Ray Charles - "Rap is not music"

Ray Charles made music in another genre.  To say Rap isn't music isn't music is idiotic.  Just because it doesn't appeal to you doesn't mean it's not what it is.  I could care less for 95% of hard rock & roll but it's still music.  Enjoy what you enjoy and please don't piss on someone else joy.  Just an insane thread with opinions at the day that don't matter.  Tell the rap artist who's making millions that he's not making music and it doesn't appeal to anyone. Yeah, laughing all the way to the bank.  You wish you had the talent to do what they do.

@davedead +1

@audiovideonirvana no problem. and no chance of me acting adolescent at all anytime I can weave a "That's what she said" into a conversation...

Couldn't agree more with Ray!

Does Hip Hop fall into the same category?

At best, Rap is poetry intoned to a steady, repeating beat and, for the life of me, I can't make out what is being said, most of the time! Not my cup of tea! However, a lot of the younger folk like it. So, to each their own! Whatever floats your boat!

There is a great Bruce Willis movie (can't remember which one) where the bad guys finally catch old Bruce string him up by his arms with chains in some sort of dungeon. These bad guys want some sort of information from him but Bruce, ever the hero of course, just won't talk. During this torture scene, one of the bad guys, in desperation, says something like: "What do we need to do to finally make you talk?" Bruce responds with something like:  "Play some Rap." That about sums up why I need to hit the mute button on the remote when I hear it on the TV.

I love some pretty shitty music, full of archaic sexual innuendo, played to a very predictable repetitive musical structure, but I love it anyway.  That’s the Blues I’m talking about.  My Swing Era parents thought Jimi Hendrix was horrendous.  I personally was appalled by AC/DC at first.  I cannot deny the craft and skill that some rappers demonstrate, but as an art form of music, no thanks.  I like my sexual  references kept innuendo, and violence against women implied, not glorified.  I also prefer people to play, not sample.  Call me old fashioned.

Ray Charles…one of our greatest national treasures, but a whole generation or two adores this music, as I did his. But I do associate its rise in popularity with a certain decline in civility, engagement in intelligent discourse, obsession with celebrity, and worship of materialism.  So there’s that.

"But I do associate its rise in popularity with a certain decline in civility, engagement in intelligent discourse, obsession with celebrity, and worship of materialism.  So there’s that.'

Sounds like what was said about 80's hair metal or 70's glam rock, etc...