Is rap music?

[bass12]

Yesterday, while Jeff Berlin was online, someone asked him what he thought about "rap music". Berlin replied that he did not consider rap "music" but rather "music entertainment". First of all, I don't know what that means. "Music entertainment"? Well, I kind of like my music to be entertaining. Now, I'm the first to admit that a lot of the rap out there is rubbish, but I do have respect for hip-hop in general and have always seen rap as a valid musical form. It seems that most people who object to the notion of rap as musically valid do so on two main grounds: the use of sampling and the presence of "speech" in place of singing. I have my own ideas about why this is nonsense but I'd like to hear what others have to say on the subject. So, any thoughts? Is rap, in your opinion, music?

[Jeff Martinez]

I think of it as "Contemporary Inner-City Beat/Slam Poetry". It is not music per se. It is a form of entertainment for some folks, and I'll give it credit as such. There are a lot of hip hop songs that incorporate music in the form of singing, or actual musicians perfoming, but the "rap" aspect of it is no more music than Vincent Price's contribution to the song "Thriller".

[Nevtendo]

So many arguments about this everywhere. People who don't understand hip-hop usually peg it as "not music." Whether you like it or not does not mean you can label something as music or not.

What is music? Hip-Hop is music in the sense that you listen to it and enjoy it (or not) just like any other type of music. It is just made in a different way. And people who have stereotypes on the genre being "gangster," or bad or rubbish really really need to stop listening to whats playing on the radio or from teenager's cars, because hip-hop is a movement that is much more than what you see in mainstream america.

Another thing people need to understand is that hip-hop is not exclusively music, but a cultural movement, a lifestyle, that includes music. It involves every aspect of art including dancing, graffiti art, DJing and MCing or rapping. And with all this comes people who abuse it and give it a bad name.

Hip hop started as a way for poor individuals in bad living conditions to uplift themselves and their community using things they found around the house because they couldn't afford traditional instruments. Using Records and mixers hip-hop turned into a musical melting pot, any genre would be expressed within hip-hop. And with this they started a musical revolution. But like most or all music, its been packaged and sold by recording companies to sell to mass audiences which is where you get the mainstream rappers that give hip-hop such a bad name.

If you look hard enough in the world of hip-hop, you will find some truely incredible music in there.

[Jeff Martinez]

Originally Posted by Nevtendo

...
What is music? Hip-Hop is music in the sense that you listen to it and enjoy it (or not) just like any other type of music. It is just made in a different way...

Quick question. Does that mean that the audiobook version "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking (to which I am currently listening) is music? Does that make Rush Limbaugh or Larry King musicians?

[Nevtendo]

Originally Posted by Jeff Martinez

Quick question. Does that mean that the audiobook version "A Brief History of Time" by Stephen Hawking (to which I am currently listening) is music? Does that make Rush Limbaugh or Larry King musicians?

Lol, my point is, music is what you make of it, and if you enjoy stephen hawking's "voice," so much i wouldn't stop you from listening to it.

This argument is much beyond hip-hop,
there are a lot of narrative pieces in 20th century classical music that many consider to not be music as well.

[D.Don]

Does it have a beat? Yes it does...

Hence, it's music!

D.Don

[T-Bird]

Hi.

I might have my descriptions mixed up, but isn't music described as making melodic waveform modulations and fluctuations or something like that.

I don't enjoy rap or hip-hop culture in general all that much, quite the contrary, but if rap isn't music, I guess that rock, blues, jazz, funk etc. ain't either.

Just my 0.02€
Sam

[Jeff Martinez]

Originally Posted by D.Don

Does it have a beat? Yes it does...

Hence, it's music!

D.Don

Sorry, but I'm on a roll as the Devil's Advocate today...

"The Tell-Tale Heart" by the great Edgar Allen Poe also has a beat, of sorts, when read correctly. Does this make it music, or just art?

[Jefenator]

Most of the big hip hop artists I've heard have a great deal of musical talent IMO. Snoop Dogg's sense of rhythm is absolutely incredible.

Is it music? Well, it's in my iPod and I consume it through headphones. I dig on it the same way I do the R&B, Jazz and Classical stuff. So for my purposes, yes, Rap is music.

I suspect that for every new style and sub-genre that's ever emerged, some have felt it not to be music and cited their own criteria as proof.

[Jim Campbell]

Originally Posted by Nevtendo

So many arguments about this everywhere. People who don't understand hip-hop usually peg it as "not music." Whether you like it or not does not mean you can label something as music or not.

