Shake 'dem haters off...

[Arkietuba]

In light of recent discussions, I want to know why people REALLY hate rap music and don't consider it a ligit musical genre. I've heard various answers, none of which seem valid (i.e. vulgar lyrics, difficulty of the music in terms of playing it so on and so forth). There are plenty of ligit music genres that have vulgar lyrics and the parts are extremely easy to play. I personally hate country music with a passion but I respect it and consider a ligit and popular genre and I have the upmost repect for the country musicians. I just don't feel that you can simply put a lable on a entire musical genre as "not music" based solely on the negative aspects. Yes, there is some horrible rap music, but, the most popular rap artists are most often the most innovative. Kanye West mixes up old school soul music with inspirational lyrics. Ludacris has great accompaniment to his lyrics. 50 Cent makes you feel his pain and struggle. To simply write off an entire genre just b/c you don't like it, when it clearly has a LARGE following, is ignorant and you are hurting music and fellow musicians. I love classical, jazz, blues and hip hop. I love listening to Wagner and Berlioz along with Kanye and 50. I really want to play hip hop/jazz tuba like Nat McIntosh along with (hopefully) being the principle tubist in a world class orchestra. I know I'm not the only one that feels this way......

[Tubaryan12]

bloke "very weary indeed of this topic"

This, we agree on fully.

p.s....and I like rap music

[GC]

Rap can exist completely independently of music. It doesn't require music as a background, though most of it uses music (or rips off existing artists by sampling). Its rhythmic nature may seem like a musical practice, but rhythmic sound isn't necessarily music (maybe to some modern composers).

I'd call it poetry instead. Poetry is inherently rhythmic. Choral music uses poetry regularly, and many song lyrics are truly poetic, but music and poetry are far from one and the same. The same principal applies to rap.

Sturgeon's Law applies to rap. 90% of it is crap. Of the remaining 10%---well, I'd apply SL again as a second-stage filter. Far too much of rap is a vehicle for talentless, opinionated, loudmouths to pander to the baser instincts of DVD-buyers & video-watchers. However, I will admit that some rap is intelligent and interesting. There's just so damn little of it.

I'm extremely broad-minded about music. I just can't include rap in the category.

[CJ Krause]

Now

[Rick Denney]

In light of recent discussions, I want to know why people REALLY hate rap music and don't consider it a ligit musical genre.

For me it's the lack of any definable melody.

All the standard disclaimers apply. For example, I don't require a melody to be tuneful, or fit with any particular tonal tradition, etc.

I define art as being a creative expression that is intended to be received as art, and that is actually received as art by other people. Yes, that argument is circular but with something utterly subjective that is unavoidable. By that definition, rap can indeed be art. It just can't be music, until they start singing instead of talking.

Much rap that I've heard is reprehensible from any moral perspective that I would endorse, and I'm ashamed of some of the stuff people I know listen to with a clear conscience. But that has nothing to do with whether it is musical or artistic.

Rick "agreeing with Bloke" Denney

[tubatooter1940]

Ray Charles criticism of rap was that there was little or nothing he could learn from it.

[Joe Baker]

We could pointlessly bicker over whether rap is "music" or not, or whether it is "art" or not; our opinions will hinge on our definitions of the terms and our aesthetic sense. But I can tell you the main reason I despise it: the extraordinarily deliterious effect it has had on our society.

Indeed, it's difficult to say with certainty to what degree it has CAUSED the moral decay in young people today and to what degree it merely REFLECTS it; but it certainly hasn't done anything to improve the situation, and it seems to me that the culture has followed, rather than led, rap "lyrics". After all, they have to stay "edgy" and keep their shock value. If they merely reflected what was happening in the society, where would the shock come from? No, it seems pretty plain to me that rap has precipitated the incredibly destructive sadism/narcicism of youth culture today rather than merely documenting it.

Based on what I've heard (admittedly, I haven't been able to stomach a lot of it), for every positive message there are dozens of negative ones. Racial hatred, mysogeny -- heck, it seems any sort of hate will do. Even those things that might normally be thought of as pleasurable seem to mostly emphasize the hurt they'll cause others. I figure there's an extra-hot corner in hell for the rap "artists", and an even hotter one for the corporate types that package and sell the stuff.

I generally avoid giving advice when asked for it, let alone when not asked, but I WILL repeat some good advice from the good book:

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, honest, and just; whatsoever things are pure, lovely, and of good report; if there be any virtue or praise, then set your mind on these things. Do those things which you have learned, received, heard, and seen in me. If you do these things, the God of peace shall be with you."

I'll take the God of peace over messengers of hate ANY day! Pure, lovely, virtue, praise -- do you hear a lot of that in rap? Yeah, I know, there's Christian rap; still a nightmare aesthetically, to me, but I assume their messages are at least more positive. I'd a lot rather see people listen to that than to mainstream rap, but I still don't get the attraction.
________________________________
Joe Baker, who reminds rap-lovers that one of THEM brought it up, not one of US.

[Arkietuba]

Thanks for all of your answers, but, I think a couple people still are just not getting the basic message I was saying. Yes, most rap contains bad language and questionable subjects but so do most other genres of music. Rock stars do drugs and use foul language but that is concidered a good genre. Most rock has very few chord changes or just the same I-IV-V-I repeated over and over. Yeah, most rap has little musicality in terms of the accompaniment. As for the quote from Ray Charles, many rappers idolize Ray and even have him sing in the tracks (well, recordings of him anyway). Ray absolutely loved Jamie Foxx and Jamie Foxx raps as well as acts. Look, I don't mind at all if you hate rap, I just think its ridiculous to NOT consider it music. I hate country and blue grass but I respect it and the musicians who play it (even if they suck).

