rap is NOT music!

[another day]

Quote by: Nemiroff I'm talking about rap in general, not just what they play on the radio, I know that's a dumbed down version of the genre for the masses. I'm talking about the fact that there isn't much music in it. The whole genre isn't music, and a couple of songs in the whole genre that may change their sound just alittle mid song isn't gonna be able to change the classification for all of them. Neither is a joint performance with areosmith, or a simple chorus. Biggy was the greatest rapper and all his raps are gold, 2pac although not my favorite has my respect, and his raps are as pure a form of poetry as you can get. I listen to a couple of nas raps, the first dmx album, and kanye west is the only new rapper I can even listen to. I'm not into rap enough to listen to the underground, but I know enough that I don't take the radio/MTV crap into consideration. All of those rappers are greats, in particular biggy and 2pac, but none of them sang, they recited. With a simple, or recently, not so simple beat in the background to keep the pace. A drum beat is not music, it's a beat. A beat is not a form of music, it's a component, and a beat alone will not make a song. is it that hard to consider the possibility that poetry may exist today in a popular form? Is it that degrading to be called poetry? I have considered rap music for the longest because that's what everyone keeps calling it, but the more I thought about it the less it makes sense.

Lol...apparently you are quite ignorant of the music you even listened to. Have you even heard of the entire production side of rap music? They aren't rapping to a drum machine. If all you hear is a "simple drum beat" then you aren't listening very well. Those "beats" as they are called are usually much more complex with many layers of melody to them.

[freedom13]

Quote by: Nemiroff I'm talking about rap in general, not just what they play on the radio, I know that's a dumbed down version of the genre for the masses. I'm talking about the fact that there isn't much music in it. The whole genre isn't music, and a couple of songs in the whole genre that may change their sound just alittle mid song isn't gonna be able to change the classification for all of them. Neither is a joint performance with areosmith, or a simple chorus. Biggy was the greatest rapper and all his raps are gold, 2pac although not my favorite has my respect, and his raps are as pure a form of poetry as you can get. I listen to a couple of nas raps, the first dmx album, and kanye west is the only new rapper I can even listen to. I'm not into rap enough to listen to the underground, but I know enough that I don't take the radio/MTV crap into consideration. All of those rappers are greats, in particular biggy and 2pac, but none of them sang, they recited. With a simple, or recently, not so simple beat in the background to keep the pace. A drum beat is not music, it's a beat. A beat is not a form of music, it's a component, and a beat alone will not make a song. is it that hard to consider the possibility that poetry may exist today in a popular form? Is it that degrading to be called poetry? I have considered rap music for the longest because that's what everyone keeps calling it, but the more I thought about it the less it makes sense.

Does HARD METAL ROCK makes sense with all it divisive views? There is a widely view of it as well, that some people don’t think it is music either.

[nerdvincent]

Quote by: freedom13 Does HARD METAL ROCK makes sense with all it divisive views? There is a widely view of it as well, that some people don’t think it is music either.

I agree that most of today's hardrock band are 2 cords, a linear bass and 4/4 drumming. Lame.
But if you get out of top 50, you'd see that hard rock isn't just Linkin Park, and that there is not only "soft music" (R'n'B, rap) fighting his way against "HARD METAL ROCK", which is a very, very simplistic schematisation of music.

[nerdvincent]

Here neoclassical metal:YouTube - Far Beyond The Sun - Yngwie Malmsteen
Don't mind his aweful 80's clothes...

[Chancellor]

Quote by: Nemiroff Rap in it's current form, and in any form is has previously existed, with maybe the exception of some underground rapper or group I have never heard of, isn't music. Its just talking to a beat. There is no singing, no change in the beat or progression of any kind! I want someone to show me what part of rap would qualify it as music. And before everyone starts hating and calling me a racist, I'm not insulting rap, mearely trying to define it more accurately, its poetry, and whose to say which is the superior art.

It does seem to be more related to poetry than to music. But aren't song lyrics usually poetry of some kind?

[nerdvincent]

Quote by: Chancellor It does seem to be more related to poetry than to music. But aren't song lyrics usually poetry of some kind?

