Why the bias AGAINST Hip Hop?

I will listen to hip hop and rap when someone puts out a single that has the staying power of Feebird.

Until then I will continue to throw up the horns.

Having lived in the inner city for over 30 years, married to a black man and the mother of 4 kids that love this stuff I have my own opinions. I loved tupac, he was a true poet and his music did have meaning to it. Yet the mess of music today is very different. I agree with most of the posters that have mentioned the bragging, the posturing and the over inflated ego's of the artists. I do like the sound of it, I love all music except for that really old twangy Country so I can appreciate the sound. It is the message that I hate.

While some artists do talk about social issues, the vast majority is about who I "did", how much she liked it, and who I am going to "do" tomorrow. It is so focused on their riches, while many of their fans live in poverty and try to emulate these people and their lifestyles. They glamorize the drug game, violence and the abuse and disrespect of women. I wonder when a rapper is going to do a piece on the results of this lifestyle they are so in love with. PRISON??????

hmm this topic has been already debated several times in this forum in the past. People will always have different views on it mainly because of there lack of understanding or experience in the subject. You can't and i mean you can't watch tv and expect what they represent on tv to represent the whole genre. You need to understand that a lot of artists on screen at the moment are merely part of a product of giant corporations and not just recording labels. Labels only back there production and cd sales most of the time.

The thing about hip hop music and i'm just talking about the music is that it doesn't take much to see it at its element. If you want originality, gather a group of people, get some-one to beat box and another to drop a freestyle. I see this after every gig night with the artists I work with. That is an example of hip hop in its purest raw form. You can't say that it doesn't take skill, you mean skill in an audio engineers point of view? Mate i've worked on tracks where the mixes of a hip hop artist were more complex in its form than some rock bands..

I just hate people when they generalise and just read the cover of a book. Well anyways im off to sleep. I hope some of this made sense.

I'll leave you with a track from an artist that i'm feeling from canada.
Shad - rock to it (live)
au.youtube.com...

Shad - Brother
au.youtube.com...

Shad - Exile (track needs to be listened to a couple of times to feel it)
au.youtube.com...





[edit on 3-1-2009 by nahsik]

[edit on 3-1-2009 by nahsik]

It seems ignorant to me to even care what type of music other people like.

If you don't like what you see or hear then don't look or listen...plain and simple.

It reminds me of someone that hears you say you like spinach and they don't and they make a big deal about it.

Being a musician I have learned to like the best parts of all music. My favorites are classical and rock but I like anything that is done right and not butchered.

We have the spelling police, grammar police and now we have the music police.

Music and lifestyles are personal choices.

And.......do not judge all us older people equally. I actually like rap and I'm an old woman from the deep South. It gets my blood flowing.

If it was up to some people we would all be forced to listen to 50's music. OMG that would be the day the music died for me. I despise 50's music but for those that do........jam on. Just leave me and my music alone

Question:
Do you honestly think Obama would allow his daughters to date someone with their pants dragging on the ground listening to this hip hop crap?

I doubt it, but would you call Obama a racist?



Mod Note: Please stay on Topic – Review This Link.


[edit on Sun Jan 4 2009 by Jbird]

There are going to be some good producers out there making great Hip Hop but the trouble is there are too many who just churn out rubbish

I love guitar based music and realy got on with RUN DMC with there chunky guitar riffs and old analog drum sounds.

The bling bling gun culture doesnt float my boat but sometimes there are some banging tunes to go long with the lyrics.

The trouble with a lot of popular music these days,be it Hip Hop or RNB is that there like fast food.Easy to make and get money rolling in.A lot is looped or sampled and the only icing on the cake is normaly the session singers bought in to polish the turd!The music industry realy has found a cash cow that doesnt need a lot of investment,the faces may change but the musics the same

The real death in music recently has been the X factor and its cynical cash grabbing exploits!I cant understand how trading standards has let this show(advert for the record label in the run up for christmas!)bypass media rules and steal loads of TV air time at the expense of every other record lable out there who have to pay to advertise on TV!

