What do you think of rap?
- Thread starter Froggy Slayer
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It makes me sad to see how you more or less called him out on generalizing, and then proceed to do the exact same thing.V da Mighty Taco said:Much of Rock and Metal in particular thrive on the notion of style over substance and is the reason I personally don't listen to the heavier genres of Metal. Sure, you have songs like "Freebird" and "Into the Fire" that tell a story and/or make you feel for the struggles of the singer or protagonist, but for every Rock or Metal song with meaningful lyrics you have (number pulled out of ass here) 10 songs from Hard Rock and beyond whose lyrics were written entirely to either sound cool or to just be dark / angry for it's own sake and don't actually mean anything unless it's overly loaded with metaphors to the point of being pretentious.
There's also a lot of Metal songs that actually do sound like, well, some neanderthal trying to eat the microphone. I'm pretty sure that's actually the point of Grunt and Death Metals by this point.
Now I'm not saying at all that I don't like Rock / Metal or that they even need to have meaningful lyrics to be good - far from it, I like Rock and the more coherent Metals quite a bit. However, to say that those genres or even other genres like Country are not as full of meaningless style-over-substance material as Rap is blatantly false, especially when one can honestly say that a band like Nickleback tends to have more meaning in their lyrics than a lot of Metal bands.
OT: Not a fan. Had a friend who was really into it, and he tried to get me into it too, but it never happened, unfortunately.
To me rap music is all identical. I don't find angry, uneducated, unoriginal, foul-mouthed black guys "singing" about money/guns/cars/murder/bitches/their own colossal arrogance to be all that interesting. Rap does absolutely nothing for me. I don't "get" it. You ask why I don't like it; I ask how you could.
The simplest answer is it's a difference of opinion. Some people like their sandwiches with ham and cheese, others like turkey, still others egg salad. It's not wrong. It's just different.
However, the douchebags who employ ridiculous car stereos to force everyone within half a mile to listen to their music whether they want to or not? Without exception, rap is what they're playing. As Moviebob said, "The subwoofer was never meant to be weaponized." Learn this, rap fans, and learn it well.
The simplest answer is it's a difference of opinion. Some people like their sandwiches with ham and cheese, others like turkey, still others egg salad. It's not wrong. It's just different.
However, the douchebags who employ ridiculous car stereos to force everyone within half a mile to listen to their music whether they want to or not? Without exception, rap is what they're playing. As Moviebob said, "The subwoofer was never meant to be weaponized." Learn this, rap fans, and learn it well.
In my opinion, this is literally the best rap song in the history of everything:
As you can imagine, I don't consider myself much of an expert.
As you can imagine, I don't consider myself much of an expert.
I was going to do something productive just now but, never mind, I'll just watch some Dylan Moran now.Terramax said:
I can't remember the last time I heard a rap song I liked. Generally I dislike the focus on materialism, narcissism, the gansta bullshit, superficiality. Most of my exposure to rap has been from mainstream sources though, and most pop music follows the same trends. I'm hoping those people are like the Taylor Swifts of country.
I also find the genre overall a bit sterile with all the processing, DJ-ing, synths. I miss the instrumentation and focus on vocal melodies in other genres. If rap had more melodic passages mixed in and guys like Dave Williams (Michael Jackson's past guitarist) or Victor Wooten doing the backing, I'd probably be more interested in it.
I've heard that the earlier rap of the 70's and 80's was a lot less shallow than most modern rap. Anyone got some recommendations?
Does anyone know why other more traditionally black music genres like Funk, Blues and Jazz have kind of moved to the side for rap over the past 40 years?
Then again, The Beatles bore me, so whadoiknow?
I also find the genre overall a bit sterile with all the processing, DJ-ing, synths. I miss the instrumentation and focus on vocal melodies in other genres. If rap had more melodic passages mixed in and guys like Dave Williams (Michael Jackson's past guitarist) or Victor Wooten doing the backing, I'd probably be more interested in it.
I've heard that the earlier rap of the 70's and 80's was a lot less shallow than most modern rap. Anyone got some recommendations?
Does anyone know why other more traditionally black music genres like Funk, Blues and Jazz have kind of moved to the side for rap over the past 40 years?
Then again, The Beatles bore me, so whadoiknow?
