What do you think of rap?

[Amakusa]

Generally i don't like Rap. However i do like certain old groups from that Genre. Mainly Public Enemy, NWA and Run Dmc. Public Enemy especially because of their lyrics, they don't sing crappy music.

 

[chinangel]

is it epic rap battles of history? No? Then it's just noise too me.

 

[JazzJack2]

As someone realitvely ignorant of the genre I feel obliged to ask: If most wrap music is good, then why do the radio stations almost exclusively play the shallow bitches and hoes and shooting up shit songs?

The same can be said about any genre,

If most rock music is good, then why do the radio stations almost exclusively play the shallow love and heartbreak shit songs?

If most electronic music is good, then why do the radio stations almost exclusively play the shallow 'wub-wub' and 'sickdrop' shit songs?

etc

 

[Gmans uncle]

I used to absolutely despise it, especially in high school, I just couldn't stand it 'cause I thought it was all the same.

Then I started listening to Gorillaz, not a rap group by any stretch of the imagination, but a group that uses rap as a component of their music allot...

Spoiler: Suddenly rap was awesome

That first exposure lead to a much more open mind when it comes to rap and the use in music thereof, in addition to introducing me to quite a few artists themselves through their various collaborations.
That being said, my attitude towards rap today is similar to that of country: there's allot of terrible stuff out there, but the genera itself is ripe with possibilities and talent if you're willing to take the time and look.

 

[JazzJack2]

The general lack of melody and tonality means that it is not only mundane and overly-repetitive, but it also means millions of artists have a very similar sound too (much like scremo metal).

A)Melody and tonality are overrated

B)In what way does rap lack tonality or melody? unless you're listening to noise rap or hip-hop that is very stripped back (I.E just drum beats and rapping) you will most likely find rap does have tonality and melody.

 

[JazzJack2]

90% of the time rap is just rap - talking or shouting - and vocally there's often very little melody underneath the vocal.

That's because rap isn't supposed to be melodic, it's about rhythm, the melody usually comes from a backing instrument.

Tonality is very similar, vocally a lot of rappers sound exactly the same. Play me Mick Jagger, Axl Rose, Ozzy Osbourne, Liam Gallagher, Kurt Cobain, Robert Plant, Micheal Jackson, James Brown, Freddy Mercury, Johnny Rotten, Meat Loaf, even pop dross like Robbie Williams and from the tone their voices have because they are singing I can instantly recognize who it is. With the majority of rap artists it's far harder to define.

Not sure what that has to with tonality though, but anyway if you where to listen to rap on a regular basis you would see that Rappers sound very different from each other and in my opinion they are far more vocally diverse than rock singers.

 

[JazzJack2]

Aye that may be so, but that's why I don't like it - for me to enjoy something a lead melody is key, otherwise it feels like an action move without a plot. Some people enjoy that type of stuff, but I can't stick it.

Well that's a depressingly narrow view of music.

They sound far, far more similar to each other than melodic singers and scientifically that's a fact as singers are use more muscles in their body to contort their sound. It's like having a graphics pallet of 16 colours for rappers, 1000 colours for singers.

Just look at the exercises the likes of Luciano Pavarotti does compared to P Diddy, there's no wonder Pavarotti's sound is so unique because it's a sound developed over 10-15 years of training and performing. Rappers will never reach that level of uniqueness.

But that's not how variation in people's voices develop, it comes from regional accents, how they inflect their words and how their vocal chords develop. It's stupid to suggest singers somehow have a monopoly on unique vocal qualities, I mean are you going to tell me someone like Churchill has a samey sounding voice because he did not sing? that would be absurd.

 

[JazzJack2]

True, and I'm not saying that they can't be recognizable. But the point I am making is that they sound far similar to each other on the whole than most singers. Nearly every single singer has a unique sound, whereas loads of rappers just sound the same.

