Anyone a fan of rap

Personally I have little respect for it because of its lack of musicality and creativity; I see it as moving music away from an art form and transforming it into a sort of vehicle for comercial sucess, and I also believe it promotes a negative message. However as a form of singing I am greatly intrigued and believe it needs to be explored further in other styles, Pain of Salvation have used it to great sucess. I express a great deal of emotion and is rather unique.

Edited by Equality 7-2521 - June 04 2006 at 23:57

No!

Bern wrote: I have some hope in the genre itself but I don't think any of the rap I've heard yet is substantial. Most rap I've heard is composed of 3-5 notes repeated over and over again. I think we need more musical rap (a thing I've personally never heard. If you know some musical rap, just tell me.) We also need lyrics other than : f**k, bitches, ass IMO someting interesting could come out from rap someday.

I like most of the rap music that I've bothered to pursue (I have about thirty albums in the style). It's just a nice change every once in a while from rock music to hear something with more of a focus on vocal clarity. It's also very rhythm-oriented, which is a feature that makes it stylistically different from most prog rock. So I guess if prog rock to you represents something of an ideal state for all other music to live up to, you're never going to get into it. But if you want a change from your usual listening, there it is.

To those who are curious, Public Enemy's landmark album It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back and A Tribe Called Quest's The Low End Theory would be among the best albums to start with. It Takes A Nation... is very sample-heavy, but in 1988 that was the point - it was much easier/cheaper back then to take a riff here, a drum sound there and cobble it together into an entirely different context. The unrelenting sociopolitical commentaries would also be relatively palatable to those who are particularly tired of the clichés of chart rap. The Low End Theory mainly served to outline the social climate of 90s America, with a particular emphasis on the music business and the group's frustration with it. Stylistically the album showed heavy jazz influences (albeit put in the context of simple grooves) and sounds a lot less rigid then most rap music even today.

Equality 7-2521 wrote: Personally I have little respect for it because of its lack of musicality and creativity; I see it as moving music away from an art form and transforming it into a sort of vehicle for comercial sucess, and I also believe it promotes a negative message.

I like a bit of Eminem and de La Soul.

Hehehe. You know, "rapper" has two p's; the word with one p means one who rapes. Which is ironic considering most rap lyrics :-)

Ivan_Melgar_M wrote: I have a great hope in Rap........I hope that people will soon get bored and vanishes as a nightmare. Iván

    
I couldn't agree more Unfortunately I had this thought about twenty years ago, and it still hasn't happened.

There have been some sporadic moments of quality, but of course they weren't profitable enough. I remember a movement in the '90s called street Jazz. They had actual music playing, and intelligent lyrics. No wonder it didn't catch on.

Equality 7-2521 wrote: Personally I have little respect for it because of its lack of musicality and creativity; I see it as moving music away from an art form and transforming it into a sort of vehicle for comercial sucess, and I also believe it promotes a negative message. However as a form of singing I am greatly intrigued and believe it needs to be explored further in other styles, Pain of Salvation have used it to great sucess. I express a great deal of emotion and is rather unique.   I must admit to being recently impressed by one raper, Kanye West. He creates some very interesting beats and backs them up with his great raping.

isn't the term 'rapist'?

Gee, if the genre has been around 20 years and has not disappeared, you think that might give you a clue that it is a valid genre? I have to admit, the close mindedness of many of the people here give me pause to associate myself with prog.