rap is crap

Bashing another type of music, like I've said many times, usually comes from someone doesn't invest much time listening to it.
Getting into an argument over something like "rap sucks" is pretty lame.

Oh, the thread was pretty cool for a while. Thought it kinda ironic, that a thread called "rap is crap" ended up being an interesting place to talk hip-hop.

But yeh, every once in a while the thread's title will bring in some new rap-basher. Fine with me, but when the rap-basher then bashes the rock-basher for mindless bashing, the irony just becomes too much ;-)

Anything that's not mariachi or klezmer is something else.

rap is crap

full agree


Because: It will abuse for discriminatory ......

nimh

I agree. We had a meeting of minds over some of the best rap/hip-hop/trip-hop etc. some way back, having got over the title!

Now we're back to abuse-hurling. Glad it's not an Olympic sport, or we'd have to put up with more in August!

KP

It may not technically be 'rap' but Outkast rule.

You're absolutely right, Cav, although I'd call them more.. I don't know. Not rap; something of their own.

(Weirdly, I was one of the first people who played Outkast in the UK, when I was manager of a volunteers' radio station... I played a demo of a song called 'Miss. Jackson' months and months before it got to number one.)

Bad rap is crap, agreed. There is good rap out there as well though. Just like any other form of music or art there is crap & there is some good stuff. Don't say "Rap is crap" just because you haven't heard any good rap. Just my opinion.

I agree Hathor. There is good in all music, but not all music is good.

As a musician, I don't listen to music as a whole, but have to hear the same song several times to hear all the nuances. The 1st time thru I listen to the voicings and melodies. The next time I listen to the rhythm arrangements and tempo. etc. etc.

I find it difficult to classify most rap noise as music. I call it noise for a reason. Technically, it is just that. Noise.

In order for music to be music, it needs four essential ingredients:
Melody
Harmony
Rhythm
Tempo.

Subtract any one element and it becomes, simply put, noise. Rap, for the most part, falls into the noise catagory. A sparce few have a melody. Even less can harmonize even with vocal their overdubs let alone any attempt to harmonize with the accompanying instruments. Heaven forbid any try to sing (~shudder~) rather than rap. What remains is rhythm and tempo. Hardly music be the basest of musical definition.

This is why I don't listen to rap.

My 2 cents.

Yeah OK so I'm slow on the uptake, I know. Illmatic's long gone, he was only here for like two weeks or something, alas. But som'a these tracks he suggested last year are GOOD!

It took me forever to get round on d/l'ing 'em, I got like a waiting list. Tried some Jedi Mind Tricks first and I thought it was, well, OK (Storm of Swords for example). Well, I really liked the sound of Animal Rap (with Kool G Rap), but it made me sad so I didnt play it much. It was only last June that I d/l'd 3 of these other tracks tho.

First time I sat down and listened to RJD2's "June", I was sold. Intense track. For some reason I've been listening to it in tandem with Jay-Z's Bump Bump Bump (Freestyle), I like that too, but RJD's track is just one of those heart-stoppers. Moved me. Tough.

The other two are Binary Star's and Square One's. First coupla times I heard 'em I was like, well, OK. Nice enough. But they grew on me, especially Unorthodox. Bit off it is, bit like, why? - but then you play it and play it and you just get fond of it. Same kinda with Binary Star's, kinda reminds me of Souls of Mischief.

But did I mention Madvillain yet? There's this track he did, called Accordion. Its pretty short and its got, well, an accordion. Its absolutely ******* brilliant. Most unexpected amazing and moody bit of hiphop I heard in a year. It kinda goes with the Binary Star/Square One type of track, but its still of a different class and it goes even better with a track that aint hiphop, but its a beauty: Kids on Holiday by Animal Collective. I know, lame names. But an intense melancholy bit of sweetness, and still its got a beat.