I'm a classic rock and roll kind of guy. I play electric guitar and I pray to almighty Hendrix. But I can appreciate good rap. I remember when I was playing San Andreas for the first time. I wanted to fully immerse myself in that era and in that culture so I listened to Radio Los Santos a lot. I really liked the music so I did some research and I really appreciate what 2pac rapped about. The guy was a poet if you ask me. I really like the 90's West Coast rap.
Seriously Death Grips are probably one of the best artists in the genre, I actually can't believe someone hadn't brought them up earlier. Be warned though, they are extremely different to most other rap. A lot more yelling than what you'd regularly see.Trololo Punk said:
OT: I think the main problem with rap or rather the perception of rap is the association between the whole genre and what is currently popular from a top 40 perspective, a vast majority of the responses here dismiss it and generalise it as egotistical or lacking in emotion, and this isn't completely false, but it's not totally true either. Artists who do embody that machismo aspect of the genre, impact on the entirety of the genre itself due to its popularity amongst a majority of people. That simple fact of grouping those aspects together impacts on the genre as a whole. It's done a lot with other genres too, like with country and western. There's good rap out there and there's good Country and western, one just needs to look in the right places.
For me its the same with any genre of music, I don't explicity like or dislike any genre and simply like what I like.
When it comes to rap it depends on the artist, song and what they are rapping about. The more, deep, meaningful rap, using tupac and the earlier eminem stuff for example. Where certain songs could contain messages or be preaching about a certain aspect of life unique to them or where they came from (tupac especially in a number of his works talks about the troubles of african americans and minorities in poor backgrounds in the united states... at leats thats how I see it might be thiking too hard), that sort of rap I get into and will often put on in an evening and drift away to
However the more modern stuff, particulariy from psuedo rappers like Jay-Z just irritate me, theres no message there, no value other than saying "look at me, look how rich I am, look at all the stuff I own, look at all the women I f*ck! be jealous of me because you'll never be me!"... just... just no, makes me sad everytime I hear things like it because that seems to be the sort of person people aspire to be *sigh*
I got off topic there, long story short, as with all music depends on the artist and the song
When it comes to rap it depends on the artist, song and what they are rapping about. The more, deep, meaningful rap, using tupac and the earlier eminem stuff for example. Where certain songs could contain messages or be preaching about a certain aspect of life unique to them or where they came from (tupac especially in a number of his works talks about the troubles of african americans and minorities in poor backgrounds in the united states... at leats thats how I see it might be thiking too hard), that sort of rap I get into and will often put on in an evening and drift away to
However the more modern stuff, particulariy from psuedo rappers like Jay-Z just irritate me, theres no message there, no value other than saying "look at me, look how rich I am, look at all the stuff I own, look at all the women I f*ck! be jealous of me because you'll never be me!"... just... just no, makes me sad everytime I hear things like it because that seems to be the sort of person people aspire to be *sigh*
I got off topic there, long story short, as with all music depends on the artist and the song
I've never seen so many generalizations about a music genre ever. This is sad.
OT: Rap is awesome. Eminem, Dre, Biggie, Tupac, NWA, Macklemore, Nas, Outkast, Childish Gambino, Chance the Rapper (check this guy out if you haven't, he's great), A$AP Rocky, Kendrick Lamar, Run DMC, DMX, Geto Boys, Lupe Fiasco, the list goes on and on.
OT: Rap is awesome. Eminem, Dre, Biggie, Tupac, NWA, Macklemore, Nas, Outkast, Childish Gambino, Chance the Rapper (check this guy out if you haven't, he's great), A$AP Rocky, Kendrick Lamar, Run DMC, DMX, Geto Boys, Lupe Fiasco, the list goes on and on.
I hate it. The base almost makes me nauseous and I severely dislike the subject matter 99.999999999% of the time.
What is rap? RAP IS A MAN'S SOUL!!!
OT:
I've always enjoyed late 90's and early 00's rap. Tupac indefinitely followed up by Eminem and Run DMC, basically the classics the ones who really found a passion in it. A lot of it was movingly poetic.
Now rap is just... bland. Its become repetitive lyrical wise (sex, weed, and women gets annoying after several 1,000 songs), auto-tune has become the unfortunate norm completely killing the point of having a good voice to compliment the rap, beats aren't as catchy and feel very flat, and just overall its lost its magic.
Artists need to realize that rap comes from the heart AND IS A MAN'S SOUL!!!... there I go again.
