I was brainwashed...

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... for thinking rap was good, not I realize it's the worst music in the world, it's DISGUISTING, rap remixes managed to ruin several hit songs, including the song "We Are The World", which I'm not so fond of, but is one of the best selling singles of all time.

Generalize much? Look beyond the main stream. There's some brilliant rap music out there. It's a very diverse form of expression, and some people actually do interesting things with it. They just don't get played on the radio.

I wasn't a fan of rap back in the day (as a musician, the message are 'why use real musicians when you can just sample?'), a tiny fraction of it has merit, but a lot of it is just posturing. My favorite quote was a Somali who was asked about it, and considered his country and how bad the rappers have it here and said 'We theink they're cute'...

Ah good. You've opened your eyes.

"Old Skool" rap I liked alot better than
the bass-shy tinkatinka bonk stuff they got these
days.

I miss the bass (((BOOM))) of the Old Skool
rap of the 80s.

***edit***

I'd like to add, I also Really Miss the
shoulder mounted boom boxes (big cassette players)
with the big speakers and rechargeable
batteries of the 80s.

Aah, if only Shakespeare had possessed such a rich vocabulary...






What artistry! What carefully honed and well thought out turn of phrase! It speaks so deeply to the human condition, lifting the spirit with hope, even as it evokes the bleakness of existential self doubt. The graceful lyricism trips through the ear like clear water across a pebbly stream bed.



And wouldn't the world be a better place if we could all say that?

Rap:
The art of alternately rhyming and spending time in jail.

Sugarhill Gang, Ice-T, Body Count and Snoop Dogg are not representative of all rap music.
A form of expression is not to blame for the things individuals may choose to express through it. To imply, based on a bit of quote mining from mostly gangsta rap, that all rap is worthless, is the equivalent of showing a clip of someone doing the macarena, someone doing the ketchup dance and someone doing the chicken dance, and concluding that dance is not a worthy form of expression. Or quoting Britney Spears and concluding that singing is dumb. Or watching "Battlefield Earth" and "Twilight" and concluding that speculative fiction is useless. Or that film in general is trash.

Rap is this: Rhythmic recital of rhyming poetry.
There's a hell of a lot that can be done with that. And there's a hell of a lot that has been done with that. Musically. Poetically. Humorously. Politically. Emotionally. Experimentally. Rap is not only what you hear on the radio. There's more to it. I agree that popular rap is and has always been lackluster at best (with few exceptions), but there's a world outside of the main stream.

Last edited by Vince on 14 Feb 2010, 9:42 am, edited 1 time in total.

The "C" in (C)rap is silent.

I really don't like the rap I hear around, nor understand why people listen to it
except by the theory that they don't understand the words... Maybe because
they are just feeling the Bass (like a massage) and their eardrums are already
popped so they can't hear all the bad words.
BUT... I sense especially in rap videos, there is a hidden meaning in a language
I don't understand. It is like (or the opposite of) maybe a bible full of treasure maps
that are drawn in invisible ink. What better place to hide things but in something
people are "brainwashed" into ignoring?

Someone who really likes rap might know its history.
As far as I know, Rapture, by Blondie is the oldest rap song.
Is Uncle Tom's Cabin (Allegedly the first MP3 ever made) also Rap?
Who really invented rap?

The bass sounded better in the 1980s because we had big giant Radios
with built in CD-quality tape recorders and Big Bass Speakers.
If you were young in the 2000-2009 decade then your parents'
generation punished you for doing things that they did legally even better
in the 1980s, when they started suing you for listening to music
on the internet. If you don't know how to make a recording without
ripping then you were getting sued by the guilty "recording industry",
and now you are probably not even qualified to work for them,
which explains why I have OLD tapes that sound better than New CDs!
THEY DON'T MAKE TAPES OR GOOD RECORDERS ANY MORE

Blondie did not invent rap. Not even close. Hip Hop as a cultural movement (getting kids off drugs and violence and into music, dance and art) started in the Bronx in the 1970s. DJ Kool Herc, Africa Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash are often credited as important figures in the shaping of the movement. However, the nameless art of speaking rhythmically in rhyme was around a long time before the Hip Hop movement began. West African griots and the talking blues of 1920s America and various other things predate it.

/edit

Check out Faithless. Band member Maxi Jazz is an amazing rapper. More amazing is the fact that he's 52 years old. He brings a lifetime of experiences to his raps.

Can anybody suggest "good" rap, then? 'Till I can actually hear rap I enjoy, the fact that any of is good is entirely speculation.

Well, it all depends on what you're looking for in music. It's all very subjective.
Personally, I very much enjoy Ugly Duckling (positive, often comedic hip hop with very big, jazzy beats), The Weather (Busdriver/Radioinactive/Daedelus - highly experimental, almost Zappa-esque creatively strung together nonsense, wordplay and overall strangeness), MC Frontalot (very inventive, highly rhythmic Nerdcore hip hop), Del tha Funkee Homosapien, among others. These are just some of the fun-oriented ones. There's also plenty of poetic rappers, scary rappers, political rappers, wordplay-wanking rappers... there are rappers for every style.
I think as long as you're open minded, and as long as it's not the very concept of talking in rhyme that bothers you, there should be rap for everyone out there somewhere. It's a very broad artform.
So, what kind of rap would you want to hear?

I don't particularly like rap. I haven't heard any that appeals to me, but I would not want to mistake my preference for other types of music as evidence that nothing good had been done in that genre.

My point is that anyone with sufficient skill and passion and creativity can produce good work in their chosen area. Simply because you do not like it and perhaps it has nothing to say that you find valuable, does not mean that there is no value in it for anyone else.

Another thing to consider is that in any popular medium, most of what is produced is bad. Time is a great filter. Many years from now, the bad music produced today will be forgotten and the few remaining good works will have staying power. What may be affecting your point of view is that so much of rap is bad that it has completely drowned out anything that is good. I'm not saying keep listening to it in the hopes that you will eventually find something worthwhile, but I do recommend keeping an open mind. You may discover, much to your surprise, that there is some good rap out there.

Lars