You admit you don't like rap so how can you have listened to enough to judge they sound samey? And perhaps most second rate rappers DO sound samey but the same can be said about most second rate singers. There are plenty of generic carbon copy singers out there and while you could argue that most truly great singers will all have their own unique style the same can be said about most great rappers, please tell me how MC Ride, TuPac and Eminem all sound the same because I'd love to hear it.

The thing is you can't be an average singer (without being modded in the mix) and have your voice appear on the radio, whereas with rap you can (and often do) because it's about lyrics and not melody.

I hear generic average singers on the radio everyday, and I don't see your point anyway, are you saying most rappers get away with worse singing than most singers could do? well no shit Sherlock they're not singers they're rappers.

 

[piinyouri]

I can see that you don't see my point, let me try explaining it another way. The "art" of rapping does not require a person to train their body to the extent that it does for a singer to sing well.

If you've heard this, then ignore this post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpP-8tJ-9Js

That's some pretty impressive breath control yeah? He's not necessarily utilizing it the same way a traditional singer might, but isn't it difficult to argue that it's not there?

I'm getting loopy, prolly need to head to bed. T_T

 

[JazzJack2]

Not once have I ever heard MC Ride, TuPac and Eminem and they have rapped something in a way which would make them stand out if they rapped it in a foreign language. However I've heard many singers sing something in a way which would make them stand out if they had.

In what way do they not stand out? it would be near impossible to mistake any of those artists for anyone else or to mistake anyone else for them.

I can see that you don't see my point, let me try explaining it another way. The "art" of rapping does not require a person to train their body to the extent that it does for a singer to sing well. That's not saying there aren't poor singers out there, that's saying that there's no rappers with a mind-blowing tone due to the very nature of rap, whereas there are singers which have.

Again people do not typically need to train themselves to have a unique tone to their voice and it is something they develop from a very young age. Singing has nothing to with the tone of your voice (again I refer to people that have famous voices that never sung in their life, eg Churchill) and there plenty of rappers out there with amazing and interesting qualities to there voice and the way they deliver it.

Hence why I originally said rapping tonality puts me off the music.

Erm you seem to be confused as to what tonality means, tonality in music does not refer to the tone in the sense of how something is delivered (the linguistic sense) but in sense of pitch relationships.

 

[OmniscientOstrich]

Does Gil Scott-Heron count?


No? Then no, I can't say I'm all that fond of it, or at least the vast majority of stuff that I've been introduced to and it's got nothing to do with the lyrics. Somebody brought Deltron 3030 to my attention relatively recently and I dig the songs I've heard from that, but by and large when it comes to hippety-hop I don't like how the best hook in the song is usually sampled from a better song I could be listening to instead, how unbelievably homogenized the drum beats are and how thinly spread the albums are (seriously, why do so many hip-hop albums need a minimum of like 16 tracks?). So no, I'm not really a hip-hop fan, but at the same time I don't have the fucking arrogance to assert that the genre in it's entirety is unworthy of being called music in the first place and I'm certainly open to suggestions that might give me cause for re-evaluation.

Captcha = white as snow

Captcha, why you gotta put a cracka down, man?

 

[JazzJack2]

An artists "tone" is what I'm referring too - in general rappers tones, to me, sound shite. Bland, lacklustre, generic and not in any way at all attention grabbing.

Listen to Axl Rose, Pavarotti, Freddy Mecury, Bruce Dickinson etc. and I've never heard a rapper ever do anything vocally which has wowed me as much as they have.

Do you honestly think a rapper could go on-stage with any of those and even compete vocally? Seriously?

In terms of the tone of their voice and the way the deliver it then yes definitely, in fact I know many rappers that better than all of them bar Pavarotti in terms of tone,(EDIT:But then again taste in tone and timbre is very subjective) in terms of their vocal quality in general they are incomparable because Singing is melodic and rapping is rhythmic.

