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 ...
>>Gotta say it takes tallent to say all that especially from memory when giving a concert and not stepping all over your tounge.<<
No. It takes skill.
With Black History month finally over.....thank the lord...
I recall someone commenting, "show me the Tolstoy of the Zulus or the Proust of the Papuans and I will gladly read them...."
Adapting this for "hip-hop" as music....I would say, "show me the Mozart of the Maori or the Hayden of the Hutu's and I will gladly listen to them..."
One of my favorite songs ever is Atomic, but I am really not a blondie fan. I just like that song, musically.
Disco never really went away, it just changed names. "Dance music", which is incredibly popular in England and does OK in America, is basically just disco with slighly more of the techno aspect and slightly less of the funk that disco spawned from.
Hehe... yeah, and that's *way* better than sampling! :)
I'm not a rap fan -- mostly because I'm a guitar player, and there's precious little guitar in rap. However, the 'criticism' on this thread is just stupid. Half the comments could easily be applied to any number of other genres. I think some folks on this thread should read a bit about the earliest years of rock and roll - they might be surprised at how familiar some of the comments on this thread would be.
That was Saul Bellow who said that.
People need to be aware that using the "Rap-Crap" line marks you as a sad 40 year old who thinks they are being clever.
Heh... you've got that right.
Supply and demand strikes again, just like it should.
Heck, I have everything from Veggietales to Nine Inch Nails to Garth Brooks to Casting Crowns on my iPod. I don't think your taste is strange.
You can be an aplogist all you want for the cultural destruction post-'90 rap has brought this nation. That is your right.
They said a lot of things about rock and roll in the 50's. And they were largely right. They are even more right about rap.
At least rock and roll brought whites and blacks together for really the first time. Rap ended that and segregated itself from what "white" music. It's divisive, ugly and violent, just like the culture it represents. The very nature of rap allows new, hard-core racism to flourish in the black community.
Most every white person I know listens to at least some rap or or other music by black artists. I have never met a black person who listens to ONE white artist, rap or otherwise.
You are cheering for a cancer.
Just my opinions.
From Wikipedia (not the most credible source, but the quickest one available):
In an interview in the March 7, 1988 New Yorker, Bellow sparked a controversy when he asked, concerning multiculturalism, "Who is the Tolstoy of the Zulus? The Proust of the Papuans? I'd be glad to read him." The taunt was seen by some as a slight against non-Western literature. Bellow at first claimed to have been misquoted. Later, writing in his defense in the New York Times, he said, "The scandal is entirely journalistic in origin ...I may be one of the few people who have read a Papuan novel... Always foolishly trying to explain and edify allcomers, I was speaking of the distinction between literate and preliterate societies. For I was once an anthropology student, you see."
Every word you say is true but then look at the audience that soaks it up. Rap is noise made by people with no talent for an audience with no taste!
Not all Rap is like that though just the Gangsta Rap. However that particular form of rap has dominated the genre for a quite a while.
I'm not an apologist for anything other than my faith in Christ. Like I said on an earlier post, though, if you're going to criticize music, at least do so intelligently.
But lawsuits have been successfully waged against the practice on copyright grounds; now that will be a major factor if the trend is indeed downward.
You and your friends must have gotten your mouths washed out with soap a lot!
I don't think rap really segregated itself. Maybe in it's public image but the dirty little secret has always been that it's white rap fans that made the genre profitable and popular.
And really the "divisive, ugly and violent" rap is just a section (gansta). Like all genres that have lasted a while it's developed sub-genres with vastly different characteristics. Judging all rap by gangsta is like judging all metal by the 80s hair bands, sure it's the cash cow but it's not even where things started.
I know black people that listen to "white" music, you just aren't hanging out in the right crowd. Heck there were half a dozen black people at the last Young Dubs show I went to (small bar, half a dozen isn't a bad section), and you can't get much whiter than Irish rock.
What about the first white rap single - "Ringo" by Lorne Greene!
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