Taking Sides: Rap vs. Rock

Proper answer forthcoming maybe. I listen to more 'rock'. 'Rap' excites and interests me more.

(if someone wants to set up a del vs. keith thread based on this post that would be great, but i'm not doing it.)

Not sure about the Playa/Hater 'dynamic' cause it's not as if there's any actual argument going on, it's just a load of samey tracks on each "side"'s albums. It's produced a few cracking rhymes at either end of the division but for someone not totally invested in the culture it's a yawn.

Which of course raises another question - should people who listen to rap be expected to engage with hip-hop culture. And how critical should that engagement be? Worms -get back in that can....too laaaaate!

2. As I may not quite have got round to saying elsewhere, I suspect (but don't know) that taste is contingent - a matter of place and time and chance - rather than justifiable by any appeal to universal, non-historical grounds.

3. On that contingent basis (if basis it can be called), nobody will be surprised to hear that I would take 'rock' (for want of a better word) over 'rap' any day.

then clearly, you aren't a middle class white boy ;-)

Besides, how many rock artists are picking up a guitars in order to articulate the pleasures of their posh lifestyle? It's mostly lower- or middle-class kids as well. Their worldview -- including rage and anger, when applicable -- you can relate with and accept, but someone else's isn't valid, eh?

I don't understand how that point would work differently for rap and other pop genres. In my experience (which has nothing to do with rap), songwriting is almost always about making the next line rhyme all the time.

The bottom line is, and I haven't really been bothered to say this, but: your argument makes no sense and smacks of dad rock whining (not to mention it smacks of someone making a rather desperate attempt to rile people up, as you've so loved to do in the past, but it's amusing enough so we go on and pretend that's not what's occurring). As someone else previously pointed out: how does the rhyming thing make it differ from pop music or rock music? There are plenty of rap songs that don't feature nursery rhyme style lines, that don't scan the way you seem to believe they do, just as there are plenty of rock and pop songs that are nothing but Dr. Seuss writings. The attitude whinging still goes unanswered too: how does anger in rap and anger in rock differ? As was also previously pointed out, not too many rock artists are sitting and singing about how wonderful their lives are and how wonderful everyone around them is.

As I said, it's merely a different way to express the same sentiment, and your stereotyping of urban listeners borders, quite frankly, on blatant racism. But pass on some of the blunts you were talkin' about, I didn't mind that part. If only it was true.

I also don't believe hard work solved many people's problems. The correlation between hard work and success/prosperity seems to me a low one - a lot, if not most people who work hard all their lives are rewarded with an adequate standard of living and big side-orders of stress, fear and misery. I'm not saying there's a better way, and I'm not saying laziness gets you anywhere either but the quadruple-salary rewards of work are simply too unevenly distributed for me to embrace a simple work=unequivocal good outlook.

But more to the point, I listen to rap a fair bit and I simply don't recognise this lyrical world you're talking about. Possibly somebody who'd only heard "The Message" and "Gangsta's Paradise" might mistake the genre for one full of grim portraits of inner-city living and resentment at one's lot, but lyrically speaking most hip-hop today is a world beyond that. It's like saying all rock and roll is about fucking, except even less accurate.

Ironically, a big strain in hip-hop at the moment is dont-whine-to-me- I-worked-for-this rhymes (Puffy and Master P do a nice line in these, Jay-Z does much the same but more literarily). Their rags-to-riches stories are very very similar to some of your posts above.

and gentle readers , I do need to believe in something

BORN TO LOSE, LIVE TO WIN, OUT TO LUNCH

iF THERES EVA AN ILM PUB BRAWL - iM ROOTING FOR ALLY !!

You voted for a guy who loves hanging and guns, you yuppie fuckwit - well done !!

Musicians by nature are egotistical and lazy. Otherwise they'd have real jobs and not be singing about themselves. You've yet to answer the bloody question: how does what you're saying about rap make it different from any other form of music?

Get a grip. So you "lived in the ghetto" with the Latinos and Blacks. I AM Latino and I WAS on welfare. So get off it - quite frankly, I think you only flaunt that sort of thing if you're full of it anyhow. It is unfortunate that you are going for the wind up because it'd be such a fantastic thing if this was all someone's honest opinion. I couldn't say I'd love it but...it'd be much funnier that way. In a freaky way.

