Are rappers musicians?

[Big Red 67]

Why so defencive. Just wondering. If it is that annoing pull over the next boombox on wheels and give em a ticket. I wonder how long it would take to get shot if I did that?

[revolead]

Originally posted by Big Red 67:

Why so defencive. Just wondering. If it is that annoing pull over the next boombox on wheels and give em a ticket. I wonder how long it would take to get shot if I did that?

I'm not trying to get defensive, and I'm sorry if it came off that way. I'm trying to prove a point. I just don't like it when people call me too lazy to look into something.

[Big Red 67]

AH, the rest is funny though. Can you see an army of guys in cowboy hats trying to get the gangsters to turn it down. HEHEHEHE

[g.]

How 'bout some nice Garth Brooks? ; } ...Yeah, nobody has to like things they don't want to like. Forget the brussel sprouts too ; }

[revolead]

Originally posted by Big Red 67:

AH, the rest is funny though. Can you see an army of guys in cowboy hats trying to get the gangsters to turn it down. HEHEHEHE

LOL, that's true. I will say I do like country music though. I guess I'm sort of a hick in that sense.

[Big Red 67]

I love Willie not much else though.

[Billster]

Revo - I'm not trying to force you to listen to anything. What I'm saying is: Don't write off something you have only limited exposure to.

 

I used to think I hated country music, but now I dig Albert Lee, and a handful of other artists.

 

I've seen only a few minutes of most "reality TV" shows, and I can clearly see its not for me, but I'm past saying its crap for anyone else. To each their own.

 

[Big Red 67]

I hated them. Got stuck in front of the Trump thing without the remote(to tired to find it) and I dig some of that, And the Amish in the city with Arested Devolopment was great.

[Vin-erator]

Originally posted by billster:

Revo - I'm not trying to force you to listen to anything. What I'm saying is: Don't write off something you have only limited exposure to.

 

I used to think I hated country music, but now I dig Albert Lee, and a handful of other artists.

 

I've seen only a few minutes of most "reality TV" shows, and I can clearly see its not for me, but I'm past saying its crap for anyone else. To each their own.

 

Is "reality TV" really TV?

[Billster]

Originally posted by Vinny C:

Originally posted by billster:

Revo - I'm not trying to force you to listen to anything. What I'm saying is: Don't write off something you have only limited exposure to.

 

I used to think I hated country music, but now I dig Albert Lee, and a handful of other artists.

 

I've seen only a few minutes of most "reality TV" shows, and I can clearly see its not for me, but I'm past saying its crap for anyone else. To each their own.

 

Is "reality TV" really TV?

VH-1 did a show about "the making of the real world"

 

I'm waiting for a behind the scenes look at "the making of 'the making of the real world'"

[revolead]

Originally posted by billster:

Revo - I'm not trying to force you to listen to anything. What I'm saying is: Don't write off something you have only limited exposure to.

 

I used to think I hated country music, but now I dig Albert Lee, and a handful of other artists.

 

I've seen only a few minutes of most "reality TV" shows, and I can clearly see its not for me, but I'm past saying its crap for anyone else. To each their own.

 

It's cool. I don't care if other people like rap, I just don't think it's music, and aside from that, no matter what it is, I don't like it, for the same reason you hate reality TV. And actually, I do think that is crap for anyone else. But then again, you don't have teenage friends who wish they were the ones screwing around, literally, on some of those shows.

[bearded yeti]

Originally posted by Gabriel E.:

Originally posted by revolead:

I'm not going to take the time to explore any further just because I know I hate the genre.

You pretty much just disqualified everything you've said so far.

 

If you're not going to take the time to learn about the subject that you have been so eager to classify, then you need to stop participating in this discussion.

 

I can't stand intellectual laziness - Especially in conjunction with strong opinions.

 

Whether or not you like rap is totally up to you and is irrelevant to the discussion. But if you're unwilling to learn anything more about it than the little you know, you don't have the right to judge its musical merit.

