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.
Ever hear of the Sugarhill Gang.
Big Bank Hank, Wonder Mike, and the Master G.
It would be wonder if this is true, but I'm not sure I believe it.
Whenever someone in my vicinity turns on rap or hip hop, I can feel my stomach clench and the ulcers starting to form. As Marshall McLuhan said, "the medium is the message," and the medium of rap music is loud, dissonant, and does violence to one's senses and natural responses to harmony or the reverse.
I have always thought of rap music as an evil conspiracy between the music moguls, the poverty pimps, and the DNC: a sure-fire way to keep young blacks on the plantation in a state of crime, poverty, despair, and inclination to vote Democrat. It disrupts black families and marriages, among other things.
Can music do that much? Certainly. The ancients talked about various modes of music. Music to stir the soul and lead men to war; music to lead people to pleasure and decadent enjoyments; music to madden the listener.
Rap music is designed to corrupt its fans.
There is a Blondie rap song Rapture:
Toe to toe
Dancing very slow
Barely breathing
Almost comatose
Wall to wall
People hypnotised
And they're stepping lightly
Hang each night in Rapture
Back to back
Sacrailiac
Spineless movement
And a wild attack
Face to face
Sadly solitude
And it's finger popping
Twenty-four hour shopping in Rapture
Fab Five Freddie told me everybody's high
DJ's spinnin' are savin' my mind
Flash is fast, Flash is cool
Francois sez fas, Flashe' no do
And you don't stop, sure shot
Go out to the parking lot
And you get in your car and you drive real far
And you drive all night and then you see a light
And it comes right down and lands on the ground
And out comes a man from Mars
And you try to run but he's got a gun
And he shoots you dead and he eats your head
And then you're in the man from Mars
You go out at night, eatin' cars
You eat Cadillacs, Lincolns too
Mercurys and Subarus
And you don't stop, you keep on eatin' cars
Then, when there's no more cars
You go out at night and eat up bars where the people meet
Face to face, dance cheek to cheek
One to one, man to man
Dance toe to toe
Don't move too slow, 'cause the man from Mars
Is through with cars, he's eatin' bars
Yeah, wall to wall, door to door, hall to hall
He's gonna eat 'em all
Rapture, be pure
Take a tour, through the sewer
Don't strain your brain, paint a train
You'll be singin' in the rain
I said don't stop, do punk rock
Well now you see what you wanna be
Just have your party on TV
'Cause the man from Mars won't eat up bars when the TV's on
And now he's gone back up to space
Where he won't have a hassle with the human race
And you hip-hop, and you don't stop
Just blast off, sure shot
'Cause the man from Mars stopped eatin' cars and eatin' bars
And now he only eats guitars, get up!
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..."
Supply and demand strikes again, just like it should.
What about the first white rap single - "Ringo" by Lorne Greene!
Good. Enough of that total garbage! Maybe some people have got some sense into their heads and turned off this racist, violent, homophobe, woman-hating trash.
ping
"I didn't know rap was around in 1977."
Coincidentally, that's the year in which I first encountered it. I was at Treasure Island for my Navy Reserve ACDUTRA, and walking down Market Street saw this black guy with a turntable and some other junk making odd noises. I asked him what in the name of Wolfgang Amadeus Motzart he thought he was doing, and about the only thing I was able to glean from his reply was that it was something called "rap." I knew the word "rap" meant "to speak or converse" in hipster doofus slang, but hadn't heard it used that way before.
He became sullen and taciturn when I tried to get more historical information from him.
Until rap I didn't think anything would make me miss disco.
The Sugar Hill Gang put out Rapper's Delight around that time.
Trust me, I know this. My little brother wore holes in it.
But the article doesn't say this is a change. Just that buyers are drying up.
The problem rap is having is that what is popular now has even less to say than gansta rap. The Lil' Jon style is too brain dead even for the most hardcore rap fans.
Some good news on the culture front, for a change.
All of the "Founding Fathers" of rap are either dead or in prison, aren't they? Not the best Business Plan if you ask me, LOL!
May it continue to do so...at a much faster rate.