And hang on, which is it: are you old or young? Because if you are older, it contradicts something you already said...

What's more, Sterling and Tom anre both on the money about your preposterously narrow wiew of what rap does.

always a pleasure, sweetie...

Ah, but those school shootings, eh?…

Have you never heard _The Wall_ or seen the video for "Girls On Film"? You don't remember the minor media frenzy over "Suicide Blonde"? The negative press reaction to "Take The Skinheads Bowling"?

The fact that you can blithely say "rap is all about violence" makes me completely discount any argument you've made so far as that is blatantly untrue. Violence can be a part of rap, but it can also be a part of any genre. Hell, the last big hit the Dixie Chicks had was "Goodbye Earl". You're also missing the point that someone could be spending all of their time listening to Opus Akoben, Priest Da Nomad, Poem-Cees, Unspoken Heard, and other DC-area peace-and-love hip-hop artists and denounce all of rock as Satan-obsessed pit of slime and mysogeny based on DeathMetal.com. Your argument about rap being obsessed with itself is specious, as well, because rock music is also obsessed with itself, as Ally pointed out. If _any_ of the bands you've listed have _never_ written a song using the words "I", "me", "mine", or "myself", I will be shocked and stunned.

I'd also like to point out that:

- There's nothing inherently wrong with songs that state "I am the greatest".

- Queen's "We Are The Champions" and "We Will Rock You" are both wildly self-absorbed.

- A good 85% of Morrissey's lyrics are wildly self-absorbed.

Part of the point that I'm trying to make is that dismissing rap as a genre in general because of its most popular segment is as silly as holding up examples of violent lyrics in rock music and dismissing the entire genre as violent. This isn't even taking into account the near-obsession people had in the 80's with blaming bands like WASP, Iron Maiden, Megadeth, Slayer, etc for kids who formed suicide pacts, kidnapped and killed someone, or dabbled in Satanic worship. (If I wasn't at work, I'd see if I could scrounge up links for you.)

At any rate, there are entire collectives of people in the hip- hop community who are NOT about gunplay, bling-bling, hoes and bitches, and thug life. I mentioned those DC artists for a reason, although you can get the same type of thing from De La Soul, The Roots, A Tribe Called Quest, Bust Rhymes, Queen Latifah, Del Tha Funkee Homosapien, Black Eyed Peas, Digable Planets, Common, and Dead Prez.

I must say that by sweeping aside the hip-hoppers, headbangers, punks, and ravers, you seem to have dismissed the origins of a good 90% of the ILM readership... :)

Anyway, I think I see your point clearer now. I don't necessarily agree with it, but it seems much more rational than it did when I first started in on this thread.

anyway, what tom said. listen to more rock, find rap more interesting right now.

You turn an argument about music into some bullshit story about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, and end up lambasting people for not being able to do likewise. Stroking your own ego on a music forum does little to help your credibility, especially when you're criticizing rap artists for doing the same thing.

And BOY are there some disturbing racial undertones in your comments. You like DMX because it's some of the "stupidest shit you've ever heard," and that amuses you. You constantly talk about laziness, as if you had any idea what goes into making genuinely good hip-hop. I don't even know what else to say, I'm speechless. I think your comments speak for themselves, and since most of the posters to this forum seem like genuinely intelligent people who care a great deal about music, I think they can see right through you, too. I don't know if I'll ever be able to take anything you say about music seriously again, and I've never said that before.

To answer Sterling's question, cos he probably feels a bit bad that his question has fallen to the wayside because of some ridiculous rantings about innercity failure and how all rap fans are lazy blunt- smokers: I have a problem with the idea of rock versus rap, rock versus pop, one form of music versus any other. They're all valid in their own rights, given the right artist and right song. There are things you can do in the context of rap music that you do not normally find in rock, and certainly vice versa. Rap music is of course infinitely more suited to dancing though, and you know how I feel about dancing.

I didn't answer the question in the first place because of this quandry I have. I don't feel a particular genre is any better than the other. I think my record collection is fairly well split between what is traditionally rock, what is traditionally pop, what is traditionally rap, and what is traditionally r&b. None of them are better than the other - it's a bit like "Who do you like better, your mom or your dad?" for me. It's the reason why I had to boil the rock vs. pop question down to the attitude stylings of it all (that and the fact that I have no definition of what pop music is). I can't deal with a sweeping genre question, personally, because I can see what is inherently "better" in each one, and just because one particular aspect is "better" in one genre doesn't mean it goes above the others, because it's invariably weak in another aspect.

