Conference napalm::guitar

I haven't heard much rap that attracts me (any?). To my ears it's not really
music. Since I'm getting along in years a part of me says "hey dude, your 
parents hated hendrix etc., maybe it's the same thing" ie: lack of cultural 
context to appreciate it.

I pass no judgement.

dbii

    The bad news about rap:  I can't stomach it....I just can't.  I don't
    really knock it, but it's not for me.
    
    The good news about rap:  If you want a free sample anytime, just stand
    in a parking lot of a fast food place on a Friday night, your free sample 
    will drive by with the bass and drums at deafening decibels....
    
    8)

Like all musical genres, the problem with that rap is that for every good
group, there are 19 other knock-offs that really bite (pop-metal had this
same problem - for every Bon Jovi there were 19 bands that were lame 
wanna-be's). 

Absolutely, there is some good rap. Check out Arrested Development (the Sly
and the Family Stone of the 90's?), Rage Against The Machine, early 
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Public Enemy, or Run DMC.

alan

    re: .1 DAVEB
    
    Amen!
    
    "Wrote a song about it... like to play it for ya":
    
    When I first moved into my house, my neighbor's husband had just died
    and I sorta became a big-brother to his oldest son.   He used to take
    care of my cats whenever I'd go out of town and as a reward I would
    take him to the mall and let him pick out a CD.
    
    One time he picked out a rap record and I said "no way are any of my
    hard-earned dollars going to go to any of that crap" and I made him
    pick out another record.
    
    We waited in this looonnnng checkout line and that gave me time to
    think.  And what I thought was "Shit, that's almost exactly what
    my father said about the music I liked and I had sworn that I would
    be different when I was an adult."
    
    So JUST as the cashier was about to take care of us, I said "Jay, we're
    going back and getting that rap record".   He actually didn't WANT to
    get it because he didn't want to wait in line all over again but I MADE
    him get it, obviously not understanding anything about what was going
    on.
    
    Interesting thing is that thru his appreciation of Rap I was able to
    find some stuff that I liked.  For example, I *LOVE* to listen to 
    Tone Loc.  He just has a very cool style of delivery and his lyrics are
    often pretty funny/interesting little stories.
    
    	db

    I don't listen to a lot of rap, but I'll tune in some on the radio
    (when my wife isn't around to complain).  Makes good background music
    because it's very repetitive, just short one and two bar grooves with
    some guy yapping over it.
    
    Rap was no big shock for me to hear after spending years of listening
    to Jamaican "toasters" on numerous reggae "dub" recordings.  The dub
    masters were way ahead of the rappers, back in the 70s they were taking
    the master tapes to hit reggae songs, remixing them with lots of use of
    echo and dropping instruments in and out of the mix, while some DJ
    toasted over the top of it.  So when I first started hearing rap it
    sounded cool.
    
    The latest fad is sampling from jazz records.  I heard one just last
    night that sampled the main riff from "Cantaloupe Island", and there's
    at least one experiment with having rappers play over *live* jazz
    tracks that I've heard about.  If this trend continues, maybe the Last
    Poets and Gil Scott-Heron will make a comeback  8^)   8^)
    
    							Brian

    
    another recent trend - mixing rap and rock ( ok, ok, not so recent,
    don't flame me, man :-) )
    
    check out the soundtrack to _Judgement Night_ - lots of big name rap
    stars banding together with big name alternative groups.
    
    a trend I would like to see continue, I might add . . .
    
    
    		Jim "Just another white suburban Body Count fan" Carroll
    

    I think the first two replies in here hit it pretty well; to appreciate
    rap, you need to have context.  The analogy with your parents and
    Hendrix is pretty close; it's fairly easy to see how all that 60's
    guitar stuff would sound like noise to someone older.
    
    That said, I've personally found it pretty hard to develop the context
    for rap music.  I played that Arrested Development CD for a long time; 
    it's okay, I don't really dislike it, but it doesn't excite me much
    either.  I've heard some Cypress Hill stuff that I liked, mostly
    because it had a real edge to it; listening to that stuff seems to
    give you a real taste of the madness of life in the inner city.  But
    again, that's not an experience I find myself craving very often.
    
    Also, as a parent (and getting used to thinking like one), I notice
    that kids will find things to embrace that you don't like or can't
    understand no matter how open minded you think you are.  It's part
    of developing their independence.
    