I agree. this is like the people who hear a couple of miles davis tunes and come to the conclusion " i don't like miles davis, therefore i don't like jazz"

 

arrogance in any genre disqualifies all opinion of it

[Guitarzan]

music is many things, it can be for celebration, dancing, creating moods in movies/plays, bringing people together, entertainment, listening pleasure and for sending a message to people.

so yeah rappers are musicians. some people like some stuff and hate other stuff. it isn't a sport or competition. some do it for love others do it for fame or money. but it is still music by definition.

thats all i have to say.

[Gabriel E.]

Originally posted by revolead:

I'm not trying to get defensive, and I'm sorry if it came off that way. I'm trying to prove a point. I just don't like it when people call me too lazy to look into something.

And you're trying to prove a point about something you've repeatedly admitted to not be interested in hearing. If your only exposure to rap is from what you hear on commercial radio and a couple of "underground" tracks you heard at school, then you don't know shit about it and aren't qualified to be arguing its merits.

 

If all I listened to was what was on the radio, I'd assume that guitars only have two strings since all anyone in Hoobastank or Puddle of Mudd or New Found Glory or whatever can play is power chords. And if a friend of mine then played me some Black Flag and some DK, I'd still think the same thing.

 

No one's forcing you to listen to music you don't like. But the tradeoff for avoiding it is that you don't get to make authoritative comments about it. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

[Gabriel E.]

To put things in a historical perspective, the drum is man's oldest instrument. Our ancestors were banging on drums long before the advent of melodic wind or string instruments.

 

So were they not playing music since a "melody" in the modern sense was not involved?

 

How about Haitian Vodun drummers? Is what they play not music? Or Yoruban ceremonial drummers? Or hippie drum circles (as much as I can't personally stand them)? In all these cases there's only drums providing the music. No tonal instruments.

 

So qualifying music as necessarily having scalar melody is a pretty narrow definition and ridiculous considering how much of our history involves purely rhythmic instrumentation.

[Psychotronic]

Originally posted by Afro_Man:

[QB]Listen to outcast, who re-defined the rap and hip hop genre, and mr M+M (i know its not spelt like that) hes very talented lyrically, go listen to old school hip hop/rap like public enemy (it takes a nation of thousands to hold us back) and maybe some dr dre, some of its good and some of its dire, you'll just have to shift through and find the good stuff.

QB]

You missed the point. It's not whether or not rap is good or bad, it's whether or not rapper's are musicians. No biggie -- this thread is getting so long that it's easy to lose track!

 

So, unless they play a musical instrument, then NO -- they are not. Turntables, ACID, and BiaB (et al) are NOT musical instruments.

 

And since when are we calling rap "poetry"? While I'm sure it exists within the genre, please do not even try to call 99% of rap "poetry", it's insulting.

[Psychotronic]

Originally posted by Gabriel E.:

To put things in a historical perspective, the drum is man's oldest instrument. Our ancestors were banging on drums long before the advent of melodic wind or string instruments.

 

So were they not playing music since a "melody" in the modern sense was not involved?.

No, they were not, according to textbook definition.

 

How about Haitian Vodun drummers? Is what they play not music? Or Yoruban ceremonial drummers? Or hippie drum circles (as much as I can't personally stand them)? In all these cases there's only drums providing the music. No tonal instruments..

 

Drums providing the rhythm, yes -- but not music.

 

So qualifying music as necessarily having scalar melody is a pretty narrow definition and ridiculous considering how much of our history involves purely rhythmic instrumentation.

 

Not a narrow definition at all, considering that (with the exception of vocalization) man used instrumentation as soon as he could invent something to do it with. An example of that would be early ocarina's and whistles.

 

Let's go back to the textbook definition of music: containing melody, harmony, rhythm. It's an arguable point, but IMHO no melody = not music.

[guitar god lol]

even though i don't consider most rap music, i actually really like eminem. (hiding behind my couch waiting for the shooting to start) i really think he has some talent and his sarcasm and humor are good too.

[Big Red 67]

Em's a talent. Do you really beleive that there is no music in drums?!!! Read Planet Drum!!! Mickey Hart.

[the stranger]

Originally posted by revolead:

I still don't see how you guys can call this music. Even radical concepts like serialism are music, and to me they still sound like crap. But rap, by my definition of music, something containing both melody and rhythm, is not music. Now, I realize I am not the authoritative expert on music, and for me to generalize a definition is probably rather egoistic of me. But, I think since this question has basically come down to an opinion, we are all entitled to what entails music.