^
ITS NOT A RACE THING ITS ABOUT CLASS

I'VE SEEN THE SOCIAL SPECTRUM AND THATS WHAT IT IS

CHECK THE TRACK
www.youtube.com...

GIDAEON GILGaMESH

There is no prejudice against rap. You don't hate it before you hear it, you hate it the instant you hear it.

Not pre-judgement. Just judgement. The result of having taste.

There is nothing in rap for a music theorist to work with.

I hate rap for the same reason I hate it's rural cousin, country music. You can't think with that bizarre beat going on. This may explain the behavior of rap fans and country bump-kins. Cop cars called to country bars and rap shacks around here every night, never at the rock and roll bars

It's been said before, but I'll say it again, it's all about perspective, your personal preference. There is no conspiracy, I personally love all types of music, from sondheim, to dead prez, to billy joel, to fall out boy to dj hixxy it's all good for me.

If you don't like hip hop...well then that is your prerogative, it just so happens that A LOT of people dislike hip hop. You have to remember that back in the day there just wasn't anything like it, sure you had your jazz and blues stuff but it still didn't compare to what hip hop was or is today.

I'm an artist, an actor, and a dancer, for me it's all about rhythms and beats and the flow of the music, if it feels good it sounds good. When I was younger, what anyone said didn't matter, all that mattered was the MUSIC, now as I get older I'm paying alittle more attention to what musicians are saying in their music, and a lot of them are saying positive things, including rap, take a look at Dead Prez, supernatural, talib kweli, common etc.

Eh like I said it's a personal preference. Sure there are some bad apples, but hey where aren't there bad apples?

Hip Hop is the culture, which is graffitti, rap, dancing, fashion, DJing.
Yeah, most rap sucks now - it's no longer fresh and vibrant like it was, but that doesn't mean you should lump ALL rap EVER in the crap bin! Some people like rap, some don't, some love it. Some people like country, or pop rock, or the new trend alt.rock fashionista complex too hip for my pants stuff. It's subjective, and there is a lot more to attached to them than JUST music.
And how pretentious can you be claiming rap is not proper music and has no merit? If someone is expressing themselves, then it is art, and it is legit. Who are you to say if it has merit or not? Are you the music police? Please!
Every genre has a vast majority which is crass or mediocre, and a few with talent. That's just how the gene pool is. But out of the experimentation, it will mutate and throw out something exceptional.
Music is SUBJECTIVE. There is only bad and good relative to your tastes.

[edit on 3-1-2009 by cruzion]

Detesting rap is neither bias nor prejudice.

I didn't hate it before I heard it. I hated it the instant I heard it. Not pre-judgement, just good judgement.

I hate rap for precisely the same reason I hate cowbilly whining. You can't think with that ridiculous beat going on. Which would explain the behavior of both rappers and cow bumpkins. My guess is you hear more rap and country than Prokofiev in prison.

reply to post by FritosBBQTwist


Ah but what many replies failed to notice was your hometown, Cincinnati. Now you can refer to it to Cincy or Nati and each takes on two very different connotations. Cincy is Carmen Electra, Peter Frampton, Indian Hill and the Reds. Nati is Over the Rhine, Kabaka Oba, Timothy Thomas & Steven Roach, and the Bengals. We could go on, but I think you see the difference and may even agree. Odd that Bootsy Collins is one of the few bridges between the two.

Yeah, I used to fit in somewhere in the mix too since I have known and interacted with some of Cincinnati's known and some notorious, although I live in Oxford now and will be moving towards Dayton (probably Kettering) in July. As for Hip-Hop, I like the old school east coast rap better and Gansta is right out for my tastes. A couple of years ago I befriended a guy that was right there in NYC where it all began and was friends with a guy everyone in the neighborhood called Weird Doug among other things. I think he summed it up best, "Some of the most argent supporters of Mia Angelou and spoken verse hold the deepest disdain for Rap and cannot explain why." He was speaking of whites, to put it in to context.