    /rick

>    I think the first two replies in here hit it pretty well; to appreciate
>    rap, you need to have context.  The analogy with your parents and
>    Hendrix is pretty close; it's fairly easy to see how all that 60's
>    guitar stuff would sound like noise to someone older.
    
    The same kind of things are also why people with an R&B orientation
    see newer kinds of music like rap, Progressive, Shred, etc. as being
    less than musical.
    
    	db

    pretty mature viewpoint, Rick :-)
    
    I wonder what it is about white suburban kids that makes them
    think living in an urban war zone is so attractive. 

    >>I wonder what it is about white suburban kids that makes them
    >>think living in an urban war zone is so attractive.
    
    They've never been there.  When I was young, I thought it would be
    really neat to fire an M-16 at an enemy......
    
    

    
    
    Acquiring a couple of teen-age step-daughters brought me into contact
    with rap.  It grows on you after a while.  And yeah, there's a voice in
    the back of my head that makes that Hendrix analogy someone posted
    earlier.  Even if you can't personally relate to the lyrics, you have
    to keep in mind that they contain some truth for somebody somewhere --
    and since rap is everywhere now, there must be some universality to the
    contents.  If you want to understand the time/space continuum your
    teen-agers live in, you can't just dismiss it...
    
    Plus, it's fun to pipe through the PA!
    

    I don't get it...the variety of teenagers' taste.  My daughters are 16
    and 17 and they love Steve Miller, Bad Company, Zeppelin, Eagles,
    Doobies, Lenny Kravitz (sp), Pearl Jam, etc, but no rap......
    
    

    re: -1
    
    Oh yeah, and my oldest (Alan's flame) is a huge SRV/Eric Clapton fan. 
    It's starting to make sense now; she grew up hearing her dad play all
    that stuff and it became her definition of real music......what a girl!
    
    :-}

    But Steve, that's because you never let them out of the house!
    
    :-)

re: .12

>    I don't get it...the variety of teenagers' taste.  My daughters are 16
>    and 17 and they love Steve Miller, Bad Company, Zeppelin, Eagles,
>    Doobies, Lenny Kravitz (sp), Pearl Jam, etc, but no rap......
    
That's *this* month, of course! :-)    

It's interesting watching them change.  My SO's 15 year old daughter
has recently outgrown 98-Rock and now listens to WHFS (the local
alternative station).  She seems to be slowly losing her taste for metal.
Oh, and like Steve's daughters, she seems to like a wide variety of
stuff.  She  knows some of the old stuff better than people my age (40),
but she likes new stuff, too.  No rap, though (at least not yet).

-Hal

    >>But Steve, that's because you never let them out of the house!
    
    with Aqualung lurking about, it was best for them.....
    
    :)

re: .9 

I can imagine my father thinking "I wonder what it is about never taking a
bath, getting stoned on illicit substances, and hanging out in parks, not
getting haircuts, all that 'free sex' etc.that is so attractive to these 
white suburban kids"

What it is is different, we (my generation) were in full rebellion against
the 40's and 50's and the hippee movement was born. Kids today are in full
rebellion against the 60's 70's and 80's and rap is one method of cultural
expression that they've embraced.

what I said in .1 can be applied to any form of music.

there is no explaining people's tastes

dbii

    >The same kind of things are also why people with an R&B orientation
    >see newer kinds of music like rap, Progressive, Shred, etc. as being
    >less than musical.
    
    Aw, give it a break, will you?  Just because the ELP reunion was more
    like "Love Beach, Vol. 2" is no reason to keep bringing this up in
    every note! 
    
    						Bennie Bouncer

    Since we're on the topic.  I agree with Alan, there is rap that I like,
    and rap that I don't like.  As a general statement, I find most rap to
    be kind of irritating and choose not to listen to it much.  In the real
    early days of rap ('82-'83), I actually liked some of the stuff by
    people like the Fat Boys, Run DMC.  I like some of LL Cool J's stuff,
    some of Tone Loc's stuff, some of Arrested Development's stuff. 
    
    If it's got a cool groove, I can probably get into it, but a lot of the
    words many rap artists use are offensive to me.  There seems to be an
    extreme level of profanity, arrogance, sexism, and racism in a lot of
    the rap that's out there today and I don't like any of those things.
    
