Opinions on rap music?

[Dark Reaper]

I dislike rap or new rap specifically because all it talks about are gangs, hos, pimps and the n word.

I believe people listen to them because of the beats but they do not listen to the lyrics immediately. In some songs, the lyrics don't even make sense.

It's sad because it seems to influence kids into becoming "gangsta", when they are nothing more than petty thugs.

[Jexel]

Honestly, I can't believe the naivity of some people on this thread.

Ask yourself this "What is art?" and "What is a text?"

A text is anything that provides a link which communicates between two or more people. A pen can be a text, anything can be a text as long as it performs some sort of communication between people though it does not have to be physical but can also be emotional. Art is similar...anything can be art. Who are you to say that one piece of "art" is not art? If i were to submit an article of clothing and call it art, nobody can say that it's not art...they can argue that it's a crap piece of art but it's art nevertheless.

Thus we can relate the same thing to music. Not everybody likes rap but that doesn't give anybody to state that it is not a form of music. You can say that it's a crap musical genre but it's music nonetheless. I don't have a problem with rap though I must agree some artists simply rap about guns/money/hoes etc etc. However, I respect Eminem (don't ask me why or how as I have just too many reasons).

RAP IS MUSIC WHETHER YOU LIKE IT OR NOT.

[+Xinok Subscriber²]

I don't like rap for these two reasons:

- They use the same beat throughout the entire song, which for me gets old and repetitive very quickly.

- It's really hard to call rapping singing. It's more like talking at a consistent pace. The pitch of their voice barely changes throughout the song.

rocketship: I think animals can make music. Ever hear a bird sing? Ever hear a cricket at night? It's not something only humans can do.

[Pentaborane]

"rocketship: I think animals can make music. Ever hear a bird sing? Ever hear a cricket at night? It's not something only humans can do."

Large difference between "Art" and "Mate attraction"

No?

[DirtyLarry Veteran]

While I have shared my personal opinion more than once about Hip Hop, I will share it once again for the sake of this thread, and I will try to make it the condensed version if at all possible...

What passes as Rap, or as I personally like to define it, as Hip Hop, today is truly nothing but garbage. Honestly, this has been the case for quite some years and years now.

Sadly, what many today are exposed to as Hip Hop is just a sad, sad representation of what real Hip Hop could, and for that matter should, be.*

I personally was lucky enough to more or less grow up listening to Hip Hop.

The first time I was truly exposed to it I was right around 9 years old, and I am now 31.

I was originally exposed to it when it was still truly an emerging Art Form...

• When a message and skills meant something...
  
• When a "hit song" was not dictated by your video video, or how many girls and rented cars where in said video...
  
• When diamonds were still worn by women...
  
• When an album contained at most just one guest appearance... and that guest was on an because the artists truly respected each other... not because it would help the album sell more copies because the latest R&B hit maker was on it.
  
• When people were looking to help uplift their communities, not keep them in a perpetual state of materialism and violence...
  
• It was the voice of a people that for a longer time than it should have been, had no voice. It was the oppressed finally speaking out to the oppressor...
  

Also I feel for a person to say Hip Hop is not music, they are simply just misinformed and do not know thta much about music overall. Hip Hop pretty much follows the same exact 4/4 musical structure as original Rock N Roll, Original R&B, etc. All are very simple in their structure. Sure, the means by which to get the end result vary greatly than that of the music I have listed, but the end result is still unmistakably the same... an emotional journey conveyed through notes, and sounds, and instruments recored so that it reaches out and touches the listener. It makes them feel something more than they did before they heard the transmission itself...

It is, without a doubt, a culture.

Granted, it is a culture that is terribly misguided in it's current state.

Granted right now it appears to be a culture that had, instead of has, great potential. However it still can redeem itself if there is a shift in the right direction...

* Although I say it is garbage, just like all current music, the artist's you hear on the radio are pretty much the worse the genre has to offer. The people truly making the best music are the ones you will, sadly, probably never hear of.