OT:
I've always enjoyed late 90's and early 00's rap. Tupac indefinitely followed up by Eminem and Run DMC, basically the classics the ones who really found a passion in it. A lot of it was movingly poetic.
Now rap is just... bland. Its become repetitive lyrical wise (sex, weed, and women gets annoying after several 1,000 songs), auto-tune has become the unfortunate norm completely killing the point of having a good voice to compliment the rap, beats aren't as catchy and feel very flat, and just overall its lost its magic.
Artists need to realize that rap comes from the heart AND IS A MAN'S SOUL!!!... there I go again.
From what I've heard, I consider it one of the lowest forms of music.
But then, everything I've heard has either been a version of "Yo imma bad ass, ill kill you" or "Look a hot girl, let's fuck."
Furthermore, I've never heard any with decent music behind the words aside from an annoying beat.
HOWEVER, not only have I not listened to very much, I'm FAR more of a sound person than a lyrics person. Lyrics are OK, but I can take or leave them unless they're especially insightful or emotional AND have great music to go along with.
But then, everything I've heard has either been a version of "Yo imma bad ass, ill kill you" or "Look a hot girl, let's fuck."
Furthermore, I've never heard any with decent music behind the words aside from an annoying beat.
HOWEVER, not only have I not listened to very much, I'm FAR more of a sound person than a lyrics person. Lyrics are OK, but I can take or leave them unless they're especially insightful or emotional AND have great music to go along with.
A lot of the "gangsta rap" (and its descendants of sorts like the whole crunk thing) is pretty lyrically intolerable, although the beatwork can be interesting. Granted, a lot of 90s production has not aged well at all. And the modern popular rap, which I'll label as "club rap", is basically pointless drivel (think Flo Rida and Pitbull).
Theres a fair bit of decent stuff if you delve the tiniest bit off the mainstream though, with rap (or more technically, hip hop) being layed over prettymuch any style out there. If you're particularly loooking for more relevancy in lyrical content, you'll probably want to look at "conscious hip hop".
Theres a fair bit of decent stuff if you delve the tiniest bit off the mainstream though, with rap (or more technically, hip hop) being layed over prettymuch any style out there. If you're particularly loooking for more relevancy in lyrical content, you'll probably want to look at "conscious hip hop".
µhazabaza1 said:
This.
I like Gorillaz, and they've got a fair amount of rap in their songs. Recently I also discovered Watsky, a thoughtful and talented rapper. This doesn't mean I only like "white" rap, Kanye West's All of the Lights I found to be compelling as well.
Honestly, I dislike a vast majority of it. That being said I do enjoy some of it by people like Tupac, Notorious BIG, and Eminem.
Cheesepower5 said:
WHEN
WILL
PEOPLE
STOP
THIS
ARGUMENT?
It's just false to assume that the rap on the radio is representative of the rap that rap fans listen to. Just as it is stupid to judge games based on COD, Halo, and Gears its stupid to judge all rap based on Biggie, Wu Tang and people like Lil Wayne. I like biggie I hate Wayne, I don't listen to Wu Tang. Most artists bring something different to the table. They are all different.
OT: Rap is one of the greatest genres to tell a story in, it requires real skill to be good and it is something that makes the human race richer for having it.
Sorry about the vid spam
I also love rap, and I enjoy a lot of rappers, both young and old, and hear their music frequently.
Whether it's their catchy and unique beats, their fun-to-singalong lyrics, or a mixture of both, it is a genre that I love to frequently spend hours listening to.
For me specifically, I enjoy really listening to the beats that these artist produce, as I would often find a note or sound within the background of the beat, that I've heard dozens of times, that helps the beat sound awesome in a very small way.
Whether it's their catchy and unique beats, their fun-to-singalong lyrics, or a mixture of both, it is a genre that I love to frequently spend hours listening to.
For me specifically, I enjoy really listening to the beats that these artist produce, as I would often find a note or sound within the background of the beat, that I've heard dozens of times, that helps the beat sound awesome in a very small way.
That's around the time I started listening to him. But that was before he turned 44 and started dating Skylar Grey.piinyouri said:
OT: Even though I use J-Dog as my avatar, my favorite MC is Funnyman. Partly because of his seductive voice, and partly because he's the only rapper I know of who unironically uses the term 'freaky-deaky'.