    Yeah, I know that the black people in these groups have a valid  reason
    for feeling the way they do about whites, discrimination is a very real
    and ugly thing, but I don't think it helps the (already bad) situation
    to write inflamatory songs about it.
    
    Plus some of the samples currently used get on my nerves 'cause they
    toss the sample in too much (like that analog synth thing Cypress Hill
    uses on that popular song of theirs, strikes me like a dentist's
    drill).
    
    Bottom line: I prefer other stuff.
    
    re: Steve-dawg
    
>    with Aqualung lurking about, it was best for them.....
    
    You mean Alanlung...
    ;^)
    
    gh
                 

    To me RAP is not music.  Its poetry with an annoying drum machine.

    Hey TGrillo, I respect your view on this (even though I don't
    necessarily agree).

    re: .22
    
    Group hug!

    
    Right.  That's it.  Stop that singing *right* *now*.  There'll be no
    singing in *my* castle!
    
    	People said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built
    one anyways!
    
    	And it sank into the swamp.  So I built another one!
    
    	And *it* sank into the swamp.  So I built *another* one.
    
    	And it caught fire, fell over and sank into the swamp.
    
    	But the *fourth* *one* *stayed* *up*!  And that's what you'll
    inherit, daughter!
    
    No more group hugs - you all hate each other, remember????  This *is*
    the 90's, after all . . .
    
    						King Jim

    
    Rap to me is not music, but as someone said already, more like poetry.
    It actually reminds me of these stereotypical beatnik scenes you'd see
    in movies where some bespectacled dude who looks like Ed 'Big Daddy' Roth
    is up there under a 5-watt bulb reading Allen Ginsberg while someone
    sucking on the short end of a Camel pounds away on a pair of bongos.
    
    Although I don't heard any rap I like, I'm not going to knock it. 
    
    I can't get around it, either, even though I've tried. But when I think
    about someone like Captain Beefheart (who I like a lot), who 
    just wrote poetry and slung it on top of some pretty manic stuff by the 
    Magic Band, well, maybe there ain't much difference after all.
    
    Peter
     

    Like, deja vu all over again, man...
    
    We had a discussion one or two years back on rap, and I also made the
    strong point that it is far more akin to poetry than to music. The
    elements of rhythm and intricate internal rhyming are emphasized to an
    *excruciating* degree, but rhythm alone does not music make. Where's
    the melodic line and chord structure? (Even the typically simple
    progressions usually found in "da blooz" <g>)
    
    Still and all, I have heard rap stuff that I like. I find that it's
    difficult to separate attitudes toward the *style* from attitudes
    toward the typical *subjects* addressed in rap. (The latter were really
    the main topic of the last notes go-round on rap that I know of.)
    
    Sorry- was I supposed to be bashing? If so, my apologies, I'll try to
    think of something to bash later to make up for it...
    
    Bob

    
    	Just got back from Cozumel - an island in Mexico.  Lots of rap
    	in Spanish.  It was kinda funny to hear that inner-city bravado
    	attitude in Spanish.  
    
    	Prince has some decent rap in his newer music.  When he raps,
    	he puts a melody to it too.  Stevie Wonder's another who has
    	added just a bit of rap.  He can't help but be melodic, even
    	rapping.
    
    	Tom
    

    
      Stereotyped on purpose.
    
      White suburban guy: "Rap music?  I don't get it."
    
      Black urban guy: "You're not suppose to!"  
    
    
      [Light bulb clicks on over head.]  Ooooooooh, okay!   Later.
      
      Rick.  _Works_for_me_
              

well rick, that about sums it up!

It's not fair!