Again, this is actually the case with all music across the board, not just Hip Hop. If you see it or hear it on the radio, chances are it is not the best the genre has to offer, and it is all because someone, somewhere, with no musical talent but a deep pocket, thinks it can make them even more money than they currently have.

Sure there are some exceptions to the rule, but rarely is anyone presented to the public that is a true representation of their genre. Plain and simple. With that said, bad Hip Hop, without any argument from my end, is really, really bad. When everyone is talking about the same exact things, and these things themselves are rooted in pure destruction and materialism, it does get really hard to swallow as anything except horrible. I fully admit this.

Hip Hop (Or Any Music For That Matter) Is Just Like Making A Pizza...

Okay, bear with me here...

Overall, I realize Hip Hop it is not for everyone, and for that matter it should not be for everyone...

Now although I know it is a very silly, abstract concept at first glance, the simplest way I can put it is to think that everyone making the music is doing the same exact thing and is talentless, is like thinking every pizza ever made on earth tastes exactly the same. It is simply just not the case.

Keeping with the pizza analogy, Ingredients are everything. Without a doubt, if the same crappy ingredients are used over and over by so many people just because they are proven to work and make the creator money, then yes, the end result and product by all of these people will be the same exact crap filled with the same exact ingredients over and over. If people are fine with eating the crappy pizza and continue to support it, the makers have no reason to switch ingredients since they are pulling the wool over the customers eyes.

However, there are people out there who still do care, and choose to only use the best ingredients possible. You just have to find them on your own. They do exist, and they always will. It is just a matter of how much exposure they get, and for that matter are allowed to get. You can make the best pizza ever, but if no one knows about it, it very well will probably never get the respect, following and exposure that it should.

In Conclusion...

I could go on and on and on, truly and sincerely.

The next couple of years will be a crucial time for the music and culture itself.

If it does not put itself in check, it is doomed.

At the end of the day, as I said, it is not something everyone has to like, I truly believe to each their own, so I am not hear to share my opinion to make people like it that do not. That would be naive of me to even believe was possible to do.

However, I am hear to share the belief and try and let some people know, please do not judge Hip Hop overall on what it currently is, and for that matter what it has been for the past almost 10 years or so...

It is not what you currently see and have seen...

It should have never even become what it is, but money is the root of all evil, and Hip Hop is no different.

It is without a doubt a classic example where money has taken the essence of something creative, and destroyed it thoroughly.

[jokeripa]

The next couple of years will be a crucial time for the music and culture itself.

If it does not put itself in check, it is doomed.

Great post. But why the next two years?

[»X«]

I dont like it at all. Not for any deep reason. I just dont like the sound of it. Audio diarrhea

[DomG]

* Although I say it is garbage, just like all current music, the artist's you hear on the radio are pretty much the worse the genre has to offer. The people truly making the best music are the ones you will, sadly, probably never hear of.

Again, this is actually the case with all music across the board, not just Hip Hop. If you see it or hear it on the radio, chances are it is not the best the genre has to offer, and it is all because someone, somewhere, with no musical talent but a deep pocket, thinks it can make them even more money than they currently have.

That's true, if you listen to commercial radio. Don't know the radio situation in the US or other countries, but here in Aus, we have a publicly funded station called Triple J that plays whatever the people feel like. There are no kickbacks from record companies or any of that crap, and they give unsigned, or independant, artists as much chance as a multi-platinum record selling artist. Oddly enough, you never, ever hear Britney, 50 Cent, or anyone like that. As far as rap/hiphop goes, Kanye West gets the occasional spin, and lots of Aussies and Kiwis get played too. I can stand the rap/hiphop played on Triple J slightly more than the stuff that commercial stations play. I just ignore it, instead of turning it off.

[dannyscott5]

plus the fact that its bulls**t.

GOOD RAP, is poetic. Did you people ever listen to Pac?

i did, still do. Rap was really best though when it was early eminem, Dre, Pac, Snoop, D12, Cypress Hill, Eazy E. when we got into 2001/2002 there were lots more new people, and this is when it started getting highly popular with almost everyone. I.E kanye west etc. I admit though twister is a good fast rapper, but back in the days it had so more meaning tbh.

