Taking Sides: Rap vs. Rock

i know that this shit is over, but i just notcied this: what the fuck?

what 'message' do combustible edison deliver at all?

easy listening pastiche? wearing 30's evening gowns?

using cigarette holders? man i cant see any fucking message there.......what a weirdo

For myself, I dunno where I stand in this discussion. One one hand, I really like rap. On the other hand, much/most of the lyrics are really abhorrent. I don't think there's many people here who disagree with that. But like the rest of us I just ignore it. But in the end I think we have to face the music: All of those messages aren't for naught. I don't think rap straightforwardly and uncomplicatedly _causes_ drug use, violence etc; I do think it desensitizes and normalizes that kind of stuff, so that it's more easily accepted by the impressionable.

So no, I don't agree with the media stereotype of rap as a one-dimensional monster that directly causes violence and drug use and mistreatment of women. But I'm disturbed at the message it sends. I think the alarm bells really started when I watched the Hype Williams film with Nas and DMX, _Belly_. It wasn't the _glorification_ of crime that bothered me so much as the normalization. The way it was made to look quick and easy and a viable lifestyle. Sure, there were token attempts at making the story a moral fable, like the ending (and, laughably, Nas reading from a morality pamphlet entitled something like "Personal Betterment"), but they were easily overpowered by the ill-gotten glitz.

Maybe what shocks me most in some rap lyrics is an acceptance and shrugging-off of murder. That really goes too far.

- why is that image of toughness and oppression among the rappers. C'mon slavery was abolished a long time ago. -freestyle? Jajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajaja -Big pants.....what a waste of clothing -there's no real music behind the voices. most of the times the samples are not original -no instruments played

rock is the best and will always be

Yup, I see him everyday.

As someone who spends a lot of time with people who listen to and exclusively perform classical music, I have no choice but to laugh at this sentence.

Limp Bizkit, anyone?

Me, Cory, the two that aren't actually miked up onstage, and the rest of the band would just like to thank Whowants for his intelligent and reasoned defense of us. Slipknot especially agree with his point about the degeneration of women, and he will no doubt be happy to know that Gloria Steinem will be supporting us on our next tour. A tour full of beats that have never been used before, and real balls.

That would be pretty painful, I'd think.

That said, I also love and respect Hip Hop, and I'll easily admit that for the past fifteen years or so, it's been considerably more creative and less stagnant than Rock.

And anyway, isn't it all the same thing, when it gets right down to it? What did Run DMC say they were the kings of again?

We all know improv is best.

Can someone stick in something smart assed here?

I'm also a lot more likely to have "grown up to" that kinda music.

This seems to presume one of two things, maybe both:

1) The lyrics rather than the music matters first and foremost for you -- which is just fine and all, but are you sure that's what you're claiming?

2) That somehow your preferred sources of influence are themselves 'isolated' from things non-male, non-white and non-European in the creation of their music which speaks to you, which I find a rather tricky claim at best.

2- It's 2:24 here- by "sources of influence", do you mean the groups I listen to? I wouldn't say they're *isolated* from these things (neither, thank God, am I), but the way they absorb them is usually nearer to the way that I absorb them.

This isn't an absolute thing, of course- matter of fact, I can relate to Aretha Franklin (who is as far removed from myself as anyone could possibly be, from a socio-cultural, racial and age standpoint) a lot more than, say, Crispian Mills (who isn't).

Mind you, I don't view these as particularly unbridgable gaps. As you know, I listen to a lot of music from outside my own immediate culture and often relate to that better (in the ways that matter to me) than I do music made by people in my demographic.

Maybe it's just a matter of emphasis (commonality v. difference)?

I know I'm all over the place here, but lemme just say: I love rap, you may not. I don't care about what you like, you don't care what I like.

Neuromancer is bitching that rap teaches hate, and at the same time, she/he is turning a fucking music discussion into a hate-fest.

Peace.

But it sure as hell beats out an ignorant piece of shit who can spell SUCKS right

L8ER.