Sorry, repeat of an earlier post on the boy, but um - just another opinion. Like I said, I'm into 14th century pilgrimage chants, welsh piping, or ancient Baltic choral pieces, so my commentary on modern rap is a bit dated.
I love Rap and RnB music! So much I even make my own raps, it does take a certain extent of skills as you need to have the voice, I am not talking about quick MC Raps, but I make music like 50 Cent, his pace and to his beats! If it did not require talent, everyone would be big like 50 Cent on rap, but only a few lucky people are!
it takes talent, not everyone can rap and make it sound good. For the people who don't like rap, its just their taste of music.
I am currently having a love affair with the late, great J Dilla. 'Nothin Like This' is a beautiful song.
Never been a big fan of rap music and I don't listen to it normally. But sometimes I like putting on some rap when I go jogging dmx for example has some good pump up music.
I like all kinds of music. If the song has a good rhythm or beat along with some decent lyrics then I'm all ears.
http://www.illestlyrics.com/Complexity/My_Case_For_Hip_Hop_Music/ I was inspired by this post to write a little rant. It was actually intended for this thread, but I thought my "hip hop" site would be interested.
Skins, I am sorry to say it so bluntly, and of course it's just my opinion, so please feel free to tell me to piss off. But I do not equate vomiting on the page as the same thing as poetry, and I find most of what I see just that, vomiting out one's inner demons in lyrics, confusing rage with art, or even emotive power. That it is being equated to poetry is only a sign we have gone to hell in mass culture, not that we have found some new artistic lifesource.
Listen to Papoose (last verse) : http://www.zshare.net/audio/5024303f4e4c4e/ it's computer related, so you will like it
I understand what you're trying to say and definitely agree about the declining culture (not for your reason, of course) There has been tons of horrible poetry as well. People complaining and looking for sympathy without a real point. I think, you would be naive to assume that there isn't a massive amount of good writing in hip hop though. And not to put you on the spot, but if you would care to share your own taste in music. If you consider any of it an "art of the mind".
It isn't an art of the mind I am talking about. I define art as a generous act - meaning, it is intended to pass on something transcendent to others, and as such, actually, I would call it rather an art of the species; that which taps the primordial in us and helps us to own more of what we are. If it isn't generous in this way, it is masturbation, in my book. I have seen plenty of this in many fields - in avant garde theater back east and in Chicago, in much of deconstructionist literature and film, in rants labelled as poetry in music. It isn't possible to give you all my taste in music, as it is extremely eclectic. And I am extremely accepting of many kinds of art, my taste or not, so long as I feel there was a reason this was a public thing, a shared thing. A few examples, in no order whatsoever as to preference would include pilgrimage chants and "sublimated" folk music from the 13th-14th century and "ancient" music; late Mozart and Beethoven, as well as so many others from the baroque, classic, romantic, and beyond; love Rachmaninoff, Schubert, Strauss (and, yes, Orff, when I'm outside, having busted my ass in a field or a cedar swamp, I've had a few, and there is a storm in the offing); Arcadian, "old-timey;" Celtic pipes of all kinds; pipes and winds from many parts of the world; national choral pieces, as in the Baltics; women's choral pieces; African music, traditional and modern (such as "liberation" music of South Africa). Music of Central and South America. Shakuhachi. God, so much more. What I don't appreciate is masturbatory crap posing as "art" simply because it shocks by its bile.