[jokeripa]

i did, still do. Rap was really best though when it was early eminem, Dre, Pac, Snoop, D12, Cypress Hill, Eazy E. when we got into 2001/2002 there were lots more new people, and this is when it started getting highly popular with almost everyone. I.E kanye west etc. I admit though twister is a good fast rapper, but back in the days it had so more meaning tbh.

Twista aint ****, even this white boy can go as fast as that :p

Try listening to some Bone Thugs :p

[DirtyLarry Veteran]

Great post. But why the next two years?

I should have been more select with my choice of words, as I now realize a couple does allude to two... I meant more like the next five years or so. I say this because it is so, so commercial right now, I mean when it makes it's way to a Pepto Bismal commercial, you know it is a sad state of affairs. If this continues, along with the majority of the music being made equals crap, there is not much hope left for it to ever make itself back to what it should be.

And also, for the record, I believe the true beginning of the end was Biggie.

It was not so much his fault as it was Puffy's, but it was pretty much then that the turn towards materialism and violence really started overriding everything else, and the "pop" sound really started coming into the mix. Up until this point, everything was still being made with some integrity. Hell, some of the tracks on the first Biggie album where as Hip Hop as you can get, but the element of making a commercial sounding record was already in there. Once a song like "Get Money" came out, that was pretty much the end of it all, then the switch began. I would say Puffy had a huge hand in making it truly commercial and crap.

I personally think the heyday of Hip Hop was the late 80's to early 90's, what I, along with others, refer to as the "Golden Years."

Around 95-96, is when it started going downhill. Sure, some good stuff still came out during those years, but most of it was "All About The Benjamins Baby."

In any art form, once you start worrying about the money and how well it will sell, you have destroyed the creative process right then and there. If you create a work of art with how well it will sell in the back of your mind, you instantly destroyed any genuine emotion that might have been put behind it. Sure, once again, there are exceptions to the rule, but for the most part, if you are not doing it for the love of it all, you are just going through the motions. Any art form would suffer greatly from this approach, which many art forms, right alongside Hip Hop, currently are proving this fact.

Again, there are still plenty of real people out there these days, it is just the majority of music listeners will never hear them unless they search for them. Keep in mind when I grew up listening to music, even when I was in college, there was not the internet as there is today. It was there, but only for a few. I did not even have an email address in college, to put it into perspective. As a result, It was a much more hands on approach to it all, and artists had a chance to linger around for awhile just based on word of mouth. Nowadays, we live in such an instant information type of set up, that things come and go so quickly it is very easy for a real artist to get lost in the mix and overlooked.

Back when I listened to Hip Hop, To find the latest and greatest artist, usually meant taking a trip to a record store. That, or listening to college radio, which I did plenty of and since I lived in NJ and went to school in NYC, I was lucky enough to experience WKCR with Stretch Armstrong and Bobbitto. They kept it going as long as they could with real Hip Hop. People are still doing the same thing nowadays, but with so much competition and so many different outlets, in winds up being much, much harder for a new or underground artist to actually make it, when you think it would be the exact opposite, as they are reaching far more people with the Internet then without it. It really is a very strange phenomenon.

[Hum]

:x Rap is vile, crude, monotonus -- it short, Rap blows.

[devstorm]

Every topic involving rap seems to get raped on Neowin, so I want to know, what is your general opinion on rap?

....give reasons!

I like some of it. Mostly stuff from early 90's like Pharcyde, Ice T, Cube & some of the P.E. albums.

ut when it started spawning wiggers that tried to make it work with Metal like Limp Bizkit I got sick of all of it. I'm baffled how Tupac, or Eminem are considered innovators or pioneers of that genre. Now I pretty much can only deal with that older stuff. Nothing current in that genre interests me whatsoever. And all of it annoys me.

