Hip Hop is...

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

[Madrone]

1. I voted other because I'd pick more than one option -

1. A forum for social commentary and dissent

2. An ingenious blend of beats, rhymes and life

3. Not my FAVORITE genre above all others, but one of my favorites.

and, because there is some truly crappy hiphop out there -

4. A bling bling wasteland

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

2. Well said!

:toast:

I presonally find it to be an incredible medium for clever wordsmithing which can be surreal and inventive poetically, insightful and angry, protest and then also blatantly mysogenistic, violence glorifying and materialistic. But that's true of any art form.

[Madrone]

10. Thanks :)

Truthfully, I even like some "bling bling wasteland" stuff - if it lays down some awesome beats. And the mysogeny and violence doesn't really bother me - because it's people rapping about what they know. I'd prefer it wasn't glorified, but whatever.

I have a funny but long story about some rappers - the short of it is, I went OFF on this huge black dude by the name of Big Tom - he was part of the Lynch Mob, which before the rap group by the same name came out, was Ice Cube's group of bodyguard boys. I was all of 19 at the time (31 now) and we were arguing back and forth. He was cracking on me for being white, and I was handing it right back to him. We went around and around - and I think he ended up being so shocked that this little white chick wasn't backing down that his switch flipped and he found the whole thing amusing. I think he also ended up with a measure of respect for me, because the whole conversation did a 180.

Seated near Big Tom, and listening to the entire exchange was an even HUGER black dude by the name of Bear. I didn't notice him at the time, but ended up meeting him later. He said something to me and I kinda went off on him too for a second (I was getting a lot of grief for being white in the environment I was in that night - called the blue-eyed devil, etc) - He calmed me down, and we ended up talking. Bear was AWESOME. Anyway, he lived in Detroit and I lived in Kalamazoo, and we, oddly enough, ended up long distance dating for awhile.

The point I'm trying to get to is that Bear was friendly with Ice Cube, and at the time I was a HUGE Cube fan. After my experience with his "boyz" I ended up real pissed off and my attitude changed to FUCK Cube! I'm not spending another dime on his bullshit! The story about me fighting with Big Tom, and the fact that I was PISSED OFF at Ice Cube (though indirectly) got back to Ice Cube himself. After that, Bear would talk to Ice Cube from time to time - and every time, Ice Cube would ask: "You still talk to that white girl?" Bear: "Yes." Cube: "She still hate me?" Bear: "Yep."

LOL - True story, I swear.

I've definitely had a pretty interesting life. :D

[bicentennial_baby]

3. Agreed on all points

:toast:

[muchacho]

4. it depends

most of what you hear and see on the videos is the crap (as with all music) but there is some great work. I love the Roots and K-Os.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

5. The Roots -Illadelphia's finest!

Good call!

:toast:

[Deja Q]

6. Depends

Give it a solid social message and I'm there. Public Enemy instantly comes to mind.

Give it no message where the artist hypes up his own name and how great he is incessantly and might just toss it out the window, unless the beat and remaining lyrics is really good. (MC Hammer comes to mind) This issue isn't confined to the hip hop genre either...

Give it some really off-the-wall lyrics and I'll laugh with it (ala Sir Mix-a-Lot).

Give it a message of inciting to kill cops and innocents for no reason and it can burn.

[Madrone]

12. The first MCHammer cd was really good, from what I remember.

Completely unlike the sellout shit that came later. Like night and day.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

18. MC Hammer is not Hip Hop - he was pop. Period

BDP, EPMD, Public Enemy, NWA, RUN-DMC, Tribe Called Quest, ICE-T, Grandmaster flash, WU Tang.....

That's Hip Hop

[Madrone]

22. But did you ever hear his first cd?

When he was just "Hammer"? It was Let's Get It Started, released sometime in the mid 90's.

Completely different from the stuff that came after.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

23. Actually I have not - I will check it out before I make further comment

I'm not to proud to admit when I don't know what I'm talking about. But if it is as lame as his "can't touch this" crud I'll sound of on the subject!!!