So, if that makes sense.

The bottom line for me is that I don't listen to a lot of rap music because it's not really my background. Quite simply, I don't relate to a lot of it. That said, I find pockets that speak to me for one reason or another. Early Public Enemy is one (and, for the record, is an excellent example of actually saying something meaningful, keeping a killer rhyme going, and avoiding gratuitous boasting and violence). I also really liked the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy. More recently, I really got off on Mos Def's Black on Both Sides. I'd even go so far as to say Gil Scott-Heron who, while not precisely a rap artist, is probably far more hip hop than many of the mainstream artists carrying the flag today.

Like Ally, I refuse to take sides on this issue, because I don't think it accomplishes much. Both genres have their high points and their low points. At its best, hip hop and rap have a way of being able to say something very directly, something political, and even activist, without appearing too preachy or overly earnest (compare to Rattle-and-Hum-era U2, which was downright embarassing). Good rock, on the other hand, can engage people very emotionally without necessarily seeming too syrupy. That's not to say that the reverse isn't true, it just seems far more rare. At the worst of both genres, you get vile filth. You don't want to put shitty-ass metal into your ears, and you likely don't want to put self-congratulatory rap into your ears either. Dig for the good stuff and in the end, if you don't like it you don't like it. There's nothing wrong with that.

But hey, if Sterling reads down this far, I would like you to explain more fully your assertion that rap lyrics speak to more aspects of society than rock. At first this seemed completely preposterous to me. Then I realized that "rock" or country or whatever all have their own specialized audiences, so this made a little more sense. Still, I can't see Rap lyrics speaking to more people than any other genre, probably less. More young people, sure, maybe, especially young males. But that's only a small percentage of the population.

The thing about all these rock questions is I just don't know what that word means anymore. I hear "rock" and I always think of Peal Jam and Creed.

My answer: Electronica (ho ho). Call me Switzerland.

Anyway, I find it interesting that the mainstream (over in the US at least) seems willing to glom onto such rap acts as Missy Elliot, Busta Rhymes, Wu Tang, Outkast, all of which are far more interesting than what passes for mainstream rock Limp Bizkit, Creed, Dave Matthews. Rap seems to get more room to be strange and experiment a little before it drops off the MTV radar.

Sure, this often gets cast into "ghetto" terms, but that's merely a stage which these larger items are played out on, and these larger items have slightly more universalism to them. Music coming from the suburban tip I find very confining these days, as there's simply a more limited range of experience to draw on.

Without citing tons of examples, I don't think I can do a better job than that right now.

I still don't really think I understand the claim that rap is more about rhyming than other forms of pop lyric are. Neuromancer, I was talking about writing, not listening. Like Tom said, there can be pleasures in rhyme. There can also be, I suppose, a kind of useful restrictiveness - a framework which actually makes it easier to write.

i know that this shit is over, but i just notcied this: what the fuck?

what 'message' do combustible edison deliver at all?

easy listening pastiche? wearing 30's evening gowns?

using cigarette holders? man i cant see any fucking message there.......what a weirdo

For myself, I dunno where I stand in this discussion. One one hand, I really like rap. On the other hand, much/most of the lyrics are really abhorrent. I don't think there's many people here who disagree with that. But like the rest of us I just ignore it. But in the end I think we have to face the music: All of those messages aren't for naught. I don't think rap straightforwardly and uncomplicatedly _causes_ drug use, violence etc; I do think it desensitizes and normalizes that kind of stuff, so that it's more easily accepted by the impressionable.

So no, I don't agree with the media stereotype of rap as a one-dimensional monster that directly causes violence and drug use and mistreatment of women. But I'm disturbed at the message it sends. I think the alarm bells really started when I watched the Hype Williams film with Nas and DMX, _Belly_. It wasn't the _glorification_ of crime that bothered me so much as the normalization. The way it was made to look quick and easy and a viable lifestyle. Sure, there were token attempts at making the story a moral fable, like the ending (and, laughably, Nas reading from a morality pamphlet entitled something like "Personal Betterment"), but they were easily overpowered by the ill-gotten glitz.

