Posted on 03/01/2007 5:11:49 AM PST by IDontLikeToPayTaxes
NEW YORK Maybe it was the umpteenth coke-dealing anthem or soft-porn music video. Perhaps it was the preening antics that some call reminiscent of Stepin Fetchit.
The turning point is hard to pinpoint. But after 30 years of growing popularity, rap music is now struggling with an alarming sales decline and growing criticism from within about the culture's negative effect on society.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Yo JenneysCool;
Hotrocks, Chickenwings, and all that Jazz
Yeh, J-Ed an all his homies done relo out to da B-hills
Got him some fine, fine digs witha big pond.
His number 1 J-Ro is inta some hot, hot totty too.
Speakin o' hot totty, I'm inta J-ro's sis big time.
"Rapper's Delight"
I actually have that on a mix CD in my truck. I kind of like old-school rap, though.
You hit the nail on the head.
They all sound the same.
Using "rap" and "music" in the same sentence is just WRONG. It's almost like saying Algore's energy use is justified by buying "carbon offsets".
Good.
Die.
And I hope the loud car stereos go with it.
Now what's wrong with loud car stereos? There's nothing like cruising down the strip blasting a little Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span...
Hmm... and I thought Bob Dylan invented rap. Go figure! People have been chanting for centuries. Perhaps it was Gregorian monks who invented rap.
Sales are down. Thefts are up.
It started with "scratching", the repeated reversing and advancing of the arm on a turntable of records available at the time and went on to wholesale plagiarization of tracks of the dominant beat as a background to nonsensical, doggerel-style pseudo poetry.
It evolved to today's gangster rap which is essentially nihilistic and misogynist in its content.
This would be possible, only if, something more boring or worse sounding came along. I have not yet heard of anything that meets those criteria.
Finally!!!
Same goes for "Marky" Mark.
I think they called it "Talkin' Blues."
Rap sucks.
Rap/hip-hop is suffering from the same problem as the rest of today's "mainstream" popular music: Every new song in a given genre sounds exactly the same as the one before it. After a certain point, people are simply going to get tired of it and go looking for something with a little bit of originality and creativity to it.
What about "Hot Rod Lincoln"
My pappy said, 'Son, you're gonna drive me t' drinkin' ...
If you don't quit drivin' that - Hot ... Rod ... Lincoln!'
Well, you've heard the story of the hot rod race,
When the Ford and the Mercury were settin' the pace.
That story's true I'm here to say,
Cause I was a'drivin' that Model A.
It's got a Lincoln motor and it's really souped up;
That Model A body makes it look like a pup.
It's got 12 cylinders and uses them all;
And an overdrive that just won't stall.
It's got a 4-barrel carb and dual exhausts,
4:11 gears that really get lost -
Safety tubes and I'm not scared,
The brakes are good and the tires are fair.
We left San Pedro late one night;
The moon and the stars were shinin' bright.
We were drivin' up Grapevine Hill,
Passin' cars like they were standin' still.
Then, all of a sudden, in the wink of an eye,
a Cadillac sedan passed us by.
The remark was made, "That's the car for me."
But, by then, the taillights wuz all you could see.
Well, the fellers ribbed me for bein' behind,
So I started to make that Lincoln unwind.
Took my foot off the gas and, man alive,
I shoved it down into overdrive.
Well, I wound it up to 110;
Twisted the speedometer cable right off the end.
Had my foot glued right to the floor;
I said, "That's all there is - there ain't no more."
Now the fellas thought I'd lost all sense;
The telephone poles looked like a picket fence.
They said, "Slow down, I see spots."
The lines on the road just looked like dots.
Went around a corner and passed a truck;
I crossed my fingers just for luck -
The fenders clickin' the guard rail post;
The guy beside me was white as a ghost.
Smoke was rollin' outta the back
When I started to gain on that Cadillac
I knew I could catch him and hoped I could pass
But when I did I'd be short on gas.
There were flames comin' from out of the side;
You could feel the tension; man, what a ride.
I said, "Look out, boys, I've got a license to fly"
And the Cadillac pulled over and let me by.
All of a sudden a rod started knockin';
Down in the depths she started a rockin'.
I looked in the mirror and a red light was blinkin';
The cops was after my Hot Rod Lincoln.
Well they arrested me and put me in jail.
I called my pop to make my bail.
He said, "Son, you're gonna drive me t' drinkin',
If you don't quit drivin' that - Hot ... Rod ... Lincoln!"
Rap isn't dying.
It's expanding globally,
Quality releases coming out in Indian dialects, Urdu and Farsi dialects, Spanish dialects, French dialects, Portuguese dialects. The French stuff stands out, damn good rap and real music tracks laid behind it.
Rather bad stuff coming out in Japanese and Chinese, and Russian. Oh man the Japanese stuff is horrible.
But, most of this is inaccessible to the American audience and music critics, so we get articles claiming sales of rap cd's are falling.
Must have French rap
http://www.amazon.com/Must-have-French-rap/lm/1V1HP1GPX1XON
http://www.dailymotion.com/group/6003
MC Solaar is a good place to start.
Some languages are better than others for rap. I've noticed that some Polish rap is pretty good, it has much more of an American influence than other Europeans, and they tend to use much more live music in the background rather than just sampling old beats.
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