FA+
Shop
People Who Say "I Don't Like Rap and Hip-Hop"
10 years ago
...and also people who go a step further and insult this type of music by saying it's just "speaking over a beat", please, not only is this WAY overly simplistic, it just makes you sound ignorant. It's really clear that you have not actually sat and listened to enough rap and understand where it originated from, and you have probably only been hearing the more modern mainstream rap which has distanced itself from its origins.
I get it. Rap isn't for everyone, and if you don't like it, that's perfectly fine, but this is more calling out people who have listened to only a few mainstream rap songs and decided that that was enough for them to know they "hate" it, and sometimes even go one step further and say that it glorifies crime; an even more ignorant statement.
There is in fact a trend in recent years that has turned hip-hop and rap into basically about getting money and getting sex, and I have heard from many rap artists that this type of rap abandons the very essence of its origin. Rap originated from oppressed communities, particularly black communities in New York City. It was the one type of music at the time that spoke to people who lived in those oppressed situations. It was the one type of music that spoke about their reality, that made them feel understood, that they were not alone. Going into about the 80s, you started getting the really "violent" sounding stuff, but people mistake this as glorifying rather than, it's expressing a reality that is invisible to mainstream America. This is KEY to understanding rap music. Yah, it isn't pretty. Ask someone like me if I enjoyed having to live it growing up.
With all the mainstream rap now that is more about making money and the like, I recommend you turn to non-mainstream rap. There is a lot of really good rap music you can find that is amazing, both musically and in the lyrics. You can't listen to rap and expect to hear the same things you hear in country music for example. You have to come to understand the world we live in.
There are many great rappers. The three I like listening to are Immortal Technique, Nake Nula Waln, and Nataanii Means. I strongly recommend listening to Immortal Technique. The topics of which he raps about are not pretty things, but think about the fact that they speak to us who are, or have lived in these worlds invisible to the mainstream, and even those who haven't been a part of this world enjoy this music. Give rap music a chance and see it through another lens. Do not judge it like you do with other genres of music.
I get it. Rap isn't for everyone, and if you don't like it, that's perfectly fine, but this is more calling out people who have listened to only a few mainstream rap songs and decided that that was enough for them to know they "hate" it, and sometimes even go one step further and say that it glorifies crime; an even more ignorant statement.
There is in fact a trend in recent years that has turned hip-hop and rap into basically about getting money and getting sex, and I have heard from many rap artists that this type of rap abandons the very essence of its origin. Rap originated from oppressed communities, particularly black communities in New York City. It was the one type of music at the time that spoke to people who lived in those oppressed situations. It was the one type of music that spoke about their reality, that made them feel understood, that they were not alone. Going into about the 80s, you started getting the really "violent" sounding stuff, but people mistake this as glorifying rather than, it's expressing a reality that is invisible to mainstream America. This is KEY to understanding rap music. Yah, it isn't pretty. Ask someone like me if I enjoyed having to live it growing up.
With all the mainstream rap now that is more about making money and the like, I recommend you turn to non-mainstream rap. There is a lot of really good rap music you can find that is amazing, both musically and in the lyrics. You can't listen to rap and expect to hear the same things you hear in country music for example. You have to come to understand the world we live in.
There are many great rappers. The three I like listening to are Immortal Technique, Nake Nula Waln, and Nataanii Means. I strongly recommend listening to Immortal Technique. The topics of which he raps about are not pretty things, but think about the fact that they speak to us who are, or have lived in these worlds invisible to the mainstream, and even those who haven't been a part of this world enjoy this music. Give rap music a chance and see it through another lens. Do not judge it like you do with other genres of music.
Rap isn't a genre that I gravitate to, but Arrested Development was probably one of my favorite groups, and I liked the songs they made. And the best part is...they're still around!
Dissing rap is just a good way to sound highbrow anyway, heh heh...
Another recommendation: Jean Grae
Awesome journal!
It was carried out by centralizing radio stations throughout the 90s and then making executive decisions at the top all but forbidding songs they didn't WANT broadcast over the radio. So it'd be like if the only song of Psy's allowed to be heard by the masses pre-youtube was his anti-war anti-protest songs. That'd definitely taint any picture someone from outside the culture received of the music and the singer.
I'm not a consumer of the big ole 'hurfdurf white patriarchy it's all to keep non-whites down, racism is only racism when it's directed at non-whites because whiteness is a convenient myth' theory. But facts are facts. Rap was misrepresented and a certain subset popularized to mainstream specifically because it wasn't genuine music about poverty, prejudice and conspiracy. And then it became a meal ticket as that particular sliver of the romanticized culture received crazy income from the white suburbs.
They just turned the speakers up and played "I like big butts and I cannot lie" too loud for anything else to be heard.
http://megaran.com/
I got lucky-I used to help him run his sets. I was eight years old and hanging out in the DJ booth at clubs fetching records and working the lights. I even got to work in a few local strip clubs lol. I met the Beastie Boys (MCA was a really cool dude), Whodini, the Fat Boys, Jam Master J (also super cool-he hung out with us in the booth and spun records for hours) and LL Cool J.
I grew up listening to hip hop and rap and it's one of the main reasons why I love poetry. I think it's fantastic just how far the medium has come. You not only have it being mainstream but you've got genre's like nerdcore now. It's such an expressive medium and while I get that everyone has different tastes it's silly to 'hate' any particular genre-or stereotype everyone within it for whatever reason.