Maybe what shocks me most in some rap lyrics is an acceptance and shrugging-off of murder. That really goes too far.

- why is that image of toughness and oppression among the rappers. C'mon slavery was abolished a long time ago. -freestyle? Jajajajajajajajajajajajajajajajaja -Big pants.....what a waste of clothing -there's no real music behind the voices. most of the times the samples are not original -no instruments played

rock is the best and will always be

Yup, I see him everyday.

As someone who spends a lot of time with people who listen to and exclusively perform classical music, I have no choice but to laugh at this sentence.

Limp Bizkit, anyone?

Me, Cory, the two that aren't actually miked up onstage, and the rest of the band would just like to thank Whowants for his intelligent and reasoned defense of us. Slipknot especially agree with his point about the degeneration of women, and he will no doubt be happy to know that Gloria Steinem will be supporting us on our next tour. A tour full of beats that have never been used before, and real balls.

That would be pretty painful, I'd think.

That said, I also love and respect Hip Hop, and I'll easily admit that for the past fifteen years or so, it's been considerably more creative and less stagnant than Rock.

And anyway, isn't it all the same thing, when it gets right down to it? What did Run DMC say they were the kings of again?

We all know improv is best.

Can someone stick in something smart assed here?

I'm also a lot more likely to have "grown up to" that kinda music.

This seems to presume one of two things, maybe both:

1) The lyrics rather than the music matters first and foremost for you -- which is just fine and all, but are you sure that's what you're claiming?

2) That somehow your preferred sources of influence are themselves 'isolated' from things non-male, non-white and non-European in the creation of their music which speaks to you, which I find a rather tricky claim at best.

2- It's 2:24 here- by "sources of influence", do you mean the groups I listen to? I wouldn't say they're *isolated* from these things (neither, thank God, am I), but the way they absorb them is usually nearer to the way that I absorb them.

This isn't an absolute thing, of course- matter of fact, I can relate to Aretha Franklin (who is as far removed from myself as anyone could possibly be, from a socio-cultural, racial and age standpoint) a lot more than, say, Crispian Mills (who isn't).

Mind you, I don't view these as particularly unbridgable gaps. As you know, I listen to a lot of music from outside my own immediate culture and often relate to that better (in the ways that matter to me) than I do music made by people in my demographic.

Maybe it's just a matter of emphasis (commonality v. difference)?

I know I'm all over the place here, but lemme just say: I love rap, you may not. I don't care about what you like, you don't care what I like.

Neuromancer is bitching that rap teaches hate, and at the same time, she/he is turning a fucking music discussion into a hate-fest.

Peace.

But it sure as hell beats out an ignorant piece of shit who can spell SUCKS right

L8ER.

Lemme say I prefer rock to rap; That rap makes me feel uncomortable sometimes since it seems to me that most of it articulates an utter disregard for other human beings. And I can't dig that, except for when I'm out doing over liquor stores.

Anyway, isn't rap rascist? Put a white boy on stage and get him to rap about whacking nigga's and see what happens. It's a toughie this one - maybe it actually comes down to personal opinion and there is no right answer. Or maybe all rap sucks shit.

b-but you can compare both!

Hip-hop as your ignorant selves know it is in EXACTLY the same place rock was in the 80s...industry-heavily-promoted-lame-ass-artists who all sound the same, all conveying a bulls^&* "image" that glorifies bulls^&* stuff..cars, money, doing drugs, women-as-sex-objects, etc.

"All About the Benjamins" today = "Dr. Feelgood" then...which is funny to consider, since hip-hop as a style of music is about 20 years younger than rock, and, let's see 1980s - 2000s = 20 years!

For those of you who feel the way you do about hip-hop, I suggest you take a quick listen to the work of some of the amazingly talented hip-hop musicians you DON'T get to hear on eMpTyV, such as Latyrx, Blackalicious, De La Soul, El-P/Company Flow, Michael Franti (formerly of Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprosy, which included 8-string guitarist Charlie Hunter) and his band Spearhead, The Roots, Black Eyed Peas, Jurassic Five, Tribe Called Quest, Mantronix, Boombip and Doseone, Quasimodo, Mos Def and Talib Kweli, Common, Outkast, Nappy Roots, Abstract Tribe Unique. Hell, even listen to one of the largest selling hip-hop artists ever, Lauryn Hill, and tell me she doesn't have a positive socially-conscious message.

