So can hip-hop, probably even more so since the artists are not completely reliant on at least the basic Guitar+Bass+Drum+Vocal combo that seems standard to every rock band. Some hip-hop groups use jazz ensembles and many DJs use a whole variety of backing tracks that range from Classical to Electronic to Metal. Hip-hop has the potential to use any existing genre of music to create and innovate its sound.I mean, rock's a very broad type of music, it can have violins and church organs and little boxes that go bleep when you push a little button on it, and although guitars are a near-ubiquitous aspect of the genre as a whole, they aren't totally necessary
But rap... well, let's be honest here, there's only so much you can do with a muscular black guy in approximately fifty-three tonnes worth of bling shouting obscenities into a microphone. It simply doesn't require as much depth or musical proficiency as other forms of music, it's music at it's most raw and unsophisticated, at it's most... functional.
-sigh- I believe I've already covered this in my first post to this thread. You are basing everything you know about Hip-hop on only the bad artists you've heard and from there you've built a poor image of what it is. Yeah, sure, you can quote Soulja Boy to prove your point, but I can quote any shitty Hair Metal band from the 80's just as easily. I'll repeat this again, the differences in skill apply only to individual musicians, not genres. Each genre has its own methods in creation.
"There are exceptions" does not validate your argument. In the 80's Metallica, Iron Maiden, Venom, and a great number of underground metal bands were "exceptions", Elvis Presley was an "exception", Frank Sinatra was an "exception", Ludwig Von Beethoven was an "exception". Time is a great filter for music, as most of the terribly bad artists will be washed away. To be honest, I think your only experience in actually listening to Hip-hop was from a detached mode, only through one ear as some kids were blasting at a party, or begrudgingly accepting an mp3 from a friend. That's merely speculation though. Again, it's alright if you're not interested, but don't try to define it if you don't give it a chance. A genre is too wide to place absolutes like "good" or "bad" objectively.
There are exceptions, of course, but rap and "nu-soul" (read: shit-on-a-disc) by and large doesn't have as much of a political bent as rock. Rock musicians often try to change something. Most rappers don't care about any world other than their own, and it's not difficult to see why - if they are to be believed, then every black or Latino man in America and Britain commits about eighteen murders before their hearty breakfast of cheap crack, bitches and bullets.
Again, see Hair Metal, many of the bands were in it for the money and chicks because they figured out that if they can make one "anthem" typey song and one rock ballad they were guaranteed for success. This is no different than mainstream rappers today, being only that the terminology has changed into Bling-bling and hoes.
And here's your goddamn political bent. [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRvFzPkFUm0]