Re: This story's got legs!

Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 17:55:37 -0400
Newsgroups: alt.music.weird-al
Size: 4,046 bytes

> I DO understand it, and explained my take on it in the original post,
> and I never said the form was invalid, I just personally think it
> sucks eggs. Why is it that on the internet, when you voice opinion in
> an intelligent and concise manner, you still get the same replies
> you'd get with "I THINK THAT RAP SUCKS" posted 27 times in five
> minutes? I never said that I was stating FACT, it's an opinion.
If you believe that a massive block-paragraph rant is "intelligent and
concise", then fine. Personally, it looked pretty much the same as "I
THINK RAP SUCKS" to me. You didn't really have any reasonable points.
You started off by claiming the Eminem's ego was too big, and then
followed it up by arguing that rap artists have no musical talent. The
latter argument clearly demonstrates a lack of understanding of the art
form.
Well, if it makes you happy, I will attempt to refute your points
individually:
As you should know from watching "8 Mile" twice, Eminem comes from a
background of "battle rapping". This naturally leads to a style which
involves big egos, and lyrics about money, women, and dissing your fellow
man. Whether or not you agree with the types of things that are said
does not alter the fact that it is a type of art form which one can aspire
to perfect. Some people believe that Eminem does a good job, and his
apparent fascination with these topics may simply be a side effect of the
style which he is trying to perfect.
As for your "musical ability" rant, I think you are oversimplifying a
complex issue. Again, the style of hip-hop that we are talking about
involves writing lyrics and placing them over samples. In almost all
cases, the music samples are taken from other artists, and not created by
the rapper. Part of the rapper's creativity involves arranging these
samples in a coherent and pleasant way. If you listened to more rap, you
may find that the good artists are very adept at picking nice sounding
samples from various tunes and sticking them together in nice sounding
ways. Unfortunately, most rappers are not good at this.
The main part of the rapper's creativity involves writing lyrics that flow
with the music and rhyme effectively. This is no easy task, and as you
have no doubt experienced, the results can be quite bad if it is not done
right. As Run DMC said, "It's tricky to rock around / To rock around and
rhyme on time / It's tricky".
The tragedy of the situation is that record companies and radio stations
know that hip-hop sells, but they don't seem to have any sort of quality
control. Thus some idiot rapper can loop a sample of Pachelbel's Canon
and drone on endlessly about his favourite car, and it will actually get
played on the radio. Then, people hear this crap and then believe that
all rap must be that bad as well. This is simply not true. Good rap
artists do exist, and they have a real talent for sampling, lyric writing,
and smooth execution.
Dismissing a rap artist because they don't create their own music is like
claiming that an opera singer lacks talent because they don't play any
instruments or write their own music or even write their own lyrics.
Their talent lies solely in the art of singing. Rappers talents lie in
the art of arranging samples, constructing rhymes, and creating a flow of
words that convey a message and jive with the music.
> Dear God, what does THAT say if he's the best the industry's got?
> I'm not arguing with you, he IS the best they have, but that's not
> saying much. 8-|
It says this: If he's the best, and you don't like him, then obviously
you're not cut out to be a rap music fan. :) However, I wouldn't dismiss
a whole style of music just because you don't like it. There is artistic
merit to it, in my opinion.
OK class, for homework, please listen to the following songs and write a
300 word essay about the art of rap music:
"Rock Box" by Run DMC
"Momma Said Knock You Out" by LL Cool J
"The Message" by Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five
"Root Down" by The Beastie Boys
-Mike