Imagine that we were in the 80s right now. Imagine saying, "well, since all the rock songs I hear these days are about women-as-sex-objects, using-drugs, having-alot-of-money, being-a-badass, that means ALL rock music must be stupid and retarded and exactly like this 0.00001% of it that I've been exposed to". And you would sound like an ignorant fool(kinda like you do now). And we all know that, in the 80s underground, there were amazingly talented and creative rock/metal bands such as Fishbone, The Pixies, Faith No More, REM, Living Colour, Metallica (yes, they were actually a good band once), Black Flag, Minutemen, Slayer...all of which spanning a huge variety of sounds and styles...very similar to today's underground hip-hop artists.

As for the retarded "rap vs. rock"...I chose simply "music".

I'd also like to point out that we live in an exciting time for music, especially when you're not so ignorant as to compartmentalize all the beautiful diversity possible. I'll be the first to tell you that the "rap/rock" movement sucks, but most of the most exciting music made now or recently fuses elements of hip-hop and rock-n-roll...and I'm not talking about this Limpkin Bizpark Disturbededed bulls^&*, I'm talking about those who fuse hip-hop and rock in musical and innovative ways...from the Gorillaz project to Buckethead recording with Invisible Skratch Picklz to the Mos Def/Bernie Worrell/Dr. Know/Doug Wimbish/Will Calhoun thing to Candiria to the painfully-now-defunct Rage Against the Machine to DJ Disk playing melodic turntablisms whilst jamming onstage with Primus to my own progressive/funk/rap/metal band Green Theory.

I learned once in one of my college psych classes that ignorance and laziness combined are one of the primary causes of "fear of change". I see a whole helluvalot of ignorance and laziness in some of the posts in this thread. Join evolution in progress, or be bitter and afraid. The choice is yours.

For what it's worth, I'm listening to Fishbone's "Reality of My Surroundings" right now, and plan on sticking in Deltron 3030 next. ;)

This is where your argument falls down for me...or is it the mention of Gorillaz?

oh, gorillaz absolutely kills the arg!

That would be Mr. Albarn, from a certain collective called Blur and these days a kiss-of-death joysucker.

That would be Mr. Albarn, from a certain collective called Blur and these days a kiss-of-death joysucker.

Well, what's that got to do with anything?? He's not in the Gorillaz, is he? Let's talk about 2-D!

(Yes, feel free to punch me. Everyone else does, but I just can't help myself...)

"Man, I was born in a dumpster and worked my way up to what I have! I let people walk all over me cause nothing gets at me! And, and I hug minorities, and adopt puppy dogs, and give ice cream to the homeless!!"

Plus most rappers are evidently just movie stars waitin' to happen (see the dope, fresh faces in that pic). I say, cut out the middleman! Send them straight from the streets to the silver screen!

This makes it sound like music from another century. Oh wait...

I am going to go eat a bowl of sick and jab myself repeatedly in the ear with a rusty fork.

I favor Bowl of Sick, personally.

(Man, that would be a GREAT band name!)

Its like saying Red is better than blue, it makes absolutely no sense.

Are you seriously saying that it's wrong to have a favorite color?

Yeah, that's pretty tolerant, man...

Much like your internet posting, Sledge!

-- TOE-KNEE IM A PLAYER THAT YOU LOVE TO HATE,GOT UR GIRL SUCKIN DICK ON VIDEOTAPE

This may be the greatest thing I've ever read.

How is it that all the pro-rock people cite Slipknot as an exemplary rock band? It seems an odd choice, to say the least.

Elsewhere on the internet:

person 1: "Personnaly, I like rock more than rap, the only rap thing I really like is Run DMC, 'cause it's the only rap group that doesn't have those ghetto rimes that don't make sense or they make a very forced rime."

person 2: "Also, I forgot 2 very important rap bands:
Korn, love Coming Undone and Freak On A Leash."

person 3: "Korn is not a rap band."

person 4: "You're right, and you're wrong. Korn isn't a rap band, they're New Wave, which is a band that mixes rap and rock lyrics in their music. I'm not a huge fan of Korn, I'm just a fan of some of their songs."