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What Is Your View On Rap/Hip-Hop?

#361
petrus61 said:
Seriously?

It might be an issue where you live, and it certainly isn't exclusive to rap. Loud music is loud music. If someone is violating a noise ordinance, call the cops or file a complaint with the senior citizens housing board.
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It's not just the volume. I don't even know what that "instrument" is supposed to be down there rattling all the hardware on the outside of cars that deafen me in traffic and wake me up at night when they drive by on my street. It's not bass guitar, it's not kick drum... what is it? It's just gratuitous blasts of low frequency noise, and rap/hip hop is the only genre that uses it. I can't imagine a mindset where farty low end overpowering everything else would be considered sounding good. It seems to me just a oneupmanship arms race of wattage and low frequency. It's the attitude of the guys (and it's always guys) who put these systems in their cars where they don't care about (and possibly enjoy) the irritation that it produces in most everyone around them that predisposes me to discount the whole genre as noise pollution.

Hey! You kids! Get off my lawn, dagnabbit! :D
 
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#362
ggunn said:
It's not just the volume. I don't even know what that "instrument" is supposed to be down there rattling all the hardware on the outside of cars that deafen me in traffic and wake me up at night when they drive by on my street. It's not bass guitar, it's not kick drum... what is it? It's just gratuitous blasts of low frequency noise, and rap/hip hop is the only genre that uses it. I can't imagine a mindset where farty low end overpowering everything else would be considered sounding good. It seems to me just a oneupmanship arms race of wattage and low frequency. It's the attitude of the guys (and it's always guys) who put these systems in their cars where they don't care about (and possibly enjoy) the irritation that it produces in most everyone around them that predisposes me to discount the whole genre as noise pollution.

Hey! You kids! Get off my lawn, dagnabbit! :D
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"Roland credits the design of the TR-808 to two of its employees: Mr. Nakamura, who was responsible for the analog voice circuits, and Mr. Matsuoka, who developed the software.[2] The Roland TR-808 was produced between 1980 and 1983 by the Roland Corporation, with approximately 12,000 units manufactured in that time.[6] Immediately after its appearance it was rendered essentially obsolete by the superior sound and ability to sample of the Linn LM-1. However, the much cheaper price of the TR-808 ($1,195 versus $5,000 for the Linn LM-1) and a distinctive sound (in particular its deep bass kick) made the drum machine popular among hip hop artists several years after it ceased production.[3] By the end of the 1980s, the TR-808 was popular within electronic music and hip hop genres. As with many analogue electronic musical instruments, a great deal of effort was put into sampling the sounds of the TR-808 for use in modern devices; however some producers consider this unsatisfactory and unduly static and digital.[7] Demand for the real 808 sound is so great that street prices for a used machine have remained close to what the cost of a new TR-808 was upon its initial release in 1980 when adjusted for inflation. The 808 also had a significant impact on dance music due to its ability to program rhythm and drum sounds separately and store up to 32 patterns, which enabled it to become a serious compositional tool.[8] The kick drum of the 808 is little more than a bridged T-network sine oscillator, a low-pass filter and a VCA[clarification needed]. The output works continuously and that makes it possible to produce an overdub of the same signal even after 32 steps in a medium tempo. The kick is a triggered CV/Gate pulse that is added into the audio signal. The typical flattening of the decay directly after the attack is because of the audio design of the oscillator and appears like a compression.[9]"
 
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#363
petrus61 said:
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"Roland credits the design of the TR-808 to two of its employees: Mr. Nakamura, who was responsible for the analog voice circuits, and Mr. Matsuoka, who developed the software.[2] The Roland TR-808 was produced between 1980 and 1983 by the Roland Corporation, with approximately 12,000 units manufactured in that time.[6] Immediately after its appearance it was rendered essentially obsolete by the superior sound and ability to sample of the Linn LM-1. However, the much cheaper price of the TR-808 ($1,195 versus $5,000 for the Linn LM-1) and a distinctive sound (in particular its deep bass kick) made the drum machine popular among hip hop artists several years after it ceased production.[3] By the end of the 1980s, the TR-808 was popular within electronic music and hip hop genres. As with many analogue electronic musical instruments, a great deal of effort was put into sampling the sounds of the TR-808 for use in modern devices; however some producers consider this unsatisfactory and unduly static and digital.[7] Demand for the real 808 sound is so great that street prices for a used machine have remained close to what the cost of a new TR-808 was upon its initial release in 1980 when adjusted for inflation. The 808 also had a significant impact on dance music due to its ability to program rhythm and drum sounds separately and store up to 32 patterns, which enabled it to become a serious compositional tool.[8] The kick drum of the 808 is little more than a bridged T-network sine oscillator, a low-pass filter and a VCA[clarification needed]. The output works continuously and that makes it possible to produce an overdub of the same signal even after 32 steps in a medium tempo. The kick is a triggered CV/Gate pulse that is added into the audio signal. The typical flattening of the decay directly after the attack is because of the audio design of the oscillator and appears like a compression.[9]"
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Like I said, just gratuitous blasts of low frequency noise.
 
#365
ggunn said:
It's not just the volume. I don't even know what that "instrument" is supposed to be down there rattling all the hardware on the outside of cars that deafen me in traffic and wake me up at night when they drive by on my street. It's not bass guitar, it's not kick drum... what is it? It's just gratuitous blasts of low frequency noise, and rap/hip hop is the only genre that uses it. I can't imagine a mindset where farty low end overpowering everything else would be considered sounding good. It seems to me just a oneupmanship arms race of wattage and low frequency. It's the attitude of the guys (and it's always guys) who put these systems in their cars where they don't care about (and possibly enjoy) the irritation that it produces in most everyone around them that predisposes me to discount the whole genre as noise pollution.