:)

[Madrone]

24. Link -

Here's a link to Amazon - you can listen to a little of a few of the songs - just to give you a taste.

During this timeframe, I was listening to this Hammer cd, Kool Moe Dee, IceT, etc.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000007PSQ/102-1912020-0699333?v=glance

[drumwolf]

7. You should have an option called "more than one of the above"

IMO, hip-hop is a genre that has INCREDIBLE potential, but that potential has gone largely unfulfilled. I find hip-hop to be a very spotty genre as far as creating individual artists or songs that I care for.

I was a huge fan of late-'80s/early-'90s stuff like Public Enemy, NWA and De La Soul, and I also like some early-'90s West Coast stuff (2Pac and Souls of Mischief, for instance, and the soundtrack to the '93 film "Menace II Society" has quite a few songs that I like a lot), and I've also liked the more "experimental" rap bands like Jurassic 5, New Kingdom, and El-P/Company Flow. And I have a fascination with European hip-hop acts like London's So Solid (OK, musically it's 2-step garage, but it's basically rap too) or Paris's Supreme NTM.

However, IMO overall more of it than not is low-class garbage. And it's too bad, because it didn't have to be that way.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

8. Co Flow!!! Thanks for bringing the underground to the discussion

There is a pantheon of underground hip hop artists who could give 2shits about the fame and glory and stick to the music.

To name a small few:

EL-P
Cannibal Ox
Aesop Rock
Pharaoh Monch
C-Ray Walz
Illogic
Blueprint
Atmosphere
Mr Lif

and others less underground that are positive:

The Roots
De La Soul
Common
And more

[NightTrain]

19. Well said!

Unfortauntely, like any form of underground culture that goes mainstream, hip-hop has become too bloated and watered-down for its own good. There's still some good stuff coming out, but you have to wade through a lot of mediocrity and outright garbage to find it. What a shame.... :(

[dolo amber]

36. Wow!!

How'd I write THAT not even being home all day?! :o

:D

Very well said, drumwolf!! :hi:

[NightTrain]

9. Other

A chance for some white liberals to wear their ignorance, parochial tastes, and latent racism on their sleeves with little fear of repercussion.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

11. Wow - please explain

That's some strong stuff to say, what do you mean?

[NightTrain]

13. Haven't you seen some of the sneering comments about hip-hop...

...that the know-nothings have posted to the Lounge?

The overly-educated, intellectual, white-bread elite in this country has the same bullshit attitude toward hip-hop that they had toward disco and funk in the '70s, soul music in the '60s, rock 'n' roll in the '50s, R&B in the '40s, and the blues in earlier decades:

"It's vulgar."
"It's not music."
"It's garbage."
"It appeals to the listener's primitive instincts."

Why do you think we had the folk-music revival of late late 1950s and early 1960s? It was a white-bread backlash against "the Negro jungle rhythm" that the Great Unwashed had embraced as their own.

I'm not talking about all educated liberals, mind you, but far too many of the ones I've encountered have simply dismissed hip-hop with a sneer. And I think they're full of shit for it.

[Madrone]

14. Ahh, the "Can't spell CRAP without RAP" crowd -

I follow ya.

[NightTrain]

15. Right! And to those people I say...

..."You can't spell CROCK without ROCK!"

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

16. Yeah, just look at the poll results - bereft of uniquesness is tops

As a person who dabbles in hip hop music production and sampling I know how rewarding and musically beautiful the artform is.

I see what your saying and I agree.

[trogdor]

45. Too much hip-hop really is crap.

Didn't Andy Warhol say something like, "95% of everything is crap?"

Take Disco for example. In 1977, Saturday Night Fever came out. It would have been the #1 blockbuster of the year, if it weren't for Star Wars. The soundtrack album went God-knows-how-many-times platinum because it was WAY better than the movie itself.

What happened next? Everybody and their brother flooded the market with disco records, 99% of which sucked ass. It started to filter into mainstream rock music, and not in a good way. When KISS started doing it, you know things had gotten out of hand. By 1979, we were sick of it, to the point where we would do idiotic things like blow up stacks of disco LP's at a Chicago White Sox game.