I have absolutely nothing against the Hip-hop I listen too. What I have a huge problem with are the self-obsessed idiots who live next door and pump it out at all hours.

They have no concept of how far the bass carries; either that or it is done because they want the entire street to hear how wonderful it is.

The music is great; the culture and its followers, in part, are the problem. This however is no different to any other culture designed to divide and conquer.

i think the main thing is that with any music, there is the mainstream and underground. the mainstream is all about what sells musically and lyrically. rock fans cant deny the fact that with mainstream new rock you see typical 4 chord progressions, emo lyrics, manufactured image.. aiming for the lowest commmon denominators, marketed towards the young adult dollar. easy, boring, rehashed playing-it-safe pandering trash pervades the media.
everything that disgusts anyone with a brain, good taste and artisitc standards.
with rap, you get s i m p l e beats that take literally minutes to produce, easy to move to and are unchallenging.. throw in a video of some hoes, some fly whips, and some lyrics about the same.. nothing more to say other than Spend Money. but it operates on the base desires and insecurities of the young and easily influenced. its so obvious that it makes me laugh when i see people take it so seriously.

BUt the underground.. this is where the true music lies, and always will. the best thinkers throughout history were subversive and didnt play to the game rules set out. the same goes with musicians... you get actual musicianship, challenging lyrics and ideas, and of course in a lot of times they still manage to make the music fun. It goes for hip hop just the same as with rock, or even electronic music. its just that people who already arent into the other genre of music, and uninclined to dig for the Real stuff, only get to see the bullsit that the mainstream pumps out.

so it makes sense there are a lot of people who see hip hop (which i see as different from rap but others migh not) as bein ony simple boring beats, spouting off contrived rhymes about shallow materialism, cuz thats all they see.
i listen to mostly rock, particulary heavy metal, punk, classic rock and blues, but i still have my old public enemy albums. if anyone has any good, creative, musical hip hop that theyd wish to share please pass it along!

Reasons I don't like rap. ( I am a metal head, plenty of songs about violence and drugs ect..)

-I don't like the sound of rap.

-Rap has little to no guitar.

-Rap has retarded beats.

-I can't understand the culture, as it has no application to my life.

-I have no problem with black people, but they seem to be afraid of me for some reason.

The bias against rap is well-deserved. Media and record industries have made people think rap and hip-hop are the same, and rap artists deserve there acclaim. Wrong. Practically every rap song on the radio is not hip-hop, but club rap, something to dance to, that's it.

I'm a hip-hop fan, and actually an aspiring beatboxer and emcee. Playing jazz (trumpet) actually led me to appreciate the genre. Vocal improvisational freestyles directly parallel instrumental improv, though much less music theory's involved. Though many people on this board think differently, writing a good hip-hop verse is not simple. Great songs contain many of the English components(metaphors, alliteration, allusion, etc) of good poetry or fiction. When it comes to groups, Blue Scholars, Gravediggaz, Swollen Members, and Black Star rock.

Sometimes I like demanding music(jazz, classical, some electronic), but a lot of the time I just want fun music. That's why I listen to MC Chris quite a bit.

• MC Chris - Kill It (Dj2Quick Remix).mp3

I read everyones posts and I would love to reply to every single one, that would take ages.

I do not really see why this should be on BTS when this is the Education and Media forum, and the point of this thread is to see if anyone else agrees with me on the fact that the MEDIA has any affect on society on the generalization of hip hop.

Those of you who say the despise of hip hop is not racist at all...I hear CONSTANTLY from older folks some very racist remarks.

Rap song comes on. Oh - It could be a CD or whatever. Let it be this song.
Immortal Technique - Leaving the Past

Song speaks truth. It is not the everyday crap you hear. It is not main stream. It is not some brand new beat. What do I hear the second it comes on from any type of older person in the area that I could be familiar with? Nigger music.

Plenty of GOOD music came out during the 70's. Add woodstock in to that mix, where MANY of the current rock classics performed for many people. Filled with pot smoking hippies? I love that music much too, but I am proving a point.

