What is the appeal of rap music?

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Glawster2002

07-11-2016

Originally Posted by MuTron1:
“You'd be surprised at how much music since the late 80s relies on sampling and recontextualising other music, even non hiphop. It's a standard tool in any modern musician's arsenal, and the art of taking a sample and either manipulating it or contextualising it with other sources is as valid as someone playing a traditional instrument.

Think of a guitar player's skill of combining the various notes available to create something expressive. A producer of sample based tracks' skill is of combining various pieces of sound to create something expressive.

Watch these and tell me that sample manipulation is just taking talented musicians work and passing it off as your own:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU5Dn-WaElI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZboBQ6rDrU”

However the fact remains that without the source material created by the original artist the "producer" wouldn't have anything to work with in the first place...

SepangBlue

07-11-2016

Originally Posted by Inkblot:
“... and dance "music" doesn't always have a tune, just a beat with a bass line. Sometimes not even a bass melody, just a rhythmic pulse.”

That must be what guys who drive past my house in beat-up VW Golfs are playing, very loud with all the windows down and the rear parcel shelf popping out of its anchorage points!

How can they listen to that stuff whilst driving?

Originally Posted by walterwhite:
“You need to listen to more rap music.”

No he doesn't .. he's already heard quite enough, thank you! As have I and I'm with him.

Originally Posted by ItsNick:
“Really?
I think it spoils most of it.
Do you remember when Estelle released American Boy. There were two versions of it. One with Kanye West rapping and one with no rapping at all. The version with NO rapping is far superior to the rapping version because it's just a normal song with no one shouting in that annoying rap voice way.
Think of it this way. Imagine if the lyrics that Estelle sings were given to Kanye West so instead of singing to a melody which Estelle was doing those lyrics were rapped the way he was rapping at the beginning. That record wouldn't be an eighth as appealing. Yet if the very same lyrics were SUNG to the melody Estelle was singing the song suddenly becomes much more appealing. That says a lot about rap to me.”

Same page mate, we're on the same page!

Originally Posted by barbeler:
“I'm a bad-ass rapper with a bad attitude
Stop crowding me out I need solitude
I need some space so gimme latitude
I ain't no wuss I got fortitude
You don't dig me, you got no gratitude
You're a fat-ass ho-bitch you ain't no dude.

Do I get a recording contract?”

Quite possibly, though who'll listen to your offerings, let alone buy them, God alone knows.

Well done for trying though!

scrilla

07-11-2016

As is often the case the problem is not the quality of much of the music, it's the quality of the 'opinion'.

ItsNick

07-11-2016

Originally Posted by SepangBlue:
“That must be what guys who drive past my house in beat-up VW Golfs are playing, very loud with all the windows down and the rear parcel shelf popping out of its anchorage points!

How can they listen to that stuff whilst driving?

No he doesn't .. he's already heard quite enough, thank you! As have I and I'm with him.

Same page mate, we're on the same page!

Quite possibly, though who'll listen to your offerings, let alone buy them, God alone knows.

Well done for trying though!”

A breath of fresh air.

mgvsmith

07-11-2016

Originally Posted by Inkblot:
“... and dance "music" doesn't always have a tune, just a beat with a bass line. Sometimes not even a bass melody, just a rhythmic pulse.”

Rhythm is a fundamental element of nearly all music.

scrilla

07-11-2016

According to the sage wisdom here, this 'rap music' isn't music, it's delivered in shouty rap voices, sounds stupid when white people do it, is 'limited' and wouldn't be anything without source material.

No one needs to hear more of it because they've heard enough to reach such conclusions. It all sounds the same and is listened to people with bad cars!

ItsNick

07-11-2016

Originally Posted by walterwhite:
“You need to listen to more rap music.”

