Poll: Hip-Hop/R&B/Rap Music. Does it Suck?

[Azazcyh]

The entire genre sucks. Majorly. They have even stooped so low as to rip parts from other songs, just because they "Like da beat".
I shudder at the thought of the whole "Crazy Train" remix.
God damned lazy rappers, can't make up their own rythym.

Heh heh..
They're like breadsticks, they aint got no rythym.

Honestly, either constructively back up your intensely subjective opinion with a few intelligent points//facts or keep your sweeping and narrow-minded opinions to yourself.

p.s - If you're going to mount your high horse over misapplication of rhythm, at least learn to spell it correctly.

In Ixions defense it's his opinon and thats just what it is, an opinon you don't have to tell him off just because he dissagres with you. I don't like rap ethier and I don't know why. I've listned to it and it sounds good but I just can't enjoy it.
But Ixion you could have given a few more facts. Oh well

 

[Inverse Skies]

I would say that it does, but that is a very subjective opinion especially how I listen to and love classical more than anything else. So rap does not click with me in the slightest, with its awful backing beat and reliance on words rather than music to reinforce the ideas of the song. Classical is essentially the complete opposite, so you can understand why I wouldn't like rap.

 

[SharPhoe]

I wouldn`t say the entire genre sucks, just large amounts of it and even a metalhead like me can enjoy the odd bit of public enemy

This for me as well. Except I'm not a metal head. And I'm black.

...Don't let that fact explode your heads, ladies and gentlemen. Black people can dislike rap just as much as white people.

Mainly, for me, it's the subject matter. Any rap song that isn't about, as Yahtzee put it, "Whores, guns, and whores being shot with guns" gets points in my book and may actually warrant a listen.

...Unless it's another one of those songs that comes with its own insipid dance. No thank you.

 

[twistedshadows]

I almost answered the "Does it suck" part of your title instead of the actual question. I personally don't listen to it, but some of my friends do and I'm okay listening to it when I'm with them.

 

[macapus]

Come on, "How could you be so heartless?". Anyway, I like rap and enjoy some of it, but DAMN! There are a lot of songs that claim to be real rap and just sould like SHIT(*cough* lil wayne *cough*). There are songs I like, and songs I don't. There are rappers who make amazing songs, and their next song is utter shit. Most music genres have this kind of shit variation. Heavy metal got a bunch of 20 year olds screaming with heavy metal in the background for screamo. Not all rap is bad, you just have to know what kind you like. And kudos to you if you got the Kanye West reference at the top of the post.

 

[tenlong]

i hate most rap/hip hop etc today. i hate the ones where all talk about is hoes,rims and guns. also i hate the ones that cuss every other word. that's not music that's garbage.[in my opinion] i cuss like a sailor. if i think its too much cussing then most people would be offended. i don't mind they cuss every now and then. the old stuff i fine with.

 

[macapus]

Come on, "How could you be so heartless?". Anyway, I like rap and enjoy some of it, but DAMN! There are a lot of songs that claim to be real rap and just sould like SHIT(*cough* lil wayne *cough*). There are songs I like, and songs I don't. There are rappers who make amazing songs, and their next song is utter shit. Most music genres have this kind of shit variation. Heavy metal got a bunch of 20 year olds screaming with heavy metal in the background for screamo. Not all rap is bad, you just have to know what kind you like. And kudos to you if you got the Kanye West reference at the top of the post.

 

[macapus]

Come on, "How could you be so heartless?". Anyway, I like rap and enjoy some of it, but DAMN! There are a lot of songs that claim to be real rap and just sould like SHIT(*cough* lil wayne *cough*). There are songs I like, and songs I don't. There are rappers who make amazing songs, and their next song is utter shit. Most music genres have this kind of shit variation. Heavy metal got a bunch of 20 year olds screaming with heavy metal in the background for screamo. Not all rap is bad, you just have to know what kind you like. And kudos to you if you got the Kanye West reference at the top of the post.

 

[Warready]

I dislike both groupings pretty immensely. I will admit there have been rare occasions when I do actually enjoy a "song" from them.

 

[danosaurus]

The entire genre sucks. Majorly. They have even stooped so low as to rip parts from other songs, just because they "Like da beat".
I shudder at the thought of the whole "Crazy Train" remix.
God damned lazy rappers, can't make up their own rythym.

Heh heh..
They're like breadsticks, they aint got no rythym.

Honestly, either constructively back up your intensely subjective opinion with a few intelligent points//facts or keep your sweeping and narrow-minded opinions to yourself.

p.s - If you're going to mount your high horse over misapplication of rhythm, at least learn to spell it correctly.

In Ixions defense it's his opinon and thats just what it is, an opinon you don't have to tell him off just because he dissagres with you. I don't like rap ethier and I don't know why. I've listned to it and it sounds good but I just can't enjoy it.
But Ixion you could have given a few more facts. Oh well

Yeah i kinda felt it might've been a bit harsh but the facts he did bother to put forward were kinda thin.