I think I came to a conclusion that the bias towards such a genre is just society in general. There is certainly a double standard here. White guys smoking pot and doing drugs singing - Music gods.
Black guys doing it - The same old gang banger.

I'm sorry to think such and this does not apply to everyone. I see it everyday, and even here. For those of you who despise rap, I would at least listen to a few good songs (Not any of the new stuff for the most part).

On top of all this who says it is destroying our youth...that is absurd. Almost always, it is the parents fault. If a parent can not raise a kid to a decent level or morale and respect for others, that is their fault - not the children (for the most part) or the rappers.

On top of the song I listed before, here are others you might wish to try.
Bone thugs N Harmony - Crossroads
Tupac - Changes
Nas - I know I can

Just as any music has its flaws, each has its pros. Base it off the best, not the worse.

reply to post by Ahabstar


You quoted the following: I think he (Weird Doug) summed it up best, "Some of the most argent supporters of Mia Angelou and spoken verse hold the deepest disdain for Rap and cannot explain why." He was speaking of whites, to put it in to context.

Weird Doug might have not noticed the difference between poetry and doggerel. He might think that really bad rhyme calling for murder and rape is acceptable. He might not realize that the rappers are becoming parodies of themselves while influencing youth that need better models than immature, no-talent losers. The fact that they kill themselves off is no consolation as they are not good at that either.

If you call rap entertainment, then that is your choice. Some people are entertained by lesser talents although I can't name any off-hand. What it isn't is music with melody, harmony, etc. It isn't even bad music.

great thread.

music as a whole is used to express ones feelings about themselves and thier surroundings. from mozart to iggy pop to merle haggard to SPM or EMINEM.

Understand this however... older music did talk about using drugs, although it has gone from hidden metaphors like the beatles song "lucy in the sky with diamonds ('___') to motley crue and "Dr. Feelgood" to nowadays out right saying i use and sell drugs as is most commonly seen in the hip hop genre. The problem is the frankness and outrightness of todays lyics. just like Elvis was shunned for dancing like he did. not because people werent having sex... but because they were not talking about it. and ands in the 60's were upsetting older generations with drugs and revolution. not because it was a new thing, but because of the openess about it. Adults do not want to expose thier children more to those types of things at a younger age than they were because children do not have the advantage of seeing long term effects of these things that are being sold as popular things to do in modern lyrics. Most 15 year olds hear lyrics about selling coc aine and smoking blunts and drinking fourty's and getting Z*explicitive... not sure about how the filters work here*Z and think oh my! this guy is awesome! he is doin all these things i cant do and he is getting rich doing it! and they dont see the other side of the fense, like prison, gang violence leaving bloody brains splattered across a parking lot and disease infested sexual organs that look more like cauliflower than a natural human part. parents have seen these things through shear life experience and by all rights do not want thier children to see the horrible parts of reality and would rather their children grow up in a beautiful worry free world.

that is why extreme exposure to todays problems in song lyrics that are listened to by impressionable youth cause an uproar amongst life savvy parents.

I think once more some of you are missing some key points. Some of you claim this genre is about killing, raping, drugs.

That is the same as me saying, lets say rock, is full of red necks that incest.

That is me saying tech no is full of geeks.

Country is full of old people.

Sorry but no one ever claimed that hip hop has never done bad. Of course there are the "abused".

Just like classifying patients that smoke marijuana for medical purposes are no life druggies.

To note...rap/hip hop/whatever you wish to call it has not been around nearly as long (main stream) as songs like Freebird (Great song).

The generalization of an entire group of people and those that listen to it disgusts me.

The way some of you generalize is like me saying all rock is like Greenday (Sorry Greenday lovers).

Once again - those of you who despise such art should listen to a song called I know I can - Nas

I personally do not approve of songs that only talk about sex, drugs, in such a literal since it is degrading. For those that do - I do not care. I just wish you have the sense to know that is is music and not a life lesson.

I can not believe how close minded some of you can be