I've had these discussions before about rap music and I often find, when I'm talking to someone who likes rap music that it's nigh on impossible to make them understand the reasons why I don't like it and why it will never appeal to the majority.
When they say things like "you need to listen to more" or "you're only listening to chart rap music" or "the wrong type of rap music" I think you're not listening are you. At the end of the day rap music is rap music. The lyrics are delivered to you in a certain way. It doesn't matter whether the lyrics are fantastic or awful it doesn't change the fact that they are delivered in a very non melodic way. The reason why it's non melodic is because the rap artist is far more interested either in the lyrics not that you can understand 98% of it ("that's because you're listening to the wrong.......") oh shut up, or the way he or she delivers it to the listener. That's why it will never have melody in the same way that this song has got melody.
Don't you just feel like going on holiday when you hear and see the video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaTQAaJWW54

mgvsmith

07-11-2016

I see Donald Trump isn't a fan either!

http://cnn.it/2fLXwGO

Inkblot

08-11-2016

Originally Posted by mgvsmith:
“Rhythm is a fundamental element of nearly all music.”

I know, I was contrasting rap, which is criticised here for not having a tune, with dance music, which is often praised here despite not having a tune.

mushymanrob

08-11-2016

Originally Posted by Inkblot:
“I know, I was contrasting rap, which is criticised here for not having a tune, with dance music, which is often praised here despite not having a tune.”

eh?...... dance music does have a 'tune' (or melody) , well the best stuff does, certainly the dance i like does.

Inkblot

08-11-2016

Originally Posted by mushymanrob:
“eh?...... dance music does have a 'tune' (or melody) , well the best stuff does, certainly the dance i like does.”

A lot of dance music that I've heard does basically the same thing that hip-hop does: create a beat, add samples over the top, sometimes including a vocal but rarely a conventional verse-chorus-bridge etc structure, sometimes a bass line, sometimes just a bass pulse. Going off the rap topic now but one of the worst things to happen to modern music was the ability to build "songs" using loops because you end up with the same samples repeated over and over in a very mechanical way. Yes, hip-hop is guilty of that too.

Pitman

08-11-2016

I liked it when the genre first started with all them party tunes from East Coast, sugarhill and Grandmaster, etc, but for me it lost it's charm after a few years, I think it has been lucky to last this long as no other genre has caught on to take it's place, it's weird that youngsters are still listening to genres that their mums and dads were into

an example of some fine early English rap

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIMNXogXnvE

MuTron1

08-11-2016

Originally Posted by Inkblot:
“A lot of dance music that I've heard does basically the same thing that hip-hop does: create a beat, add samples over the top, sometimes including a vocal but rarely a conventional verse-chorus-bridge etc structure, sometimes a bass line, sometimes just a bass pulse. Going off the rap topic now but one of the worst things to happen to modern music was the ability to build "songs" using loops because you end up with the same samples repeated over and over in a very mechanical way. Yes, hip-hop is guilty of that too.”

That's absolutely fine, though, a lot of music is defined by minute variations within a repetitive structure. It's not a case of being guilty of something, it's as valid a structure as any other. Take something like the Krautrock of Neu or Can, for example, and the whole structure is built around something very mechanical and repetitive, with subtle modulations around that repetitive skeleton. At the time it was done one real instruments, but the technology of the time didn't allow anything else. But listen to someone like Tangerine Dream, who were taking similar ideas and rather than doing it with rock instrumentation, they were doing it with electronics and analogue sequencers, with repeating bars of 16 notes, loops, essentially. The interest there is the modulation of the sounds over time, with the notes being the same but the sound of the instrument and how it's changing being the drive of the song.

Fast forward a few years and you've got I Feel Love doing the same thing, but to dance to instead of get stoned to. A few more years and you've got house music taking that basic idea and running with it, and hip hop either manually looping things using 2 turntables and 2 copies of the same record, or using early drum machines and trying to program them with funk rhythms.

There was a lot of interplay between house music and hiphop in the 80s and 90s, both being the source of the most cutting edge sounds and techniques of the time. Techno borrowed heavily from early electro hip-hop, early 90s hardcore used hiphop's technique of sampled breakbeats to add some human feel to their 909 drum tracks, and drum&bass is essentially the UK's mutated instrumental version of hiphop.

