Taking Sides: Rap vs. Rock

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.

Lemme say I prefer rock to rap; That rap makes me feel uncomortable sometimes since it seems to me that most of it articulates an utter disregard for other human beings. And I can't dig that, except for when I'm out doing over liquor stores.

Anyway, isn't rap rascist? Put a white boy on stage and get him to rap about whacking nigga's and see what happens. It's a toughie this one - maybe it actually comes down to personal opinion and there is no right answer. Or maybe all rap sucks shit.

b-but you can compare both!

Hip-hop as your ignorant selves know it is in EXACTLY the same place rock was in the 80s...industry-heavily-promoted-lame-ass-artists who all sound the same, all conveying a bulls^&* "image" that glorifies bulls^&* stuff..cars, money, doing drugs, women-as-sex-objects, etc.

"All About the Benjamins" today = "Dr. Feelgood" then...which is funny to consider, since hip-hop as a style of music is about 20 years younger than rock, and, let's see 1980s - 2000s = 20 years!

For those of you who feel the way you do about hip-hop, I suggest you take a quick listen to the work of some of the amazingly talented hip-hop musicians you DON'T get to hear on eMpTyV, such as Latyrx, Blackalicious, De La Soul, El-P/Company Flow, Michael Franti (formerly of Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprosy, which included 8-string guitarist Charlie Hunter) and his band Spearhead, The Roots, Black Eyed Peas, Jurassic Five, Tribe Called Quest, Mantronix, Boombip and Doseone, Quasimodo, Mos Def and Talib Kweli, Common, Outkast, Nappy Roots, Abstract Tribe Unique. Hell, even listen to one of the largest selling hip-hop artists ever, Lauryn Hill, and tell me she doesn't have a positive socially-conscious message.

Imagine that we were in the 80s right now. Imagine saying, "well, since all the rock songs I hear these days are about women-as-sex-objects, using-drugs, having-alot-of-money, being-a-badass, that means ALL rock music must be stupid and retarded and exactly like this 0.00001% of it that I've been exposed to". And you would sound like an ignorant fool(kinda like you do now). And we all know that, in the 80s underground, there were amazingly talented and creative rock/metal bands such as Fishbone, The Pixies, Faith No More, REM, Living Colour, Metallica (yes, they were actually a good band once), Black Flag, Minutemen, Slayer...all of which spanning a huge variety of sounds and styles...very similar to today's underground hip-hop artists.

As for the retarded "rap vs. rock"...I chose simply "music".

I'd also like to point out that we live in an exciting time for music, especially when you're not so ignorant as to compartmentalize all the beautiful diversity possible. I'll be the first to tell you that the "rap/rock" movement sucks, but most of the most exciting music made now or recently fuses elements of hip-hop and rock-n-roll...and I'm not talking about this Limpkin Bizpark Disturbededed bulls^&*, I'm talking about those who fuse hip-hop and rock in musical and innovative ways...from the Gorillaz project to Buckethead recording with Invisible Skratch Picklz to the Mos Def/Bernie Worrell/Dr. Know/Doug Wimbish/Will Calhoun thing to Candiria to the painfully-now-defunct Rage Against the Machine to DJ Disk playing melodic turntablisms whilst jamming onstage with Primus to my own progressive/funk/rap/metal band Green Theory.

I learned once in one of my college psych classes that ignorance and laziness combined are one of the primary causes of "fear of change". I see a whole helluvalot of ignorance and laziness in some of the posts in this thread. Join evolution in progress, or be bitter and afraid. The choice is yours.

For what it's worth, I'm listening to Fishbone's "Reality of My Surroundings" right now, and plan on sticking in Deltron 3030 next. ;)

This is where your argument falls down for me...or is it the mention of Gorillaz?

oh, gorillaz absolutely kills the arg!

That would be Mr. Albarn, from a certain collective called Blur and these days a kiss-of-death joysucker.