In my area rap don't dominate any population or ethnic group.
Black population mostly listens to jazz, soul and classical. Hispanic population mostly listens to heavy metal and white population listens mostly to classic rock. Rap is rarely heard from any private homes or car stereos.
To my taste, I can't even call most of classic rock music or I can't even pronounce "Rock Music". Rock is rock, Pop is pop, Heavy Metal is heavy metal Rap is rap and Music is I guess something else but rock, pop, rap or heavy metal. |
I appreciate that you are willing to engage further.
While it is good to see you acknowledge that there is subjectivity involved in the appreciation of various types of music, that is only the most obvious point. I have already made another important one, which is that you (and other strident critics of rap) lump all artists together. It’s as if you heard some loud, pounding tracks, emanating from beat-up cars populated by "thugs", saw a few videos, and your mind was made up.
Now, I understand that you have a visceral dislike of the genre, and that’s fine. I wouldn’t expect you to do careful research in an effort to root out some rappers who are actually talented musicians, and have something to say. But on this very thread, just a few posts up, I suggested that critics listen to Gil Scott-Heron’s "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised". Scott-Heron was an excellent musician whose lyrics were politically powerful and important. His work was highly inspirational to early many rappers, whose work was in some ways quite different than what you typically hear today.
These are the reasons that I used the word "ignorant". I was not using it in the typical, contemporary sense. I meant that your ignorance of the nuances of the genre preclude any possibility of you arriving at a thoughtful conclusion. What you are essentially saying is that you can’t stand the music, which again, is fine. But dismissing it without understanding either its political and sociological importance, or without even gaining an understanding of the many different types and quality of artists, is ignorant. |
Why did you beat around the bush? Why didn't you just title your thread, "I Hate Rap Music!"? |
Then Mr Whipsaw - you seem to want to carry the cross to promote the idea / concept that rap music does have a ; '' political as well as a sociological importance '' in today's society. Okay, then please do enlighten me as well as maybe some of the other members here on what artists you think have that significance. I am sure that in some circles these particular artists that you speak of, may be discussed as often as say : Bob Dylan , Peter Seger, Woody Guthrie as well as a Sam Cooke on promoting a specific cause or enlightening us on the promotion of individual rights and liberties. I just named a few who came to my mind right away ......as I will listen to them as a student of different musical approaches and not because I was called ignorant - because I won't listen to that medium. That was very a condescending comment - so prove me wrong that there are artists who are relevant in todays; society and who actually have talent .......and please do not tell me Kayne West !!!!! |
Condescending? No, a statement a fact, which I have supported clearly. It is also disappointing that while you have expressed your sweeping and strong opinions on this thread, you haven’t even bothered to read it carefully (if at all). On the first page I posted this essay from 2009, from Bernard Chazelle, Professor of Computer Science at Princeton: Bring the Noise
Public Enemy’s political voice may have obscured the enduring brilliance of their work. It’s been 21 years since the release of "It Takes a Nation" and it’s hard to believe how fresh, innovative, and emotionally powerful that album still sounds. The raw energy of Chuck D’s booming voice, trading rhymes with Flavor Flav, is channeled through a layered mix of swirling scratches, quick beats, and funky James-Brown samplings. It’s only when you listen to the old masters like PE and Run-DMC that you realize how much the current generation (Kanye and the rest) are in their debt. And, who knows, perhaps gangsta rap will even prove to be a short-lived commercial aberration.
You may know Chuck D from his Air America radio show and perhaps less from his status as one of rap’s great MCs, along with 2Pac, Nas, Jay-Z, etc. The "noise" in the title is what the pop world thought of hip-hop in the early days. Chuck D welcomes the slur. Yes it is "noise," he is rapping, our kind of noise, and if you don’t like it, tough. As in much of black music, of course, there is an underground "elitism" there meant to shoo away the white establishment. The "noise" played the same gatekeeping function as the jarring harmonies, forbidding virtuosity, and asymmetric rhythm of bebop did 40 years earlier. It didn’t help matters that Seamus Heaney (a poet I admire enormously) praised the poetic power of hip-hop. Heaney was right, of course, but to declare hip-hop safe for the establishment was the last thing hip-hop needed. (Everyone was probably too busy listening to Britney to hear Heaney.)
Some quick historical perspective. In my view, one pop figure dominates, nah, towers over everyone else. Nothing the Brits did comes anywhere close. Same with Elvis. No one can claim his musical breadth, creativity, and influence. That person, of course, is James Brown. And yet there was always something missing. Brown was always so far ahead of everyone else he ended up talking to himself. And you can’t formalize a new language when you only talk to yourself. Hip-hop is Brown’s legacy as an autonomous musical genre, its culmination if you will. It’s a genre that never ceases to amaze me. It’s not musical in the traditional sense of the word. But there’s an emotional intensity to it, a rhythmic richness, and a verbal brilliance that have no equivalent in pop music. I love it."
Now that is a serious look at the genre. Some may disagree with his specific views, but he has undoubtedly given the subject thought. Furthermore, I have twice mentioned an important, early rap artist, Gil Scott-Heron, who will undoubtedly endure, and I suggested a specific song of his. You either didn’t read my post(s) carefully, or ignored them. Heavy D., Run DMC, Public Enemy, NWO, The Sugarhill Gang, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five (try "The Message"), are a few that are worth listening to. Their music and messages are important reflections of the world of inner city blacks. |