So, how much disco was actually included into what is now called Classic Rock? The Saturday Night Fever album. That's about it. I would expect a similar quantity of hip-hop to be remembered fondly a quarter-century from now.

[ProudGerman]

27. People voice their opinion on what they know

But then again, you're a card carrying Klansman if you dislike Rap. WTF ever.

To repeat the title of my post, people's opinions are made on what they know. And if they don't like a particular genre of music, its ridiculous to expect them to spend hours, and their money, trying to find the diamonds in the rough.

If someone doesn't like hearing a bit of someone else's work looped endlessly on top of a Parliament Fuckadelic bass line while some obnoxious prick spends the next 4 minutes bragging about how much money he has, then I won't expect them to drop A Tribe Called Quest's 'Low End Theory' in their CD player and have their mind blown. If they find Eminem's antics juvenile and shocking for shocks sake, then I'm not gonna get upset if they won't give a listen to 'They want EFX' by Das EFX and hear some truly bizarre use of nursery rhyme tid bits.

[NightTrain]

29. But if they know nothing, I can't take their opinions seriously.

People who claim that all hip-hop and rap is garbage when all they've heard is the handful of it that gets played to death on commercial radio are both ignorant and unfair. If people don't want to find diamonds in the rough, as you put it, that's their business. But at the same time, they can shut the fuck up, because they don't know what they're talking about.

Your claim that I think "anyone who doesn't like rap is a card-carrying Klansman" is bullshit, too. All I was saying is that today's rap know-nothings use the same rhetoric that previous generations had used to knock certain genres, all of it created either by African-Americans or by poor southern whites.

Look at it this way: I don't claim that all folk music is garbage simply because I detest the bland melodies of Peter, Paul & Mary and the Chad Mitchell Trio. Why can't I expect the same courtesy in return?

[ProudGerman]

34. Its not bullshit

Originally posted by NightTrain:
and latent racism on their sleeves with little fear of repercussion.

Now, you can nitpick what I said all you want. But you DID say that those who dislike rap are racists. I'm sorry, but that is bullshit. Someone can dislike something all they want for whatever reason they want to. Yeah, you can not take their opinion seriously even laugh at it, but you most certainly cannot call them racist, elitist, whatever name want to use simply because they have a different opinion than you.

Also, you can be very diplomatic about forms of music that you don't like. I won't, I think country music is garbage. But that's my opinion and it only carries the weight of whoever hears it decides to give it. I hate the twanging of the voice, and if you put a slide to a guitar near me, I'm liable to drive a screwdriver into my ears.

But no, someone isn't allowed to voice their opinion on rap music, because before long, someone throws the racist card out there. Is liking it or tolerating it the only acceptable stances?

[gyopsy]

17. For the most part, it lacks in artisitic value

Is there some social commentary in there? Yeah I guess but killing hoes and spanking bitches is getting tired at this point.

People tell me Eminem's music works "on so many levels." I've listened to it and it is better than most hip-hop music artistically but I don't see how he's as great as people say.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

20. How much hip hop have you actually listened to?

If you really explored the genre you'd know it is a minority of fucking commercial artists who write that shit.

See above for a small list of examples

[Madrone]

21. You're lumping all hip-hop into the same category.

That's like saying all jazz sucks and pointing to KennyG and "smooth jazz" as the defining examples while ignoring guys like Miles Davis, Coltrane, and Mose Allison.

There's a LOT of rap with incredible social commentary. Just not the stuff you see on MTV.

And it really takes more artistic talent than you may imagine to arrange music, write lyrics, and deliver them well.

[NightTrain]

32. We're in full agreement here!

:thumbsup:

[Earth_First]

25. Jurassic 5, Dialated Peoples, People Under the Stairs...

this is "true" hip-hop, it clearly defines struggle, addresses the social corruption, and political environment both domestically and abroad. 'Artists' such as Jay-Z, Eminem are nothing more than entertainers with a bottom line: records = profits. The "MTV Generations" of 'hip-hop' is all about the flash, the "bling" while speaking so much, they also say so little at the same time. If it's the genre of music you do not enjoy, I can specifically understand, however a predetermined bias on "industry" artists to the entire genre is shortsighted and unfounded.