What is music? Hip-Hop is music in the sense that you listen to it and enjoy it (or not) just like any other type of music. It is just made in a different way. And people who have stereotypes on the genre being "gangster," or bad or rubbish really really need to stop listening to whats playing on the radio or from teenager's cars, because hip-hop is a movement that is much more than what you see in mainstream america.

Another thing people need to understand is that hip-hop is not exclusively music, but a cultural movement, a lifestyle, that includes music. It involves every aspect of art including dancing, graffiti art, DJing and MCing or rapping. And with all this comes people who abuse it and give it a bad name.

Hip hop started as a way for poor individuals in bad living conditions to uplift themselves and their community using things they found around the house because they couldn't afford traditional instruments. Using Records and mixers hip-hop turned into a musical melting pot, any genre would be expressed within hip-hop. And with this they started a musical revolution. But like most or all music, its been packaged and sold by recording companies to sell to mass audiences which is where you get the mainstream rappers that give hip-hop such a bad name.

If you look hard enough in the world of hip-hop, you will find some truely incredible music in there.

cultural? give me a break.....i suppose spray painting other peoples property could be called art,pimps and crack dealers merely businessmen,and people too lazy to learn how to play can sample someone elses work,add a beat box,scream bitches and hoes into a mike while telling everyone about its great cultural message......getting shot a few times is just street cred dontcha know......

.....lots of great music was/is created in places with far worse conditions than east la.......cant afford instruments ....yeah right.....

[Jared Lash]

These kinds of threads always make me smile.

Originally Posted by Jeff Martinez

Sorry, but I'm on a roll as the Devil's Advocate today...

Well you aren't doing a very good job of it.

Your contention seems to be that it isn't music because rap isn't singing.

So does that mean a large percentage of Cake and Johnny Cash songs aren't music either? Or that a song that incorporates singing and rap is only music part of the time?

For that matter, if it's the lack of singing that makes it not be music, then what does that mean for bands that do instrumentals? Is YYZ therefore not music?

[Nevtendo]

Originally Posted by Jim Campbell

cultural? give me a break.....i suppose spray painting other peoples property could be called art,pimps and crack dealers merely businessmen,and people too lazy to learn how to play can sample someone elses work,add a beat box,scream bitches and hoes into a mike while telling everyone about its great cultural message......getting shot a few times is just street cred dontcha know......

.....lots of great music was/is created in places with far worse conditions than east la.......cant afford instruments ....yeah right.....

as if I didn't mention there was any bad side of it?
and as if there isn't any violence, drug usage and selling, vandalizing, demeaning women, crime, and plagiarism in
rock, punk, blues, jazz or funk music?
Jazz was notorious for being "brothel," music and having half its musicians being on drugs and wife beaters and what not.
Are you saying that Jazz music didn't have culture just because this stuff went on? Now Jazz is seen as the top of art music right up there with classical, and one of america's greatest inventions, but still all that negative stuff went on.

You are nitpicking negatives and magnifying it to try to cover up any positives there are.

[D.A.R.K.]

yes, it is music wether you like it or not.
if you can't tell, you are not listening.

[Muusers]

Well that seems a little short-sighted. That's just like saying that I don't like jazz because I don't like the complexity of some songs. There are many aspects of rap, just like in any other music genre. And of course rap is music entertainment, every form of music is entertainment...

Listen to this and tell me it isn't musical http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-a75f9ETtc4

And I'll stand by my answer!

[Jeff Martinez]

Originally Posted by TheBigO

These kinds of threads always make me smile.



Well you aren't doing a very good job of it.

Your contention seems to be that it isn't music because rap isn't singing.

So does that mean a large percentage of Cake and Johnny Cash songs aren't music either? Or that a song that incorporates singing and rap is only music part of the time?

For that matter, if it's the lack of singing that makes it not be music, then what does that mean for bands that do instrumentals? Is YYZ therefore not music?

That's only part of my argument. (Keep in mind, that this is all only my argument, and not necessarily my opinion)

You mention Cake and Johnny Cash. Last I checked, their work, while it may feature a lot of spoken lyrics, DOES feature original instrumental orchestrations that were written by them or for them, and performed by their own band. What I suggest is that rap pieces that are built on sampled music that was NOT written for use by the rap artist, AND that do not include a melodic lyrical presentation can not fit a definition of music any more than a talk-show that uses pre-recorded bumpers going in and out of commercial breaks.

[N8116B]

I just wish people would spell 'rap' the correct way.

While it is pronounced 'RAP' it is spelled 'CRAP' and the C is silent.