[jokeripa]

I like some of it. Mostly stuff from early 90's like Pharcyde, Ice T, Cube & some of the P.E. albums.

ut when it started spawning wiggers that tried to make it work with Metal like Limp Bizkit I got sick of all of it. I'm baffled how Tupac, or Eminem are considered innovators or pioneers of that genre. Now I pretty much can only deal with that older stuff. Nothing current in that genre interests me whatsoever. And all of it annoys me.

This is the sort of thinking that will never get the old fans back. Everyones like 'Pac was greatest, he was so great' he wouldnt be half a big if he didnt get murdered. I'm not ****ing on Pac here, he is talented, but so is alot of other artists coming up right now but the old skoolers wont give them a chance.

Yes, some rap about guns, fame, whatever, but if you listen to the lyrics you will learn that some are quite talented even though most are selling out in the process.

[Secret obsession]

size=4]in my own opinion i love rap music. But its very degrading to women.im only 13 and most of the girls i kno try to act and look like the girls in these rap videos. most of these girls are wearing next to nothing and all of them are always shaking their a$$es.

[PT 13]

I hate rap...

For 1 simple reason, for me music has to have a guitar :D (yes, I'm a guitarist) Just love the sound of "those things"

ahh and also, don't like the whole "I'm a rapper, I have a gun, I'm bad, Yo!!"

[thagame]

I hate rap...

For 1 simple reason, for me music has to have a guitar :D (yes I'm a guitarists) Just love the sound of "those things"

ahh and also, don't like the whole "I'm a rapper, I have a gun, I'm bad, Yo!!"

ya but the difference is rappers kill other people, alternative and heavy metal bands kill themselves so i guess alternative is better cause no one wonders or cares when they die.

[QuarterSwede]

Can't stand most of it. Nothing to do with the music or beats really, its just the attitude rappers portray. Look at me, I'm so bad I don't smile thing because my life completely sucks because I have nothing and when I get mad rich from these record sales I'll spend all my money on useless junk and ... etc.

Get real, people who actually have brains don't give a rip. Oh, and your look is moronic. Pull those pants up! I don't want to see your crack or your "draws!"

Its a pride issue really. A lot have come from poor backgrounds and trying to prove they have something. What they need to do is take a look at their life and realize they do have something, the love of their families (most likely true for the most of them).

[BigCheese]

Rap isn't real music, its just rubbish pretending to be music.

[NotChetHanks]

Rap isn't real music, its just rubbish pretending to be music.

Very ignorant. Anyone can say that about any genre of music. I heard some Arabic music the other day and I didnt like it much but I never thought it was trash. The person listening to it really liked it so thats enough for me to respect that.

[spiegel]

rap used to have a meaning, it was a way to rebel at the time (sort of like punk and grunge in their respective eras) however now its all about bitches and hos how much weed one can smoke and bling bilng so BigCheese is half right, CURRENT rap music is not real music its just gibberish sang by idiots who think its cool to wear a bulletproof vest to show how "hardcore" you are.

[CJ33]

Rap is absolute trash. Its so degrading to women. How can anyone possibly care to hear about rappers sing about how fly they are, or about sitting in traffic and telling everyone to move out of the way. Its so boring and pointless.

[Tha Bloo Monkee]

I've had this discussion countless times. In short, I just like it. Yeah, sometimes the lyrics are pointless, but the beat is so catchy!

I like more hip-hop rather than rap, but I'm starting to like more hardcore underground rap though...

Just my 2 cents :p

[jokeripa]

Rap is absolute trash. Its so degrading to women. How can anyone possibly care to hear about rappers sing about how fly they are, or about sitting in traffic and telling everyone to move out of the way. Its so boring and pointless.

But the woman who listen to it just dont give a ****.

I've posted quite alot in this thread, but I'd also like to add how damn hard it is now for people to break into the business and be RESPECTED. I mean anyone can just sell out and sell records but wont get any recognition by the hiphop heads as they are all talking about how it was back in the day. But, really good artists are still underground, or signed but are very small. There is a UK artist called Jehst, he is absolutely amazing but will never hit the mainstream and make big $$.

[Shuu]

Tech N9ne ftw.