Taking Sides: Rap vs. Rock

Proper answer forthcoming maybe. I listen to more 'rock'. 'Rap' excites and interests me more.

(if someone wants to set up a del vs. keith thread based on this post that would be great, but i'm not doing it.)

Not sure about the Playa/Hater 'dynamic' cause it's not as if there's any actual argument going on, it's just a load of samey tracks on each "side"'s albums. It's produced a few cracking rhymes at either end of the division but for someone not totally invested in the culture it's a yawn.

Which of course raises another question - should people who listen to rap be expected to engage with hip-hop culture. And how critical should that engagement be? Worms -get back in that can....too laaaaate!

2. As I may not quite have got round to saying elsewhere, I suspect (but don't know) that taste is contingent - a matter of place and time and chance - rather than justifiable by any appeal to universal, non-historical grounds.

3. On that contingent basis (if basis it can be called), nobody will be surprised to hear that I would take 'rock' (for want of a better word) over 'rap' any day.

then clearly, you aren't a middle class white boy ;-)

Besides, how many rock artists are picking up a guitars in order to articulate the pleasures of their posh lifestyle? It's mostly lower- or middle-class kids as well. Their worldview -- including rage and anger, when applicable -- you can relate with and accept, but someone else's isn't valid, eh?

I don't understand how that point would work differently for rap and other pop genres. In my experience (which has nothing to do with rap), songwriting is almost always about making the next line rhyme all the time.

The bottom line is, and I haven't really been bothered to say this, but: your argument makes no sense and smacks of dad rock whining (not to mention it smacks of someone making a rather desperate attempt to rile people up, as you've so loved to do in the past, but it's amusing enough so we go on and pretend that's not what's occurring). As someone else previously pointed out: how does the rhyming thing make it differ from pop music or rock music? There are plenty of rap songs that don't feature nursery rhyme style lines, that don't scan the way you seem to believe they do, just as there are plenty of rock and pop songs that are nothing but Dr. Seuss writings. The attitude whinging still goes unanswered too: how does anger in rap and anger in rock differ? As was also previously pointed out, not too many rock artists are sitting and singing about how wonderful their lives are and how wonderful everyone around them is.

As I said, it's merely a different way to express the same sentiment, and your stereotyping of urban listeners borders, quite frankly, on blatant racism. But pass on some of the blunts you were talkin' about, I didn't mind that part. If only it was true.

I also don't believe hard work solved many people's problems. The correlation between hard work and success/prosperity seems to me a low one - a lot, if not most people who work hard all their lives are rewarded with an adequate standard of living and big side-orders of stress, fear and misery. I'm not saying there's a better way, and I'm not saying laziness gets you anywhere either but the quadruple-salary rewards of work are simply too unevenly distributed for me to embrace a simple work=unequivocal good outlook.

But more to the point, I listen to rap a fair bit and I simply don't recognise this lyrical world you're talking about. Possibly somebody who'd only heard "The Message" and "Gangsta's Paradise" might mistake the genre for one full of grim portraits of inner-city living and resentment at one's lot, but lyrically speaking most hip-hop today is a world beyond that. It's like saying all rock and roll is about fucking, except even less accurate.

Ironically, a big strain in hip-hop at the moment is dont-whine-to-me- I-worked-for-this rhymes (Puffy and Master P do a nice line in these, Jay-Z does much the same but more literarily). Their rags-to-riches stories are very very similar to some of your posts above.

and gentle readers , I do need to believe in something

BORN TO LOSE, LIVE TO WIN, OUT TO LUNCH

iF THERES EVA AN ILM PUB BRAWL - iM ROOTING FOR ALLY !!

You voted for a guy who loves hanging and guns, you yuppie fuckwit - well done !!

Musicians by nature are egotistical and lazy. Otherwise they'd have real jobs and not be singing about themselves. You've yet to answer the bloody question: how does what you're saying about rap make it different from any other form of music?

Get a grip. So you "lived in the ghetto" with the Latinos and Blacks. I AM Latino and I WAS on welfare. So get off it - quite frankly, I think you only flaunt that sort of thing if you're full of it anyhow. It is unfortunate that you are going for the wind up because it'd be such a fantastic thing if this was all someone's honest opinion. I couldn't say I'd love it but...it'd be much funnier that way. In a freaky way.

And hang on, which is it: are you old or young? Because if you are older, it contradicts something you already said...

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.

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

Well, what's that got to do with anything?? He's not in the Gorillaz, is he? Let's talk about 2-D!

(Yes, feel free to punch me. Everyone else does, but I just can't help myself...)

"Man, I was born in a dumpster and worked my way up to what I have! I let people walk all over me cause nothing gets at me! And, and I hug minorities, and adopt puppy dogs, and give ice cream to the homeless!!"

Plus most rappers are evidently just movie stars waitin' to happen (see the dope, fresh faces in that pic). I say, cut out the middleman! Send them straight from the streets to the silver screen!

This makes it sound like music from another century. Oh wait...

I am going to go eat a bowl of sick and jab myself repeatedly in the ear with a rusty fork.

I favor Bowl of Sick, personally.

(Man, that would be a GREAT band name!)

Its like saying Red is better than blue, it makes absolutely no sense.

Are you seriously saying that it's wrong to have a favorite color?

Yeah, that's pretty tolerant, man...

Much like your internet posting, Sledge!

-- TOE-KNEE IM A PLAYER THAT YOU LOVE TO HATE,GOT UR GIRL SUCKIN DICK ON VIDEOTAPE

This may be the greatest thing I've ever read.

How is it that all the pro-rock people cite Slipknot as an exemplary rock band? It seems an odd choice, to say the least.

Elsewhere on the internet:

person 1: "Personnaly, I like rock more than rap, the only rap thing I really like is Run DMC, 'cause it's the only rap group that doesn't have those ghetto rimes that don't make sense or they make a very forced rime."

person 2: "Also, I forgot 2 very important rap bands:
Korn, love Coming Undone and Freak On A Leash."

person 3: "Korn is not a rap band."

person 4: "You're right, and you're wrong. Korn isn't a rap band, they're New Wave, which is a band that mixes rap and rock lyrics in their music. I'm not a huge fan of Korn, I'm just a fan of some of their songs."