This is the only 'music' I cannot stand. But then I consider it more of a street poetry type of style and I am not a fan of poetry either.

[Pilgrim]

I am mindful of the fact that when the 1950's came around, many adults didn't consider rock & roll to be music. Given that perspective, of course it's music. Think of songs like Blondie's "Rapture" from 1981, which is mostly rap, starting here.....

Fab Five Freddie told me everybody's high
DJ's spinnin' are savin' my mind
Flash is fast, Flash is cool
Francois sez fas, Flashe' no do
And you don't stop, sure shot
Go out to the parking lot
And you get in your car and you drive real far
And you drive all night and then you see a light
And it comes right down and lands on the ground
And out comes a man from Mars
And you try to run but he's got a gun
And he shoots you dead and he eats your head
And then you're in the man from Mars
You go out at night, eatin' cars
You eat Cadillacs, Lincolns too
Mercuries and Subarus
And you don't stop, you keep on eatin' cars
Then, when there's no more cars
You go out at night and eat up bars where the people meet
Face to face, dance cheek to cheek
One to one, man to man
Dance toe to toe
Don't move too slow, 'cause the man from Mars
Is through with cars, he's eatin' bars
Yeah, wall to wall, door to door, hall to hall
He's gonna eat 'em all
Rapture, be pure
Take a tour, through the sewer
Don't strain your brain, paint a train
You'll be singin' in the rain
I said don't stop, do punk rock
Well now you see what you wanna be
Just have your party on TV
'Cause the man from Mars won't eat up bars when the TV's on
And now he's gone back up to space
Where he won't have a hassle with the human race
And you hip-hop, and you don't stop
Just blast off, sure shot
'Cause the man from Mars stopped eatin' cars and eatin' bars
And now he only eats guitars, get up!


However.......rap today happens to be a type of music I dislike, and one in which I often find the message, wording and themes to be socially repulsive and distasteful. If rap is intended to be protest music, I thought the singers from Woody Guthrie up through the 70's presented their protests much more tastefully, musically and effectively.

[bass12]

Originally Posted by Jeff Martinez

That's only part of my argument. (Keep in mind, that this is all only my argument, and not necessarily my opinion)

You mention Cake and Johnny Cash. Last I checked, their work, while it may feature a lot of spoken lyrics, DOES feature original instrumental orchestrations that were written by them or for them, and performed by their own band. What I suggest is that rap pieces that are built on sampled music that was NOT written for use by the rap artist, AND that do not include a melodic lyrical presentation can not fit a definition of music any more than a talk-show that uses pre-recorded bumpers going in and out of commercial breaks.

Does this mean that an instrumental cover version by a band wouldn't be considered music? What about West African drumming ensembles or Brazilian batucada - no lyrics, no harmony, not necessarily a "composition" by Western standards - would that not be considered music? And what about early Sugar Hill and Enjoy! recordings - rap which incorporated a live band recreating parts of other songs ("covers", as it were)?

[Jim Campbell]

Originally Posted by Nevtendo

as if I didn't mention there was any bad side of it?
and as if there isn't any violence, drug usage and selling, vandalizing, demeaning women, crime, and plagiarism in
rock, punk, blues, jazz or funk music?
Jazz was notorious for being "brothel," music and having half its musicians being on drugs and wife beaters and what not.
Are you saying that Jazz music didn't have culture just because this stuff went on? Now Jazz is seen as the top of art music right up there with classical, and one of america's greatest inventions, but still all that negative stuff went on.

You are nitpicking negatives and magnifying it to try to cover up any positives there are.

i think you'll find that most serious jazz players actually knew how to play instruments,usually with classical or like training............in other words the players had talent but also did the hard work necessary to play at that level ........this work ethic seems to be absent in the hip hop crowd,and gittin rich or die tryin seems to be the message......

the environs of the jazz guys reflected the social mores of the times they played in ......in nyc for instance ones cabaret card could be pulled for even a minor infraction......try to do a little reading
before you make your case.....

magnifying nit picking negatives ?????? a silent c huh wish id thotta that i just call it c-rap

[phxlbrmpf]

A friend of mine says he considers rap "spoken word with a percussive background". Not that I agree, but I think it's a pretty cool term he came up with.

Many people argue that music needs at least rhythm and melody and that rhythm alone doesn't cut it. Still, you can't deny that speech, too, has a certain melody/intonation to it (which is hard to pinpoint using standard notation, I give you that). If our speech didn't have intonation, we'd all sound like robots and you couldn't tell statements from questions in many languages.