[muchacho]

37. eminem

just for the record, I think eminiem is a whiny pinhead that mistakes controversy for musical relevance.

[Earth_First]

26. Biased poll

"A musical waste of time, if not bereft of any uniqueness"
"A bling bling wasteland"

I am surprised to see such support of the two preceeding 'categories' to which I feel there is a definate bias judged by "industry" standards of hip-hop. See my previous post on J5 et al.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

39. It's been an unfortunate eye opener

wow

[Lizz612]

28. I voted for the first option

I have a habit of not paying any attention to MTV at all. Therefore I pay more attention to what people around me say is good. This thread is an example. I have heard some Jurassic 5, and thought it was great.
There is defiantly a "can't spell crap without rap" streak here, and to those people I say, Open your freakin mind! All music has value and soul and originality in it if you look beyond the inflammatory lyrics, and beyond the MTV/TRL lists. That goes for all genres, but especially hip hop.

[MAlibdem]

30. Good poetry, but too violent and mysoginistic

Ghettoization is too extreme, but the poetry is strong and there is a lot of potential.

The hyperbole of the genre gives it a bad name as well...

(I know im throwing rap and hip hop together, but they overlap a lot)

[BlackVelvetElvis]

31. I think it is an art form of unlimited potential

Poetry, rhythm and the blending of musical styles.
I don't listen to it enough. I find that I have to dig through alot of CRAP to find something amazing. Can anyone recommend something to me?
I won't listen to misogynist music or music that deals with shallow hatefulness.

[Madrone]

33. Dead Prez, Common, The Roots, Nappy Roots, Paris -

to name a few.

Someone higher up in the thread mentioned a bunch I'm not familiar with...

[Van Helsing]

35. I don't care for it...

to me, it's crap.

[Vladimir]

38. Depends on the artist

Hip-Hop can be revolutionary or reactionary, inspired or derivative, emancipatory or sexist... it really depends on the artist. It is true that mainstream hip-hop has lost its way since the 80s and disappeared down a bling-bling hole, but there are still great MCs and DJs out there.

V

[chenGOD]

40. I voted other also.

Because as the first poster put it, there owuld be a combination of choices.

Some other 'underground' hip-hop besides the stuff already recommended:

cLOUDDEAD
Rjd2 (well the deadringer album at least)
Dr. Doom aka Kool Keithe aka Dr. Octagon
Immortal Technique
Buck 65
DJ Rubbish (he's British, but he's damned funny and speaks a lot of truths, as well as being actually halfway decent)
Sound Providers (if you like native tongues style, check these guys out)

and............

Will Smith lol...just kidding.

[ChavezSpeakstheTruth]

41. Ever hear the Streets?

[chenGOD]

42. Yeah I don't mind the Streets.

Alright but I prefer DJ Rubbish, much more activist. Streets is a bit too "laddish". Dizzee Rascal is pretty good too.

[drumwolf]

43. I have. I like them (him, really) a lot.

It's funny how British hip-hop has come into its own only in the last five years. It's not like rap only recently became popular there. I lived in London in 1989-90 and American rap artists like Public Enemy and Ice-T were huge there even then. I even saw Public Enemy live when I was there.

Other British rap acts I know about are So Solid, Roots Manuva and Dizzee Rascal.

[Bridget Burke]

44. ....another example of Sturgeon's Law

(Somebody asked Theodore Sturgeon, the great science fiction writer, why so much of his genre was so bad. His famous answer: 90% of everything is crap.)

This middle-aged white lady needs to do some more research. But I'm not surprised that what gets the most press is not the best. I've been seriously into music for a long time--& I've heard lots of garbage in all genres.

John Nova Lomax is Music Editor of the Houston Press. Here's one of his features--on Latino Hip Hop in Houston--which ties into the genre as a whole. I enjoyed reading some serious history:

www.houstonpress.com/issues/2003-12-04/feature.html/1/index.html

Of course, his family has been explaining music for several generations--especially in Texas.