 

If music can be just rhythm, i.e. timed noise, then I agree rap by definition has to be music, even if it's bad.

 

However I never saw human speech as containing melody, and therefore if we use the definition given by music containing melody and rhythm, rap is not music, merely poetry.

Human speech is full of micro-tonalism.

 

And I listen to all styles of music. Everything from grindcore/death metal, to gangsta-rap, to classic rock, to big band/swing, to jazz, and many a pop artist.

It all good.

 

And I more than a few rap albums that contain just as much melody as rhythmic content.

 

And I would even go as far as to say that I have rap albums that have more melodic content than a lot of the rock/metal albums I have.

 

To demonstrate this, pull out a typical rock album and play it, while improvising along with it.

Now, do the same thing with The Chronic or Niggaz4Life. Far more key changes going on in those two albums than most typical rock records.

 

And I've got many a metal album that seem to embrace monotonality. And these guys are all playing instruments.

 

It's all subjective. That's why it's called music theory. It make be true for the most part, but it doesn't hold up across the entire spectrum.

 

I think a good definition of music would be: The use of sound to convey emotion.

[the stranger]

Originally posted by Psychotronic:

Turntables are NOT musical instruments.

I would disagree with that one. Once you have the experience of hearing somebody create something totally new from two slabs of vinyl, I think you'd change that opinion.

The masters of turntablism have to have a command of melody, rhythm, composition, and arrangment.

Or is is just going to be a bunch of noise. And even noise is a valid form of music in many circles.

 

I spent many years listening to various forms of grind/noisecore. And most of it is devoid of any traditional ideas of what music is. But, it is being performed by people playing musical instruments. Are people that play noisecore musicians? They aren't making msuic in the traditional sense. They play instruments. But, they don't seem concerned with any sense of melody.

 

I think some people in this thread are commenting on a style of music that they really don't have a lot of knowledge of. They are basing their opinions on what they see in the mainstream.

[njrocker]

The good ones I would consider poets, but probably not musicians, unless they write the music, too. The thing is, most rap songs don't have real music, just a sequenced loop. On Straight Outta Compton however, there are actual musicians playing. I would consider N.W.A. a group of poets and musicians.

[Blue Strat]

My opinion:

 

Rap can be music, but a lot of what I'm hearing on urban/hip-hop stations isn't music. It's rythym with a vocal. My idea of musical rap would be something like The Beastie Boys or 311.

 

I do not like most modern "R & B" and hip-hop music.

[Shoes]

Ya.. in much the same way that a bear taking a crap in the forest is musician in the eyes of a dung beatles

 

? Is Bobby Mcfarren a musician ?

 

Gotta keep in mind that we're as individual as it gets and what is music to the ears of anyone constitutes the product of a musician.

 

I just don't care much for it.

 

Cast a vote for the yes side.

[Big Red 67]

You can make music with a pile of junk at the dump. (Hey I gotta go to the dump, I just pictured the sound of the tractors beep beeping and groaning in the back of a section of garbage rythems with soaring guitars in the front) So open your mind and grow. Read the last page in the new bass player, I am not alone. Music is every where and in every thing! Found sound is taught in some music schools.

[Shoes]

Kind of makes you wonder why they don't just tune those suspension bridges to play something calming in the wind as you drive over the abyss.

[g.]

Guitars are like shoes. But louder.: Kind of makes you wonder why they don't just tune those suspension bridges to play something calming in the wind as you drive over the abyss.

They do. But they used this for the tuner:

 

http://users.net1plus.com/scottm/HomeComputer.jpg

[Shoes]

I can see being on the road with this tuner

 

A brief glance stage left to Karl (pictured above) Karl... are we in tune here?

 

Karl, standing by the new computer controlled tuner give the healthy thumbs up

 

Unfortunately Karl has to travel in his own Econoline van because the stompbox tuner is still 50 years off in development.

[Jeebus]

Nice Tuner!

[Jeebus]

Nice Tuner!