[Rick Denney]

Thanks for all of your answers, but, I think a couple people still are just not getting the basic message I was saying.... Look, I don't mind at all if you hate rap, I just think its ridiculous to NOT consider it music. I hate country and blue grass but I respect it and the musicians who play it (even if they suck).

Perhaps you are missing the basic message of the responses, though you generalize too much when you say "a couple people". You are still measuring whether something has earned the right to be considered music on the basis of whether it is good.

In contrast, you've gotten several definitions of music that clearly state that mere rhythmic speaking is not music, though there may be elements of music in the accompaniment. Your use of the banality of rock and country genres reveals your perspective. My response to your question (isn't rap music?) is not that it is musically banal and therefore not music, but that it is not music at all because it has no intentional melody.

Why should you musically respect musicians who suck? What do you hope to achieve by saying that? That sounds patronizing to me. If a musician sucks, they won't get my musical respect no matter how much they are paid or what genre they produce. But if they produce intended melody--even banal melody--it is still music.

Most of us intentionally separated our responses of whether rap is (1) music, (2) art, and (3) moral. My answer was no, yes, no. But it could easily have been yes, yes, no if there was intended melody of some sort, as there is with even the most reprehensible rock music. And these three evaluations are not only independent from each other, they are independent of any qualitative assessment of the skill of the performer/writer.

There are those who will define music based only on whether they like it, but you have done nothing to dissuade them declaraing that rap is music merely because it requires skill. So does, say, writing responses on Tubenet, but that doesn't make it music.

Rick "who can ignore the usually unintelligible lyrics of rock music and enjoy the music, but who has nothing left after ignoring the lyrics of the spoken poetry that is rap" Denney

[quinterbourne]

Rap is about the words, about the poetry. There is rhythm, but in my opinion rhythm in itself is not music. Music needs PITCHES, again in my opinion. If someone were to walk on stage and bang their head on a piano for 5 minutes (even if it was in rhythm), I would not consider that music.

I've heard percussion ensembles. Snare drums and such, untuned percussion whacking away for 10 minutes. I do not consider this music. Some people do, but I don't.

People consider rap is good when the words are good. It has little, or nothing, to do with anything else... again in my opinion.

Poetry is not music. Rap is poetry. So, Rap is not music. Any problems with deductive reasoning?

Rock, Country, etc. feature the words as being a very important aspect of the expression. However, there is harmony and melody. The quality of Rock, Country, etc. is based on the combination of lyrics and melody/harmony.

Everybody has a different opinion on what is music and what is not music. Music, in many ways, is a very subjective term. I embrace many things as music that many people would not consider music. I do not complain about them having different opinions than I do. Every individual decides for themselves the boundaries of what they do and do not consider music.

Trying to change our minds, or complaining about our opinions, is a futile attempt and I find it somewhat offensive. Please accept the fact that other people will have different opinions than you. I won't try to change your opinion... you have the absolute right to it!

[quinterbourne]

Rick "who can ignore the usually unintelligible lyrics of rock music and enjoy the music, but who has nothing left after ignoring the lyrics of the spoken poetry that is rap" Denney

Gotta get a pen and write than down... AMEN!

[windshieldbug]

People still consider 12-tone compositions music, although I hazard to guuess that there are few enough people who can really understand and enjoy it...

[SplatterTone]

Thanks for all of your answers, but, I think a couple people ...

It's probably a lot more than a couple. It's just that they aren't posting ... until now.

[Chuck(G)]

Is Ernst Toch's "Geographic Fugue" an example of rap?

[windshieldbug]

Is Ernst Toch's "Geographic Fugue" an example of rap?

Not enough gunfire?

[Rick Denney]

I've heard percussion ensembles. Snare drums and such, untuned percussion whacking away for 10 minutes. I do not consider this music. Some people do, but I don't.

I actually disagree with this, because I don't know of any untuned percussion. The pitches may not be clear, but there is a definite variation in pitches that is both intended and musical. There is a reason a drum set has at least three (usually five) drums and two or three cymbals. Most percussion-only works I've heard require a broad tonal palette, and the variation in tonality is part of the music and what makes it music. Even beating drumsticks on the wall can be part of that tonal variation, though if that was all there was, it would not be musical. Bloke said it well with his need for purposed tonal variation, as opposed to default tonal monotony. Even purposed tonal monotony might be musical, but I can't think of any examples.

Rick "who has listened to the entire length of Steve Reich's Drumming, and thought it musical despite contemplating suicide halfway through it" Denney

[kegmcnabb]

Resolved - as music must contain recognizable melodies then here are things we will never call music or listen to again.

Varese -Poem Electronique, Ionisation

Cage - First, Second or Third Construction

Any of that damn Second Viennese School crap, especially that which incorporates sprechtstimme - words recited to non-specific pitches (gasp!)

Hmmm....personally, I'm gonna miss 'em. But that's just me.
(Not trying to change anyone's mind, but glad that for whatever reason my personal definition of music is not limited by that particular definition!)

[kegmcnabb]

Resolved - I will not whack this horse again.

[windshieldbug]

So where does the Cage 4'33" fit in?

[Rick Denney]

In light of recent discussions, I want to know why people REALLY hate rap music...[Rick's emphasis added]

Along a quite separate line from my other responses, I just want to point out that those who admire and defend rap music have absolutely no moral standing in complaining about anybody else's hate.

Rick "who thinks Joe Baker is right that hate of one sort or another is the one theme common to nearly all rap music" Denney