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Seriously, folks.
Elwood is getting sick of the ignorance. Everyone hates on rap and hip hop. WHY? Oh, they have their "reasons."
1)
"It all sounds the same!"Yeah, it does if you listen to ONE artist, decides he sucks, and then decides they all suck based on that one artist. Just like any other genre of music, rap artists DO NOT all sound the same. Not all rock sounds the same. Not all pop sounds the same. Not all blues sound the same.
Not all rap sounds the same.2)
"It all hates on women!"Uhm, no it doesn't. First, a song can be very sexual but that does not mean it's "hating on women." This is the insane feminazi outlook that I loathe. "IF IT MENTIONS SEX, IT HATES WOMEN." Sex is sex. Sex will always be sex, and generally involve a man and a
woman, so yes, she will be included. Second, a song can mention women as "hos" and men as "bros" and that does not mean they're calling women "whores." That culture has it's own sort of diction (speaking style, slang) in which it uses to express concepts. Like any song, rap also has metaphors, symbolism, historical references, and worldwide issues mentioned in it. Furthermore, if people are really going to complain about the "ho" thing, just look at our NORMAL language. If a man is a slut, he gets called a "player" or a "stud," while if a woman is a slut, she gets called a "whore" or well, a "slut." It's not just black people and rap. It's our whole society.
3)
"It's boring."Something a person who hasn't heard a lot of rap would say, or one of those people who listens to a song for 5 seconds and decides they hate it. Most rap and hip hop (often the two are confused, which just adds more to proving how ignorant listeners can be) has a really good, consistent beat, which is good for dance. High bass can also be pretty good for dance. It really only is in rap, hip hop, rhythm and blues, and techno that you will get a paced low bass that really adds to the feel of the music. Yes, it's annoying when someone drives by with it turned all the way up. That means they're an idiot. But when the song is tuned properly, it isn't so annoying, but more uplifting and entertaining.
4)
"It's unoriginal."It's time for a history lesson, kids. Rap really originates from an older genre of music, which originated from a much older genre of music. African slaves were brought to America and brought with them their ancestral music. This evolved into what many consider their "method of communication," when the negroes would sing to one another while working. Well, slavery ending in America, and African Americans became low paid, hard working laborers. During the Harlem Renaissance, there was a flourishing of many sorts of African American arts. One of these arts was music; particularly, the blues. The blues evolved as a genre of music and was once spontaneous (played without rehearsal or composition; improvised), and when the white man got involved it started breaking into organized works like jazz and rhythm & blues. These genres grew and evolved. What we know as modern rock really DID originate, mechanically, from blues, which originally was brought up by slaves. American music flourished since the age of blues. So rock came. Bands today commonly mistaken as rock bands, but are indeed blues bands are bands like Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. Blues bands.
So you're wondering what this has to do with rap. Rap's
lyrical content was not always, "f** UR HOS & UR MOM SUCK MY d**k AND TRA LA LA." Older rap had a more melancholy tone, a theme adopted from the blues. Rap also got it's beat from hip hop, which easily evolved from a number of influences... Rap did not come from nowhere, and it was not always what it is today.
5)
"Rap does not suit my fancy."Okay. Doesn't mean anyone's got to go hating it, and anyone that likes it.
6)
"It is highly offensive to everybody."I'll cut this off again by saying a genre of music cannot be entirely characterized by the one or two songs you may have heard. Comparing two very different rock bands will prove to you that the lyrical aspect, musical aspect, technical aspect, mechanical aspect, and theme, will be entirely different between bands and maybe even between two albums by a particular band. Rappers, contrary to popular belief, do not stand alone; they do have a band, and they do produce music.
7)
"It's NOT real music!"Okay, genius. Define music. "It has a beat." If you think rap doesn't have a beat, you're deaf, and you can't feel anything. Rap has a beat you can feel in your gut. "Music has rhythm." Again, rap has some fantastic rhythm most of the time. Most of the time, it rhymes very well, and is very neatly constructed. Writing rap is not easy. It's not, "retards attempting poetry." I'd like to see you rhyme, AND match syllables, consistently, through a 5 minute song. Also, "It has no REAL instruments." Nor does techno. s**t, a lot of the music today has digital drums. "Real" music doesn't really exist all that much nowadays; rappers are not the only people using computers to enhance their soundtracks.
I am NOT a rap fan myself, but I think a lot of rap and hip hop can be very fun music.SO DISCUSS:
GD, WHY DO YOU HATE RAP AND HIP HOP?Pix as promised:
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