MuTron1

08-11-2016

Originally Posted by Pitman:
“I liked it when the genre first started with all them party tunes from East Coast, sugarhill and Grandmaster, etc, but for me it lost it's charm after a few years, I think it has been lucky to last this long as no other genre has caught on to take it's place, it's weird that youngsters are still listening to genres that their mums and dads were into

an example of some fine early English rap

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIMNXogXnvE”

There's not much of a generation gap when it comes to music these days, at least not between those who grew up in the late 80s to 90s and those today. There's been no radically new forms of music since hiphop and house. Everything since has been evolutions of previous forms, rather than some great year zero youthquake that anyone over 21 has no reference to.

mushymanrob

08-11-2016

dance, like all other genres, went through it creative period early in its evolution but has now become very lazy. commerce has killed it off in mainstream at least, and the snowflakes seem happy to be spoon fed re-hashed garbage instead of creating something new and exciting.

mialicious

08-11-2016

mgvsmith

08-11-2016

Originally Posted by MuTron1:
“That's absolutely fine, though, a lot of music is defined by minute variations within a repetitive structure. It's not a case of being guilty of something, it's as valid a structure as any other. Take something like the Krautrock of Neu or Can, for example, and the whole structure is built around something very mechanical and repetitive, with subtle modulations around that repetitive skeleton. At the time it was done one real instruments, but the technology of the time didn't allow anything else. But listen to someone like Tangerine Dream, who were taking similar ideas and rather than doing it with rock instrumentation, they were doing it with electronics and analogue sequencers, with repeating bars of 16 notes, loops, essentially. The interest there is the modulation of the sounds over time, with the notes being the same but the sound of the instrument and how it's changing being the drive of the song.

Fast forward a few years and you've got I Feel Love doing the same thing, but to dance to instead of get stoned to. A few more years and you've got house music taking that basic idea and running with it, and hip hop either manually looping things using 2 turntables and 2 copies of the same record, or using early drum machines and trying to program them with funk rhythms.

There was a lot of interplay between house music and hiphop in the 80s and 90s, both being the source of the most cutting edge sounds and techniques of the time. Techno borrowed heavily from early electro hip-hop, early 90s hardcore used hiphop's technique of sampled breakbeats to add some human feel to their 909 drum tracks, and drum&bass is essentially the UK's mutated instrumental version of hiphop.”

It's called minimalism in contemporary classical and avant-garde music such as the music of Terry Riley (https://youtu.be/yNi0bukYRnA - In C), Steve Reich (https://youtu.be/zLckHHc25ww - Music for 18 Musicians), John Adams (https://youtu.be/Ozb9eigk9yY - Shaker Loops) or Karlheinz Stockhausen (https://youtu.be/3hPkJW95jsw - Stimmung). I listen to a lot of this kind of music which pushes the boundaries of what music actually is. Hip Hop does too in its own limited way.
.

ItsNick

08-11-2016

Originally Posted by scrilla:
“According to the sage wisdom here, this 'rap music' isn't music, it's delivered in shouty rap voices, sounds stupid when white people do it, is 'limited' and wouldn't be anything without source material.

No one needs to hear more of it because they've heard enough to reach such conclusions. It all sounds the same and is listened to people with bad cars!

Bahamadia - Uknowhowwedu
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyGUesyG7bU

Moka Only & Ayatollah - Come Along
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq89zayQ3uA

Rappin' Hood - Sou Negrão (featuring Leci Brandão)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyEWDE9yGyY

Blackalicious - First In Flight (featuring Gil Scott-Heron)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OVzfZgZ1tg

Soon E MC - O.P.I.D.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXeLo4F918Q

Pigeon John - Oh Yeah
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmnB33SyIvM

Busdriver - Casting Agents and Cowgirls
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JItQ4Kg5Zy8

Rodney P - The Nice Up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKT7GftN7fo”

Absolute DROSS, the lot of them. Tuneless dross.
Yes I did listen to all of them, I couldn't tell the difference between any of them. It's just awful noise which goes in one ear and out the other. Could you REALLY imagine people in 20/30/40 years time listening to them and saying "what a classic" in the same way they do about songs like The Boys are Back In Town by Thin Lizzy or Sir Duke by Stevie Wonder.