 

[ThatHybridGuy]

I'm quite a big fan of rap (mostly stuff like Lupe Fiasco, Hopsin, Tech N9ne, Kendrick Lamar, Masta Artisan, probably a bunch of others)
I'm also big on nerdcore stuff (mostly Dr. Awkward and MC Frontalot).
But I do have quite a wide musical taste, though. So I'm into a lot more stuff than that.

 

[JazzJack2]

In terms of the tone of their voice and the way the deliver it then yes definitely, in fact I know many rappers that better than all of them bar Pavarotti in terms of tone, in terms of their vocal quality in general they are incomparable because Singing is melodic and rapping is rhythmic.

So, even though Bruce Dickinson's vox have a range of 4 octaves, you think that a rapper can deliver vocals better than someone who has trained his vocals and breathing to such a 1-in-a-million standard?

I didn't say a rapper could deliver better vocals (in fact I said they where incomparable) I said I know rappers with more interesting tones to their voice.

...but rap is just singing without melody.

HAHAHHAHAHA that has to be the most hilarious thing I have heard all day, your comparison between rap and singing is as silly as saying something like 'drums are just piano without melody'.

 

[JazzJack2]

Oh dear.

Erm, don't you understand how drums are/can be "piano without melody"?

Erm no? Drums and Piano are two entirely different things with different roles (although a grand piano can be turned into a percussive instrument if you mess around with the strings a bit but that's not really relevant) Your claim that singing is just inherently more complex than rapping is as stupid as saying playing piano will always be more complex than drums. (or any other example of x instrument is better than y.)

In fact do you know what musical phrasing actually is?

Yeah it's how you express a piece of music (E.g articulation and dynamics) but that has no relevance to what we're talking about

 

[Smeatza]

What do I think of rap?
What do you think of singing?

Now hip-hop, that I do like, old school and underground almost exclusively.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

I am more a fan of the lyrical than musical so if I like it I like it.

 

[DugMachine]

I don't really know artists by names but I discovered the Nujabes pandora station and it really opened up this new world of rap or hip hop to me.

I do enjoy some mainstream rap though. I like Eminem's work and Macklemore is actually quite pleasant to listen to aside from Thrift Shop.

 

[Marc Wyzomirski]

If more rap was optimistic and there were more mixed style songs then perhaps I would like it a lot more.

I actually enjoyed Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann's rap songs quite a bit.

 

[JazzJack2]

Oh dear.

Erm, don't you understand how drums are/can be "piano without melody"?

Erm no? Drums and Piano are two entirely different things with different roles (although a grand piano can be turned into a percussive instrument if you mess around with the strings a bit but that's not really relevant) Your claim that singing is just inherently more complex than rapping is as stupid as saying playing piano will always be more complex than drums. (or any other example of x instrument is better than y.)

In fact do you know what musical phrasing actually is?

Yeah it's how you express a piece of music (E.g articulation and dynamics) but that has no relevance to what we're talking about

Dude, I'm talking music basics here. I don't really know how to continue the debate if you can't grasp them??

I'll try again:

The line:
"the cat, sat on, the mat"

The phrasing:
"Ba bum, ba bum, ba bum"

Rapped:
"Ba bum, ba bum, ba bum"

Sang:
"Ba bum, ba bum, ba bum"
+
C C, G G, C C

You can play the exact same thing on a set of drums as you can a piano at a base-note level (so not a conglomeration of notes which would form a chord etc.)

It has every relevance to what we're talking about as rappers only express vocally via phrasing, singers express via both - hence why I find rap bland.

This is the most bafflingly moronic post I've ever seen, rap is not just the same phrase delivered without singing it's completely different in terms of rhythm and your comment that the drum phrase is the same as the piano phrase is also ludicrous, it may play the same rhythm but it is not the same phrase.
I'd reiterate that you're claim that rap is more simplistic than singing because it has no melody is as stupid as saying the drums are more simple than the piano because it can't play melody or the saxophone is more simple than the guitar because it can't play chords, any serious musician would bash you on the head for saying this. I'd suggest it's you who should get a basic grasp of music before you continue commenting.