Rap/Gansta: Perferences?

[diaglo]

I like Eminem.

i prefer Peanuts.

 

[Desdichado]

I can actually take someone like Ton Loc seriously because he's so clearly disposable, and he almost mocks the conventions of the genre. Kinda the same reason my favorite country song is "I Ain't First Class, But I Ain't White Trash."

There's no denying that there are some talented artists in the rap scene; even in the gangsta scene. Eminem is talented. It's still not really my taste, though.

 

[The Other Librarian]

Much as modern rap/hip-hop artists may want to distance themselves from it, rap shares a lot in common with the blues that their grandparents (or great GP's) may have listened to.

All the "thug lifestyle" elements were already there in the 20's and 30's. Objectifying women, bragging about your own virility or skills, celebrating getting high and life by the gun etc. The music was similar too, with an emphasis on rhythmic variation oner melodic. And like todays artists, some of the blues guys lived that lifestyle (Skip James, for example, was a pretty hardcore guy), and some just adopted a persona for good PR.

I guess the big difference is the depth of media penetration. In the early days of Blues, it was confined to "race records" and marketed only to blacks. It wasn't until the 50's (and really the 60's as a mass phenom) that white audiences payed any attention. Today's marketing blitzes mean that every other suburban white kid thinks he's Tupac.

I think that whie both genres are pretty stale, Rap/hip hop still has some life in it. I doubt anything really "new" or innovative will come along in the blues genre. Not to say that talented musicians won't come along, but the genre conventions are pretty set and staid. Rap still has a pulse, is still evolving new styles. The next revolutionary act could be around the next corner. Just gotta be able to hear them above the din of mass marketed crap.

 

[talinthas]

I find that rap music, despite its lyrical content, is the spiritual successor to poetry. Lately i've been listening to a lot of hip hop music, not for content, but for structure, rhyme scheme, rhythmic value, and i'm floored by the sheer technical artistry involved. Jay Z, for instance, is brilliant at composing lyrics which follow highly advanced poetric structure. Certainly, i regret that of the two branches of hip hop that arose in the early 90s, Gangsta rap gained ground over the more intelligent hip hop of folks like De La Soul, Tribe Called Quest, and the rest. But now with rap's overwhelming popularity, we're starting to see a minor resurgance in the other side of hip hop, with groups like the Roots, the Gorillaz, Handsome Boy Modeling School, Black Eye Peas, the Kwanum crew, etc gaining airplay. Eventually, as the audience grows more mature, people will get tired of singing about Hos and crack and such and move on. Heck, you can see this evolution within the corpus of Jay Z alone. His first albums were raw and spoke of street stuff, while his later albums are more art than gutter trash.

Yeah, i like Hip Hop =) But i'm also a metalhead and techno fan at heart =)

And dude, Metallica for life =)

 

[Brain]

I really like The Shield, it is one of my favorite TV shows. As far as rap goes, I like some of it and don't like some of it. I like a higher percentage of rap than country music or pop music for sure though.

 

[Darkness]

I also have to give a special mention to the Geto Boys album The Ressurection, which is completely over the top violent, but hilariously so at the same time.

Reminds me. I have that one (and a few others by them), actually.

I love "I just wanna die."

 

[Qlippoth]

It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back changed my whole frickin' world.

Pauls' Boutique put me flat on my back for a week while I tried to figure out how something so incredibly cool hadn't existed since the dawn of time.

Three Feet High and Rising is still an album that doodles about in my head.

And that's just three acts: Public Enemy, The Beastie Boys and De La Soul.

I don't listen to much of the current stuff -- to me, rap stopped innovating around the early 90's. But there's lots of BRILLIANT music in the genre. Seconded on LL Cool J, and then there's Digital Underground, Salt n Pepa, Eric B and Rakim, Run DMC, The Jungle Brothers, Digable Planets -- great rap is great music.

I'm kind of surprised it's a discussion. Rappers aren't artists? Say what? I don't deny there's LOTS of crappy stuff in the genre, but Sturgeon explained that long ago.

I don't care for the gangster stuff much -- it just doesn't seem like a very interesting subject to talk about. But then it's been a long time since I was seventeen.

You and I have very similar tastes. The closest I can get to "gangsta" is Ice Cube circa 1991.
I'd probably listen to current rap more if the prevailing style hadn't changed much (paints me as the old-timer I am, I guess); <old man voice> "I 'member back when rap had a BEAT"</omv>

 

[barsoomcore]

Power from Ice-T was a great album, too. And he's the Original Gangster.

 

[Wombat]

I like some rap, mainly Public Enemy.

But then again, that was very different stuff, growing in opposition to overproduced songs about love and silliness, when instead the vision was: LISTEN! Strip away all the extraneous music, all the excess stuff that gets between the message and the audience. In your face, here's what's happening, even if you don't want to admit it.

This was message music, as revolutionary as any late 60s music, all about forcing people to confront reality.

Most of the later gangsta stuff, even if more hummable, is that it feels more forced, less message-oriented, more like it's trying to sell you something instead of confront an issue. The same thing happened with reggae -- look at the world of difference between Toots & the Maytals and UB40, the former having real power and drive, the latter merely recycling Neil Diamond tunes with a slightly different beat.

Rap is now mainstream. Even the "dangerous" stuff is pretty tame, if sad. Too much marketing, too much "suburban appeal" (same folks who would have listened to popular punk or popular metal now listen to popular rap). Sad, really, to see who much it is watered down, but that always happens to music.

I wonder what the next "dangerous music" will be?

 

[The Other Librarian]

I wonder what the next "dangerous music" will be?