/* rap.c - random rap lyrics generator */
 
#include <stdio.h>
#include <time.h>
#include <ctype.h>
 
/* The phrase arrays must be the same size */

static char *phrase1[] =
{
	"Move it",
	"Get up",
	"Pump it up",
	"Get down",
	"Shake it",
	"Pump the jam",
	"In the city streets",
	"You'll be humpin'",
	"'Til the night is over",
	"Shake your meat",
	"I'm bustin loose",
	"With disco heat"
};
 
static char *phrase2[] =
{
	" to triple beat ",
	" get body heat ",
	" feel the beat ",
	" get around ",
	" the joint is jumpin' ",
	" feet are stompin' ",
	" in the city streets ",
	" you'll be humpin' ",
	" 'til the night is over ",
	" shake your meat ",
	" I'm bustin loose ",
	" with disco heat "
};

int nphrases = sizeof( phrase1 ) / sizeof( phrase1[0] );

/* The auth arrays must be the same size */

static char *auth1[] =
{
  "Bad",
  "Bad",
  "Bad",
  "Bad",
  "Bad",
  "Bad",
  "Bad",
};

static char *auth2[] =
{
  "Ice",
  "Vanilla",
  "Chocolate",
  "Prince",
  "News",
  "Boy",
  "Mother",
};

static char *auth3[] =
{
  "Starr",
  "Blickstein",
  "Rost",
  "Stewart",
  "House",
  "Desrochers",
  "Buckley",
};

int nauthors = sizeof( auth1 ) / sizeof( auth1[0] );

int authors[3],chor[2][2];
static char auth_string[80];
char *title(),*author();
void verse();

main()
{
   int i,j,k,getpid();
   time_t now;
 
   /* Generate random seed */
 
   now = time(&now) / rand();
   srand(getpid() + (int)((now >> 16) + now + time(&now)));
 
   /* Print out song */
 
   for( k = 0; k < 5; ++k )
   {
      /* Load chor with random numbers */
      for (i = 0; i < 2; i++)
      {
         for (j = 0; j < 2; j++)
            chor[i][j] = rand() % nphrases;
         if( chor[i][0] == chor[i][1] )
            chor[i][1] = (chor[i][1] + 1) % nphrases;
      }
      if( chor[0][0] == chor[1][0] )
         chor[1][0] = (chor[1][0] + 1) % nphrases;
      if( chor[0][1] == chor[1][1] )
         chor[1][1] = (chor[1][1] + 1) % nphrases;
      /* Get title and author */
      if( k == 0 )
      {
         for (i = 0; i < 3; i++)
            authors[i] = rand() % nauthors;
         (void) printf("\n\"%s\", by %s\n",title(),author());
      }
      /* Print a verse */
      verse();
   }
   (void) printf("\n-----\n");
}
 
char *title()
{
   return( phrase1[chor[0][0]] );
}

char *author()
{
   char s[80];
   sprintf( auth_string, "%s %s %s",
            auth1[authors[0]],
            auth2[authors[1]],
            auth3[authors[2]] );
   return( auth_string );
}

void verse()
{
   printf("\n%s, %s\n",phrase1[chor[0][0]],phrase2[chor[0][1]]);
   printf(  "%s, %s\n",phrase1[chor[0][0]],phrase2[chor[0][1]]);
   printf(  "%s, %s\n",phrase1[chor[1][0]],phrase2[chor[1][1]]);
}

    I'm not so sure that's an "improvement"...  How'd we rate anyway?
    
    Bad Prince House  (from one of the first things it generated for me)

    You guys are gonna love this...
    
    I was listening to WZBC out of Boston College the other night and they
    were playing a "classic rap" show hosted by two white kids. They stuck
    almost exclusively to stuff that was from 1985 or earlier!  Even
    apologized for playing a 1989 track by saying it was in the "old"
    style.  Sheesh, I forgot how much scratching used to go on before
    everybody got the $$ for samplers.  8^)  8^)
    
    Anyway, I noticed that the old tracks were real simplistic productions. 
    A lot like early rock and roll where the recordings were really raw. 
    It's quite evident that there has been a lot of growth, both in the
    content and in the (recorded) presentation of rap over the years.
    
    Like any style, there is garbage and there is good stuff.
    
    						       MC Crapper

    I agree that rap has gotten more sophisticated. Of the 18 or so tunes I
    recognized on Billboard's top 100, my favorite was "Rebirth of Slick"
    by Digable Planets. I even liked "Gangsta B***h." This is not just because
    I've gotten used to the stuff, since old rap tunes still make me ill.
    
     I have even found myself liking some country tunes (my band did
    "Passionate Kisses" and "He Thinks he'll keep her" last year.) Musical
    styles keep evolving, sometimes for the worse and sometimes for the
    better. I always like to tune in every once in awhile to forms I'm
    convinced I hate, just to see if I'm missing anything
    
    Danny W.