Your opinions on rap music

[napho]

I like it. Not in excess though. I'm no wigger and the cadence can get a little tedious after a while. As with all music there's good and bad. Violent lyrics are a little lame coming from guys who live in mansions.
Eminem is really good. There's a fair number of comedy rappers too.

[Haole]

Don't care much for it, although every once in a while I hear something that kicks my ass. Personally, any of the rap from the Ninja Tune label, such as:
The Herbalizer-8pt Agenda
Quannum MCs-Blue Flames
and anything featuring Lyrics Born, are killing. It's not Gangsta, just real inventive and groooovin'.

[greatdj1]

I have to be honest...I really like rap. Though I do like most every music.

If it wasn't for rap, I think I wouldn't have the appreciation for the Funk. George Clinton, Zapp, Ohio Players, and many many others that were sampled over the years.

[Snarkridden]

(C)Rap

Snark.

[Dawn]

I've never liked Rap music. But I have to admit after watching the movie Exit Wounds, I went and dowloaded 3 songs by DMX.

[MikeHunt]

..cRap....no talent required to chant nig-rhymes into a vocorder microphone...it's some played out sh*t. ....
Thank God, most kids grow out of it by the time they get in their 20's

[Bronxie]

I like it. I download the song if I really like it. It's all around me so I'm used to it. But you won't catch me at the rap section at a record store or at a rap concert. And I swear the next time my neighbors blasts bubba sparx by putting his speakers on the window Im blasting Marilyn Manson and I'm scaring the shit out of him.

[Haole]

MikeHunt--"nig-rhymes"? Ouch!
If it was that bad I don't think some of the great DJs like Amon Tobin would be spinning it, although the obligatory "macho male followed by lame female singer hook" is lame as hell.
As someone who's pushing 40, I certainly can't profess to have any clue as to what the best stuff is, but I know that some things I've heard (see my post above) are happening.

[theknife]

Time is the real test of quality music.

20 years from now, will any of the rap songs from the last 10 years still be played?

[MikeHunt]

..mdneer...ouch... sorry..I'm not too much on PCness.....do you have a better way to describe the lyrics and chants of cRap ?

[BuzzB2K]

Originally posted by greatdj1
I have to be honest...I really like rap. Though I do like most every music.

If it wasn't for rap, I think I wouldn't have the appreciation for the Funk. George Clinton, Zapp, Ohio Players, and many many others that were sampled over the years.

I listened to those Funk Bands before the Rap era, Didn't need an introduction later... I admit to listening to the mid 70's early rap bands like Sugarhill Gang, Newcleus, Grandmaster Flash etc...

[Malk-a-mite]

Public Enemy

Yes they still will be playing some of their songs in another 10 years.

While I agree that large amounts of Rap can be crap, so can many Rock, Jazz, and Pop bands.

It does seem that many of the current acts have taken an easy Money, Women, Cars approach to the music and that's disappointing.


Arrested Development is a great example of well done music combined with lyrics designed to make one think.

Beastie Boys - the orginal white kids on the block - while there freshman album was neat they have progressed musically in ways that many rap groups couldn't have thought possible.

Fugees - the group that introduced the world to the voice of Lauryn Hill in songs like "Killing me softly" and "Ready or not" that employed the lyrics of Wyclef Jean.

Anthrax - Hard rocks types doing rap.... heh... this is mostly hear for the remake of "Bring the noise" done with Public Enemy. great lyrics powered by a great band.

And on that note:

Bring Tha Noize
Ridenhour - Shocklee - Sadler - Anthrax

Bass! How low can you go?
Death row what a brother knows
Once again, back is the incredible
The rhyme animal
The incredible D. Public Enemy number one
Five-O said "Freeze!" and I got numb
Can't I tell 'em that I really never had a gun?
But it's the wax that the Terminator X spun
Now they got me in a cell 'cause my records they sell
'Cause a brother like me said "Well
Farrakhan's a prophet and I think you ought to listen to
What he can say to you, what you ought to do"
Follow for now, power to the people say,
"Make a miracle. D, pump the lyrical"
Black is back, all in, we're gonna win
Check it out, yeah y'all, here we go again

Chorus:
Turn it up! Bring tha noize!