Danny_Francis

08-11-2016

Originally Posted by ItsNick:
“Absolute DROSS, the lot of them. Tuneless dross.
Yes I did listen to all of them, I couldn't tell the difference between any of them. It's just awful noise which goes in one ear and out the other. Could you REALLY imagine people in 20/30/40 years time listening to them and saying "what a classic" in the same way they do about songs like The Boys are Back In Town by Thin Lizzy or Sir Duke by Stevie Wonder.”

My thoughts exactly, Rap mostly in the context of today's scene is garbage and disposable

barbeler

08-11-2016

Originally Posted by SepangBlue:
“Quite possibly, though who'll listen to your offerings, let alone buy them, God alone knows.

Well done for trying though!”

I wish I could be sure that you knew I was taking the pi$$.

It's a shame I've left it so late, because with a few adjustments I might have offered them to Oasis.

mushymanrob

09-11-2016

ok.... after reading 'its nicks' review i thought , as ive time, to listen to these tracks and was expecting to fully agree with him...

i dont!

tbh i dont find these tracks offensive, samey (and more then any other genre) and certainly not 'dross'... i dont like the rapping, maybe its not the right voices, or they just lack something for me, maybe other artists could sing/rap them better - maybe thats it, singing instead of rapping! lol.

the instrumentation was ok... not an unpleasant sound, maybe material like this could grow on me - but tbh im unlikely to be bothered to give it a chance.

scrilla

09-11-2016

Originally Posted by mushymanrob:
“ok.... after reading 'its nicks' review i thought , as ive time, to listen to these tracks and was expecting to fully agree with him...

i dont!

tbh i dont find these tracks offensive, samey (and more then any other genre) and certainly not 'dross'... i dont like the rapping, maybe its not the right voices, or they just lack something for me, maybe other artists could sing/rap them better - maybe thats it, singing instead of rapping! lol.

the instrumentation was ok... not an unpleasant sound, maybe material like this could grow on me - but tbh im unlikely to be bothered to give it a chance. ”

I get where you're coming from and take it on board that you generally don't like Hip Hop.

I just fired up some random tracks off the top of my head that represented some diversity. One is rapped in French, one in Portuguese. One is in cockney style delivery over a well-treaded classic reggae riddim, one is backed by Brazilian musicians and percussion, some are jazzy - all the vocal deliveries are different.

It's quite bemusing, not that someone wouldn't like any of it, but that they could even think they all sound the same.

SepangBlue

09-11-2016

Originally Posted by barbeler:
“I wish I could be sure that you knew I was taking the pi$$. It's a shame I've left it so late, because with a few adjustments I might have offered them to Oasis. ”

... and you'd be living in a house in the country now! (Yes, I know, I've quoted from the other lot, but that's just the way it is).

Glawster2002

09-11-2016

Originally Posted by MuTron1:
“That's absolutely fine, though, a lot of music is defined by minute variations within a repetitive structure. It's not a case of being guilty of something, it's as valid a structure as any other. Take something like the Krautrock of Neu or Can, for example, and the whole structure is built around something very mechanical and repetitive, with subtle modulations around that repetitive skeleton. At the time it was done one real instruments, but the technology of the time didn't allow anything else. But listen to someone like Tangerine Dream, who were taking similar ideas and rather than doing it with rock instrumentation, they were doing it with electronics and analogue sequencers, with repeating bars of 16 notes, loops, essentially. The interest there is the modulation of the sounds over time, with the notes being the same but the sound of the instrument and how it's changing being the drive of the song.”

As someone who owns quite a lot of Tangerine Dream's work, and everything from Electronic Meditation to Livemiles, I think it is reasonable to say there's a bit more to them than that...

Inkblot

09-11-2016

After yesterday's events this seems "relevant":

https://youtu.be/NUC2EQvdzmY

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