Hey! You kids! Get off my lawn, dagnabbit! :D
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Where I live I sometimes get across a white guy wearing rap/hip hop kind of cloths and listen to his rap music through his cell phone without headphone/earphone so everyone can hear the "music" man ... this is hard to not punch them.
 
#368
Just my 2 cents:

When "Rapper's Delight" came out, I thought, "They're rhyming to a record!" I thought of it as a novelty at best (this is before I found out that the music was a nearly note-for-note cover, not the original recording).

Then came Kurtis Blow and others who were using a lot of original music and clever rhymes with deft delivery that was mostly about rockin' the party.

Then Run-DMC changed the game with more aggressive rock guitar added, and that classic two-man "tag-team" style of rapping.

Then KRS-One, Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, Arrested Development, A Tribe Called Quest, The Fugees, The Roots, etc. ushered in an era of creativity and substance that IMO eclipsed all other genres at the time.

Today, popular hip-hop reflects popular music in general - very little of it is as good as it used to be. As folks in the know like to say, "You have to look for the good stuff."

I think it's great that guys who didn't have the time or resources to put bands together and haul a bunch or gear around found a way to rock house parties, block parties and small clubs with "two turntables and a microphone." Like it or not, it was indeed the start of something very big. The skills shown by the top MCs and DJs rival that of many top musicians, just in different ways.

All in all I say, along with Naughty By Nature, "Hip Hop Hooray!"
 
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#369
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#371
Funk$tar said:
I just want to clarify that I am a fan of real MC's from the "Golden Age" of Hip-Hop and not that stuff you hear on the radio people call, "Rap." I appreciate the art form or any art form that expresses one's feelings and what not, but I don't appreciate when a newer generation of rappers completely dismantles an art form by insulting woman, cursing every 5 seconds, discussing the same controversial subject in every song, and so much more. I know a lot of you bass players on here are older and may not understand the art form at all, but to people like me who are from impoverished areas where dealing drugs and killing is encouraged, Hip-Hop was a way for some people living in those areas to relate to one another and escape that reality together. Just like any other genre of music, Hip-Hop has it's artists that helped define that genre and that are still trying to keep it going, while other people simply take it and mold it into a way to vent their feelings about ridiculous crap like Sex, Drugs, and...well mainly those two. I appreciate Hip-Hop and hope others can do the same and learn not to judge from what they hear on the radio, but from what they hear from the past MC's who actually were trying to tell their stories and true feelings about all things meaningful.
Well anyways, what's your guy's view of Rap/Hip-Hop?
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I think modern rap should be taken out behind the woodshed and shot in order to put it out of our misery.
 
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#372
squidtastic said:
You might as well call all sorts of other sounds "gratuitous", then.

I'm not a fan of super-loud 808 pumping through car speakers, but neither am I a fan of piercing, screeching guitar solos or machine-gun double bass drums (etc.). Nothing special about the 808 WRT gratuitousness.
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Sure there is. It's not just a matter of taste; no component of any other music I have ever heard makes such a nuisance of itself to everyone else around the source as does that particular part of hip hop. It seems to me that to be annoying to as many people as possible is rather the point of it.
 
#373
ggunn said:
Sure there is. It's not just a matter of taste; no component of any other music I have ever heard makes such a nuisance of itself to everyone else around the source as does that particular part of hip hop. It seems to me that to be annoying to as many people as possible is rather the point of it.
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You don't listen to much dubstep then?
 
#374
ggunn said:
Sure there is. It's not just a matter of taste; no component of any other music I have ever heard makes such a nuisance of itself to everyone else around the source as does that particular part of hip hop. It seems to me that to be annoying to as many people as possible is rather the point of it.
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The point of it is basically the same as with, e.g., guitar shredding. It boils down to "Please pay attention to me!" The fact that it annoys some people is just a consequence of that, and whether it annoys someone depends on who's listening.

I grew up in the Oakland area. I remember when those mini trucks with maxi speakers started sprouting up all over in the '80s. Bass was loud as hell, but I still saw some people giving signs of approval and even walking up to the trucks to talk (er, shout). I also remember the '70s when I frequently heard hard rock blaring out of Camaros. Mids/highes were loud as hell -- those frequencies actually hurt my ears more than 808 freq's.

I get that you feel there's something different about a certain type of rap. Can you at least acknowledge that it's a subjective rather than objective assessment?
 
#377
HaMMerHeD said:
...I'm not talking about rap-metal bands. I'm talking about actual rappers and actual metallers collaborating and coming up with some amazing stuff together...
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If you don't have it already, find a copy of the soundtrack to the movie "Judgement Night". Movie was not so hot but the music blew me away.

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#380
ggunn said:
Sure there is. It's not just a matter of taste; no component of any other music I have ever heard makes such a nuisance of itself to everyone else around the source as does that particular part of hip hop. It seems to me that to be annoying to as many people as possible is rather the point of it.
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You don't like thumping subs? That's fine, but don't think that those frequencies are limited to hip-hop. You can start the blame game with Jamaican reggae recordings. Then look at the disco 12"s of the 70s whose grooves allowed for lower frequencies to be reproduced on vinyl without the needle jumping all over the place. Then there's the techno of groups like LFO and the jungle and drum & bass of the early-to-mid 90s and, of course the more recent dubstep - not to mention the house music from the mid 80s onward.
 
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