Yes, chaos, rap is talking fast over synthesized beats. And rock is singing over instruments. I agree with a couple of the others. You are being reductionist.

If you just don't like rap, that's fine. But if you refuse to acknowledge the importance in this genre of rhyming, voice, storytelling, and wordplay in addition to "fast talking," and if you refuse to acknowledge the wide variation between the styles of "synthesized beats" created by different producers, you're being willfully absurd.

By the way, I agree with youmustlearn that it would be good for rap to go in some new directions. There is lots of good rap, but there's a lot that is basically trash. This is not the same thing as what you are saying, chaos. Youmustlearn is saying that hip-hop needs innovation to get it past a relatively uncreative phase, and you are saying that it is impossible for it to grow or change, because it's all just 'fast talking" anyway.

quote:

Originally posted by Robert Perry:
Yes, chaos, rap is talking fast over synthesized beats. And rock is singing over instruments. I agree with a couple of the others. You are being reductionist.

If you just don't like rap, that's fine. But if you refuse to acknowledge the importance in this genre of rhyming, voice, storytelling, and wordplay in addition to "fast talking," and if you refuse to acknowledge the wide variation between the styles of "synthesized beats" created by different producers, you're being willfully absurd.

By the way, I agree with youmustlearn that it would be good for rap to go in some new directions. There is lots of good rap, but there's a lot that is basically trash. This is not the same thing as what you are saying, chaos. Youmustlearn is saying that hip-hop needs innovation to get it past a relatively uncreative phase, and you are saying that it is impossible for it to grow or change, because it's all just 'fast talking" anyway.

Great post Mr Perry - clear and concise breakdown of what is the most reasonable and informed take on this "issue". Bravo!!!

There is a lot of backwards looking and rehashing and recombining of the past in noughties music generally - would be nice to see hip hop jumping ahead of the pack again like they did in the late eighties/early nineties!

Public Enemy, Jungle Brothers, Tribe Called Quest...hmmmmmmmmmmm.

If hip hop has a problem, it's that it has become pop music. The genre of 'Top 40 pop' has been mostly subsumed by mainstream hip hop. And the problem with pop as a genre is that it is mostly motivated (note: I said 'mostly') by commerce. Hip hop has become a commodified product. A lot of contemporary hip hop-influenced artists (and the record industry that supports them) seem to have no interest in artistic growth or personal expression or pushing the envelope (or anything 'artistic' or risky like that), but in how to make more money or 'create a brand.' So the problem is that while teens/tweens all over the planet have made the likes of Black Eyed Peas, Nelly, Eminem, 50 Cent, Kanye and Ja Rule (remember that guy?) the richest/best selling/most played on pop radio artists of the decade and hip hop culture 'cool' and a money-spinner, the evolution of hip hop has an art form has fallen off because more rappers want to copy that formula than carve out new territory; and record labels/radio/MTV etc want to perpetuate that formula for their own interests.

Nothing new about the age old underground creation-mainstream saturation-underground revitalisation process.

For eg re rock consider the following crudely simplified timeline:

1st comes Fats Domino/Little Richard

Then Elvis and Buddy Holly explode it into the mainstream

Then Pat Boone and a million boy/girl groups turn it into a pop production line

The Beatles, Stones etc re-energise and diversify the original rock wave - a diversification that ends up diluting the rock.

Hard and soft rock rise into "maturity" and soon descend into flabby excess.

Punk cleans house but is unable to stop rock becoming a pop parody of itself.

Grunge cleans house again but ends up creating a mass produced misery cottage industry.

Space rock of radiohead etc reenergise rock through punk-prog hybrid but soon collapses into stadium mass produced space pop-rock.

Retro garage/post punk hybrids revitalise rock again but soon collapse into production line spindly rock all with one word band names.

etc etc etc

Nothing new under the sun as the old bible once said!

It's all just a waiting game...

Exactly mel. Look at all the vastly different processes that rock has gone through in its continuing evolution. From Fats to the Japandroids, yeehaw.

And now look at the evolution of rap. It started out as a guy fast talking over some synthesized beats and today...it's a guy fast talking over some synthesized beats. Wow. Quite the evolution. Don't get me wrong. I enjoy rap music and have a large collection. The point is, this genre is out of ideas, there's no where left for it to go.

I guarantee you, rap will be as dead in ten years as punk is today.

The reason that music dies is when the people making the music are blindly imitating their predecessors and anyone else who might be able to make a difference sits around on the sidelines and bitches about how the music form is 'dead.' What you are doing chaos - it's been done before. You are totally unnecessary.

Is there a reason you guys let this thread get past the first page?

quote:

Originally posted by Mikey Rocks:
Is there a reason you guys let this thread get past the first page?

Speaking for myself, as ludicrous as the premise of this thread is for many, I have heard the ghost of this sentiment behind enough otherwise sensible opinions around me to be unable to resist some kind of engagement and response to this eminently short sighted take on hip hop.

Tempting as it is to deprive such things of oxygen, I just can't help but push the mission of advancing considerations of perspective and context in terms of understanding even in the most fruitless of arenas!

quote:

Originally posted by Mikey Rocks:
Is there a reason you guys let this thread get past the first page?

Oh, I just like chatting with chaos.

I saw Jay-Z play live at Pauley Pavilion at UCLA last night.

I would like to assure everybody that hip-hop is alive and well. Very, VERY much so.

quote:

Originally posted by crob3888:
I saw Jay-Z play live at Pauley Pavilion at UCLA last night.

I would like to assure everybody that hip-hop is alive and well. Very, VERY much so.

*yawn*

quote:

it's a guy fast talking over some synthesized beats.

The Roots play their own instruments. Just sayin'...

quote:

Originally posted by chaos:

quote:

Originally posted by crob3888:
I saw Jay-Z play live at Pauley Pavilion at UCLA last night.

I would like to assure everybody that hip-hop is alive and well. Very, VERY much so.

*yawn*

Yep, second this. Isn't crob the same guy who said he had "shitastic" taste in hip-hop? Not my words and actually, jus' sayin'.

chaos do you think samples are "synthesized"?

Jay Z is the king of everything that went wrong with rap and hip hop. He's got 99 problems and keeping it real is one. He and his annoying, no-talent skank need to stick to designing clothing and leave music to those who actually have something to say.

quote:

Jay Z is the king of everything that went wrong with rap and hip hop.

Oh, but there are so many other rappers who deserve your scorn more than Mr. Z! Namely, his preppy protege Kanye, 50 Cent, T.I.... the list can go on.

I have a few questions for chaos: do you see a difference in the quality of rap music? Like, for example, do you appreciate the new Ghostface or Raekwon album more than the new Jay-Z? Do you see different styles being employed in those albums? Or are they all part of the same homogeneous blob known as rap to you?

quote:

Originally posted by chaos:
Jay Z is the king of everything that went wrong with rap and hip hop. He's got 99 problems and keeping it real is one. He and his annoying, no-talent skank need to stick to designing clothing and leave music to those who actually have something to say.

oh, you mean like girltalk?

It's been five years already... R.I.P. Russell Jones. As Ol' Dirty Bastard, you left an everlasting and utterly unique imprint on the hip-hop world.

Ah yes, the world sorely misses ya mr soiled basterd.

Thank god Raekwon is keeping the nasty wu genii alive - after all, how could any of us truly keep on fighting tha powah if Raekwon and Ghostface Killah weren't still knocking our collective socks off!?

Too bad the quality of rap that Raekwon and Ghostface release only constitutes about .001% of rap music in the world.