I'd say that about 3/4 of all the music ever written don't have lyrics.

[Chris]

Quote by: gela Mainstream music isn't about music anymore. Its about image. Wheres the proof? there are no ugly mainstream artists.

I like what you have to say!


And people, try listening to Warren G -specifically the album from 1994 called "Regulate... G Funk Era"

[Nemiroff]

Regardless of how simple or complex the best, its the same collection of sounds on repeat. A small change for the R&B chorus, then back to same old same old. With a few rare exceptions that aren't enough to change to perception of the genre, they don't even move to a different octave or anything. No musical scale, progression, or whatever other terminology music uses, rap usually has none of it. There are exceptions to everything, there was a rap group that actually used instruments to play their beats, or music, didn't listen to them much, but that is what they were known for, which means that they were the only or one of an unfamous handful that did that.

Super hardcore heavy metals, like death metal, sounds like noise to a lot of people, personally I don't mind the instrumentals, it's the style they choose to sing in that puts me off, but their music moves, it's alive, it changes, and it usually has a kick ass solo where the music takes the foreground, "sings" a verse so to speak, and let's the singer shut up for a while.

Pop will always be pop, even classical music had it's pop crap, do you really think that only a handful of composers created music in all those hundreds of years when classical music was dominant. They were all mesely lost in time, much like n'sync and the backstreet boys are already fading from our memories.

[shawmutt]

Quote by: nerdvincent I'd say that about 3/4 of all the music ever written don't have lyrics.

Whaa....?

I think what would serve some of these debates well is a dictionary . According to Merriam-Webster online:

Music. n. a: the science or art of ordering tones or sounds in succession, in combination, and in temporal relationships to produce a composition having unity and continuity b: vocal, instrumental, or mechanical sounds having rhythm, melody, or harmony.

Well, rap seems to fit that definition. I think the ones who think "rap isn't music" are using the second definition--2 a: an agreeable sound. Since the sounds from rap aren't "agreeable" to that person, it isn't music. Unfortunately this is logical inconsistency--some people don't like death metal, so that also wouldn't be music.

The "music is dead" statement makes me laugh. There is plenty of good modern music, but it's hidden amongst the pop trash that makes money. The music industry has been doing the same thing since there was a music industry. We just have the benefit of getting the classics from previous years while trying to slog through the garbage of the present. Essentially, the music industry doesn't change, our perceptions of what makes good music changes. In other words...yer gettin' old!

Question--should Kodo or Stomp also not be considered music? What makes up an instrument? Is record scratching making music?

[ChinUp]

Nemiroff .. whats wrong with simply accepting you don't like rap ? What is the purpose of being a bigot & saying rap isn't music. You sound like a rap side of the coin bigot saying folk inst music or chanting isn't music . Its really not for you or me to dictate what is & isn't music .. Each to their own, music like all art forms is all about change & taking chances, some ideas stick others are just a flash in the pan. step back look @ the bigger picture.

I will be the first to say that much of the creative potency has fallen from mainstream radio & TV but I blame the money > creativity mentality.

"Without freedom, there can be no creativity, and no art." | Bruce Lee | 1940–1973

[Chris]

We should break this down even further.

East Coast Rap - old school - good rap
West Coast Rap - old school - good rap
East coast rap - good rap
West coast rap - good rap

Dirty south rap - shite

[thebuescherman]

I think some of you are still mixed up over what makes music music. Rap is definitely a simplistic form of music. I hate to say it, but it is music. Same with a lot of heavy metal and all that stuff. Screaming into a mic and playing a bunch of loud chords is pretty much on the same level as rap, but still music. If you're in the mindset that classical music is the only music, you're wrong. It's just the most complex music. I think we can all agree that the Verdi Requiem or Holst's Planets or more complex and require more talent to be played then ALL rap albums released in the last five years. But both are still music.