Never badder than bad 'cause the brother is madder than mad
At the fact that's corrupt as a senator
Soul on a roll, but you treat it like soap on a rope
'Cause the beats in the lines are so dope
Listen for lessons I'm saying inside music that the critics are blasting me for
They'll never care for the brothers and sisters now across the country has us up for the war

We got to demonstrate, come on now, they're gonna have to wait
Till we get it right
Radio Stations I question their blackness
They call themselves black, but we'll see if they play this

Chorus

Get from in front of me, the crowd runs to me
My deejay is warm, he's X, I call him Norm, ya know
He can cut a record from side to side
So what, the ride, the glide should be much safer than a suicide
Soul control, beat is the father of your rock'n'roll
Music for whatcha, for whichin', you call a band, man
Makin' a music, abuse it, but you can't do it, ya know
You call 'em demos, but we ride limos, too
Whatcha gonna do? Rap is not afraid of you
Beat is for Sonny Bono, beat is for Yoko Ono
Run DMC first said a deejay could be a band
Stand on its feet, get you out your seat
Beat is for Eric B, and L.L. as well, hell
Wax is for Anthrax, still it can rock bells
Ever forever, universal, it will sell
Time for me to exit, Terminator X-it

Chorus

From coast to coast, so you stop being like a comatose
'Stand, my man? The beat's the same with a boast dose
Rock with some pizzazz, it will last why you ask?
Roll with the rock stars, still never get accepted as
We got to pleed the fifth, we can investigate
Don't need to wait, get the record straight
Hey, posse's in effect, got the Flavor Terminator
X to sign checks, play to get paid
We got to check it out down on the avenue
A magazine or two is dissing me and dissing you
Yeah, I'm telling you

[Ramona_A_Stone]

I like very little rap, and I'd say I like very little country for the exact same reason: it's become a genre that is so specific and predefined that it doesn't take a helluva lot of imagination to adhere to the formula.

In popular country music, one simply has to have a hick accent and a well known cliché to repeat for the chorus, which should contain either the name of a southern state, a reference to drinking, a patriotic theme, a hard-won admission of tender cowboy feelings, or all of the above. (odd isn't it, that the country boys are encouraged to be extremely, almost pathetically emotional, while the country girls are wont to be surprisingly hard edged and "tough")

At any rate, this formula seems to be very close to the sort of template that's developed for rap music. (talk about your chronic, your bitches, or the trials of being rich and famous--or, if you're a girl, how no man can satisfy you) It's hard to hear this music and realize that the persons making it are not intentionally parodying the whole genre. When you do realize they're not, it's far too late, and you're bored out of your mind. (if you're me, anyway)

I do however appreciate some of the early pioneers of rap, as well as some of the artists that have been able to inject the genre with original ideas and approaches. (which have become more and more rare since, say, the late 80s or early Public Enemy, which was musically delicious--and some who have been original enough to leave the genre altogether) It seems though, for every one of these artists, there are about 100, usually more popular, parrots. (say Eminem, for instance, who would be just another annoying bleached punk without his ready-made formula of cool) Rap, like country, seems to be almost entirely about appealing to the lowest common denominator at this point, and both seem to be more about a business ethic than an actual form of creativity.

In my opinion, pop genre musics should have expiration dates.

"warning, music produced after date marked may be entirely derivative and have a great tendency to become very old very fast""

Keepin' it real, yo.

[MikeHunt]

Leave it to Ramona..to come up with a 'warning label'....LOLX2...very funny!!! I couldn't agree more.

[xNrVnAx1224]

Rap fans are the biggest dumbasses when it come to music for example, i was listening to "Kashmir" by Led Zeppelin and my friend goes "They got that song from Puff Daddy." I almost pissed my pants. Rap has only been around since 1984 or somewhere around there. I personally think that rap nowadays is just bragging about how good your cars are and how much money u have or what guns u have (50 cent especially). I think it sucks ass compared to rock.

[thinker]

Rap=99-44/100% bollocks.

[Headbanger]

Isn't rap just about played out by now?

Once white "artists" started doing it, it lost all credibility. Now black artists are looking for something different. It started as an "art" form by people who couldn't hold a tune. They couldn't write music either, because they sampled other artists' original work. It evolved into an original art form in it's own right, with more originality and meaning. But now, there are more middle class white teenage boys with their pants hanging half way down their ass and speaking ebonics who have no clue what it's about. It's lost it's meaning and become bubblegum - like so many Kiss albums. Or rather... like every other original black musical genre which was poorly covered by white artists untill it died.

[floydian slip]

Was BTO the first rap group?

b-b-b-b-b-b-b-baby you just aint seen n-n-n-n-n-n-n-nothin' yet

Ali G is my favorite.

but seriously , Beastie Boys - Check Your Head really is one of my favorites, kind of a more psycadelic rock/rap i guess.

[Malk-a-mite]

Originally Posted by Headbanger

Isn't rap just about played out by now?

Once white "artists" started doing it, it lost all credibility.

So does this mean Jazz is dead as well?

[Headbanger]

Originally Posted by Malk-a-mite

So does this mean Jazz is dead as well?

It hasn't been mainstream since the 50's