Quote:
Originally posted by Vaskez:
Rap is a subset of hip-hop. Hip-hop is the culture that includes rap, some R&B, MC-ing etc.
I feel sorry for you suckers missing out on some of the best lyrics this planet has seen by umbrella-ing all rap as crap. Naive and short-sighted. Oh well.
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Begin rant.
Rap is good. I really like the Roots, Madvillain, Public Enemy etc.
Hip-hop, as a culture, is problematic in my opinion. I appreciate the fact that it provides role models and has great artisitic merit (as in poetry-meets-zeitgeist). I can even appreciate the way it alters language--for better or worse, a language which doesn't evolve and adopt is a dying language (take that, Académie française!).
But I cannot respect the way hip-hop (often) glorifies the very aspects of modern, innercity life which keep people living in permanently depressed conditions. People like ODB (I'm not sorry he's gone) who are role models and who tell people they should go out and have 10 kids with different mothers because that's what men do. ODB was an influential clown. Contrast him with RZA, who is smart and talented and, from what I know, a better role-model.
Hip-hop which raps about education as being stupid or a waste of time is, IMHO, 'naive and shortsighted.' The difference between hip-hop and other music cultures is the seriousness with which people take it and the fact that many fans are quite poor. Thus hip-hop culture has a responsibility to be more responsible.
End rant.
(edit: spelling)
[ 04-03-2005, 08:23 AM: Message edited by: Mr. Mopery ]