Hip-hop again is Selfish, by Slum Village. ANyone hear that track? Its a single. Its cool, its a bit more poppy, sticks in your head, in a good way. And it, in turn, goes together - well, in this associative kind of way (I heard em closely after another on two different webradio stations, dublab.com and dreamgroove.com) with that seventies soul hit, What you won't do for love, by Bobby Caldwell. Together a significant bit of the soundtrack in my head, lately, just because.

Well thats all my world, anyway.

it's not my music of choice, but it's not crap.

This is my first post, and I'm fuming mad...I mean the first subject I jump into I get this bull.

Ok first off, half of you cats don't even listen to the music, so you can't judge something you don't know anything about. Ok see, the music form is called HIP HOP, not rap. If you actually listened to it, you would know that wouldn't you? Near everyone on here acts like the garbage "musicians" on MTV, and BET represent the entire HIP HOP community. Well, it's basically like this: mainstream "rap" exsist to make the masses happy, they make music that sounds exactly the same so people can get drunk and dance to their hearts content. Ok next we have underground HIP HOP, this form of the music remains unseen because of it's complex lyrical content, philisophical messages, and artistic value. If you want true music, then search for it.

OK next, everyone that judges the skill of an EMCEE or MC(which is the true name of a poet in HIP HOP) and doesn't have the slightest clue what it actually takes to do the things they do with there voice should shut up. You talk about how easy it is, or how rock music is so much more complex, but take any one of you, place him in a pit with a battle emcee, and we'll see how easy it is. You have no idea of breath control, lyrical content, even keeping on beat.

Look I ranted all of this crap to say this, everyone on here keeps judging music that: 1. they cannot connect with, 2. do not understand, or 3. never even heard. You wanna judge the stuff, go out, find some Immortal Technique, find some Black Star, some Jedi Mind Tricks, or Aesop Rock and then judge the form....oh and to be completely sterotypical, and make a huge generalization...everyone who said the classic phrase "Rap is Crap" or the variation of "you can't spell Crap with rap" then you were probably white, suburban, and wearing dickies....

oh oh, do you even know how old the freakin' music form is...if you knew anything you would know that hip hip even though the exact date is debateable, it started around 78, 79, it really hit the mainstream about 82 with cats like KRS-ONE, and Rakim(the god) so it's not that old it's hard to have a artist doing it for twenty years when the form is only 25 maybe 26 years old, and as I said before if you knew anything then you'd see that the originator KRS-One still sells out performances, and puts out platinum albums, and have your ever heard of The Roots, they've been around for about 17 years, they have a real message, and they still producing populairty...so I guess...hmmm what does that mean?

<grins>

welcome to a2k, aquarius

you go aquarius-- dickies, the pants of the white suburban gods.

Don't forget RUN DMC, they were putting it on for a long time.

The Roots are awesome, by the way. Saw them live, they were very talented.

lol, I"m sorry about that, I had to get that out. I'm tired of peolpe downing my music, so I guess I gotta be prepared to defend it to the end.

I was a big fan of Eric B. and Rakim, Public Enemy, Just-Ice, Scott La Rock and of course KRS...what bugs me is that Canada has fantastic hip-hop, but very little outlet to get it played to an international audience. In some ways, that has been good for the music, as it keeps it less commercial, but it's not so great for the artists. Rap and Hip Hop have taken on different meanings these days, but the art form actually dates back to way before the 80s. There was Blowfly, who put out some of the dirtiest, nastiest beats around back in the 50s-60s. Then, Gil Scott-Heron, who was extremely political. Check out "The Revolution Will not be Televised" which has been sampled by many hip-hop artists. James Brown, another pivotal influences, especially his grooves from the 70s. The George Clinton links, Funkadelic, P-Funk, etc. Outkast are the new P-Funk, IMO. The form has never been a single genre. There is as much diversity there as in any musical form.

Oh, I forgot Schooly D....

You must be about my age, Cav ... ;-)

Just-Ice ended up without a record label, didnt he? Sad, he was good.