Anyone a fan of rap

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.

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.

No!

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