[Nemiroff]

Music. n. a: the science or art of ordering tones or sounds in succession, in combination, and in temporal relationships to produce a composition having unity and continuity b: vocal, instrumental, or mechanical sounds having rhythm, melody, or harmony. Well, rap seems to fit that definition. I think the ones who think "rap isn't music" are using the second definition--2 a: an agreeable sound.

perhaps its just your dictionary, but i believe that music should be more then just a repetition of the same notes over and over again with no change. not even switching the octave in which those notes are played, that is just a basic, or not so basic, beat.

This has nothing to do with agreeable or disagreable, if you had been reading my posts at all you would have seen that, do you really assume i like all the other forms of music, classical, rock, jazz, blues, ska, and country at the same time and i have some specific bias against rap and only rap? i dont like many of those styles but i still see them as music.

Nemiroff .. whats wrong with simply accepting you don't like rap ? What is the purpose of being a bigot & saying rap isn't music. You sound like a rap side of the coin bigot saying folk inst music or chanting isn't music . Its really not for you or me to dictate what is & isn't music .. Each to their own, music like all art forms is all about change & taking chances, some ideas stick others are just a flash in the pan. step back look @ the bigger picture.

Chin-up: do you even read my posts, or are you just making stupid assumptions based upon the title of this thread?

because if you did read my posts you would have seen that there are many rappers that i like and respect. I'm saying its not music because i feel that it has been wrongfully classified. And how is it bigotry to call something poetry, because if you had been reading you would have read that i have been trying to call it that.

are you saying that music is somehow better then poetry?

The definition of music is subjective, but there are certain things that all can agree on are not music. talking is not music, rhyming on its own is not music, a simple non changing beat is not music, combine all 3 of those and you have just about every element of rap except for the inclusion of an R&B style chorus.

Anything else, no matter how dull and quiet, or loud and raw screaming, is music, a beat to keep the pace, along with melody, and music that changes, slows down, jumps up or down an octave, speeds up, adds an instrument, and instrument stops, something creative, not just a boring repetative beat.

When i got into biggy, i also bought a Mace single, which had his single remixed in 3 different ways, and an instrumental. Try listening to a rap instrumental (just the "music" no words) and tell me that its music, you'll get bored by the 4th time the beat repeats itself, and that'll probably happen by 20 seconds tops into the track. If you take the words out of it rap literally has nothing left. ITS POETRY, and thats not degrading.

of course most of it is really really bad poetry, and i will not argue that i gravely dislike most rap....but thats a different topic and has nothing to do with me considering it not music, i'd rather listen to real rap then country or what we currently consider pop any day.

[shawmutt]

perhaps its just your dictionary, but i believe...

There's your main issue...confusing the actual definition of words to what you believe they should mean. Don't fret, you aren't alone...that seems to be an issue around here.

The definition of music is subjective

No, it's not. The definition of "good music" and "bad music" is certainly subjective, but music is music.

a beat to keep the pace, along with melody, and music that changes, slows down, jumps up or down an octave, speeds up, adds an instrument, and instrument stops, something creative, not just a boring repetative beat.

Not all of that is required for music.

Try listening to a rap instrumental...

It's called house music.

[Turismo2029]

Er, if there is a beat with talking over it, it's music, since there's a beat.

A beat is music.

Now that that's over, what's "good" music, is purely up to the listener.

EDIT: Also, all rap songs I've heard have SOME kind of tune, the rappers always use variation in their tone while rapping... so it's not just like they are "talking" over the beat anyway.

[Chris]

Quote by: shawmutt It's called house music.

uh, no its not. You need to learn your genre's

Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music | New Home on Techno.org

[shawmutt]

Quote by: Chris uh, no its not. You need to learn your genre's Ishkur's Guide to Electronic Music | New Home on Techno.org

Wow dude I've been schooled. Awesome site!

[Nemiroff]

Not all of it is required for music but some of it would be nice. The most I've seen is a brief pause in the best before it restarts, with a few exceptions, too few to make all of rap music.

Besides can you show me one source that defines a bare naked beat as music?

[shawmutt]

bare naked best as music

A bare naked beat? Do you mean drum music?

[Nemiroff]

no, a beat is repetative. unless you are drumming the same thing over and over again, there is a difference between beating a drum and a beat thats used to keep rythme.