yi yi, where to begin with this. Unintentionally comical. 1) A patently ridiculous introduction: a bigoted assumption that everyone writing here is “an old white guy,” with the clear presumption that, even if this bigoted assumption of a large group of people were true, such people having an opinion on the subject is inherently “hilarious.” 2) A statement that is simultaneously laden with condescending didacticism while being highly questionable: “you do all realize, (hip hop) was born out of jazz?” 3) If #2 wasn’t delicious enough, the already-potent self-importance starts to ooze out of the pixels when this dandy is typed: Wow. You are comfortably unburdened with explaining how hip-hop was “born out of jazz.” This is likely because, Jazz is jazz. Classical is classical. Pop is pop. “Pop” is just short for “popular.” How this is “born out of jazz” is beyond me.
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@perki Perhaps you have some ideas of your own you’d like to share. A lot of stretching going on there. We can flex, balance (much love, Mr. Van Vliet) and stretch some more until the cows come home. The degree to which the vast majority of hip hop is based on extremely complex compositions (the majority of mainstream rap barely qualifies as being a ‘composition’ at all, as it is often a series of samples and loops of previously composed/recorded material) be it, The degree to which the music is defined by virtuosic improvisational instrumental acumen, whether in a recorded or live performance capacity, is equally infinitesimal compared to jazz. |
@larsman I wasn’t making a value judgement either way. I certainly don’t consider technical proficiency/musical complexity to be synonymous with quality. I was just elucidating the stark differences between the music that comes out of someone’s speakers when they listen to jazz vs. when they listen to pop (let alone rap). |
Old men yell at screen, details at 11. I wonder if many here could name even 5 of the top songs from last year? Some Hip-Hop is really awful, but within the envelope of of popular music, Hip-Hop/Rap arguably has presented some of the more interesting music of the last 10 years and Hip-Hop has a lot of crossover with R&B and EDM, so hard to pigeon hole. |