Ray Charles - "Rap is not music"

https://youtu.be/4KW6Y5icmyE

Wouldn’t ya just know it: I misspelled Adam’s name. ;-)

At any rate, here’s the video. You may have to back it up to it's beginning.

https://youtu.be/Kr3quGh7pJA

@tylermunns obviously couldn’t be bothered to watch the video. If he had he would know that the argument is NOT being made against what he obviously thinks it is.

Examined and discussed in the video is not just how race is involved, but also gender, culture, nationality, and several other factors.

Here’s something tangentially related:

There is a YouTube video (made and posted by Adan Neely, a very knowledgeable, intelligent, and articulate young man) entitled "Music Theory And White Supremacy", in which an interesting topic is explored: the conflating of the concepts of "music theory" (as it is taught) and "the harmonic style of 18th century European musicians", and how "race" is related to that conflating.

The video was posted two years ago, and has been viewed 2.3 million times! It’s 44 minutes long, and believe me is VERY worthy of your time. I’m going to watch it again right now.

I've been listening to Wilson Pickett, Sam Cooke, Ruth Brown, LaVerne Baker, Etta James, Aretha, Solomon Burke, Marvin Gaye, The Platters (who are arguably more Pop than Soul), The Four Tops, The Drifters ("On Broadway"---written by Barry Mann & Cynthia Weil---is as good as songwriting, singing, and production gets), The Shirelles, Stevie Wonder, Lloyd Price, The Temptations, Smokey Robinson & The Miracles, Hank Ballard & The Midnighters, Jackie Wilson (his "Baby Workout" is KILLER!), Percy Sledge, Clyde McPhatter (I bought his "Lover Please" when it was released on a 45 in 1962), James Carr (everyone has covered his "The Dark End Of The Street", including Ry Cooder), Otis Redding, Booker T & The MG's (one of my very favorite bands), Sam & Dave, Jr. Walker & The All-Stars, Martha & The Vandellas, Ruby & The Romantics (their "Our Day Will Come" is SO dreamy), and a few dozen others since the 60's. Oh yeah, and Ray Charles. Many, many white guys have spent their entire lives trying to sound as much like Ray as possible.

I've played the above music in numerous bands, but when the bassist of the somewhat-hippie-esque band I had just joined in 1971 looked through my record collection his response was "You like weird music". He didn't yet know that James Jamerson---a genius musician---played bass on many of them. I'll bet he does now. 

There is one song on Lucinda Williams’ West album that I consider Rap: the just-over nine minute "Wrap (ha ;-) My Head Around That". Melody-free, but it still works for me. Hey, I'm a poet ;-) .

@acman3: Harmony? Hell, there's not even any melody!