By Ixions logic, all music that samples, covers or borrows melodies or beats from earlier released music is 'stooping' or 'lazy' (this practice is now commonplace in not just Rap but also electronic, rock, pop etc.)
I hardly believe this is the case with a majority of them (except maybe electronic). In a lot of cases, the artist will usually re-work the entire song or add completely new sections to it.
Sampling is a very competent and legitimate approach to music, if you've ever heard of Girl Talk [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WK3O_qZVqXk] you'll know what I mean.
It takes skill, time and knowledge to pull off anything like that.
I realise that's not essentially hip-hop but it's very sample heavy and is relevant in the defense of Ixions 'argument'.

I'm not even going to dignify the 'rhythm' part of his post.

I'm not trying come off sounding like a Rap fanboy because I'm totally not.
My top 3 favourite artists are Opeth, NIN and Thrice (All rock//metal//industrial)
I do, however, feel obliged to stick up for the good that IS left in the Rap//Hip-hop genre, if someone flames something they obviously know very little about, it sticks out like a sore thumb as it did in Ixions post.

 

[ctf1990]

I don't like any of them, but I do make rare exceptions (or maybe just one exception) to some songs that have a pretty catchy beat to it.

Of course I will NEVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER EVER take any exception to rap music.

 

[Roundhousekickintheface]

I personally think metal and rap are both sweet. But some rap sucks. ANYTHING ON TV IS BAD. U MUST KNOW THAT

 

[SharPhoe]

I can't help it. After being forced to listen to songs at a volume so loud I couldn't hear for the next hour, all of which contained lyrics like "get down on the floor and lick my ballz, ho," I absolutely cannot tolerate rap music.
Ever. It's like if you were mauled by a lion as a child. You'd have an understandable fear and hatred of lions, right?

Yep, but like most fears, sometime you have to learn to overcome them. ...Well, sometimes. Still, nobody can force you, so...

 

[BonsaiK]

I think rapping is okay. Depends on the artist. Some suck at it, some are good. I got into rap because I grew up as a metalhead and there's definitely a common thread of intensity and brooding atmosphere between, say, Slayer's "Reign In Blood" and Mobb Deep's "Hell On Earth". Most current rap artists just don't "get it" though. Rap has really lost a lot in terms of intensity over the last ten years. Too much influence from Jamaican dancehall and pop has muddied the style to the point where a lot of it's no longer significant. I like those styles too but I don't think they blend very well with rap. I guess what I'm trying to say is that rap doesn't HAVE to suck, and the fact that it usually does says more about today's music fashion than rap itself as an artform.

However, Australians should not rap. Ever. Stick to singing about vegemite and prawns, you lame wannabes. Rap in Australia is mostly kind of like Emo with baseball caps - a bunch of middle-class kids pretending that they're far more hard-done-by than they really are, trying to gain street cred while at the same time holding down cushy jobs or living in suburbia with their fairly well-off parents. (Yes, I'm Australian and pretty plugged into the rap scene down here so I know exactly what I'm talking about, I'm entitled to say this.) Rap loses its relevance completely when divorced from the cultural context that created it, and nowhere is that more obvious than Australia.

 

[SharPhoe]

I can't help it. After being forced to listen to songs at a volume so loud I couldn't hear for the next hour, all of which contained lyrics like "get down on the floor and lick my ballz, ho," I absolutely cannot tolerate rap music.
Ever. It's like if you were mauled by a lion as a child. You'd have an understandable fear and hatred of lions, right?

Yep, but like most fears, sometime you have to learn to overcome them. ...Well, sometimes. Still, nobody can force you, so...

I'd rather keep my hearing.
It was seriously an uncool level of volume. People thirty feet away could hear the lyrics and were staring.

Trust me, that kind of volume is all in the bass. Woofers, sub-woofers, sub-sub-woofers, uber-woofers, they're all guaranteed to make your ears bleed. Luckily, they're not required to listen to the music. If you listen on your own time, in your own space, it's several times easier to bear.

 

[wordsmith]

I hate how they often steal beats and rhythms. Eminem's "Lose Yourself", I believe it's called, stole its guitar beat from Led Zeppelin's Kashmir, and one of his songs has the exact same chorus as Aerosmith's Dream On.
This applies to almost anyone. Speed up almost any rap drum beat to about 120 or 130 bpm and you'll get some pretty familiar tunes.
There must be one hip hop song in the universe which I can listen to without cringing, which is King of Rock by Run DMC, if only because of the decent guitar.

Wait... you know where rap came from, right? It stems from Toasting, which was the African Urban way of passing on stories. The Africans put their stories in in rhyme and to a rhythm for the same reason Shakespeare wrote in rhyming couplets- people can learn stuff faster when it rhymes (the brain stores the rhyming section as one thing, meaning for a 15 line story, only 5 rhymes have to be remembered). It's also for this reason that a looped beat was used, because 16 bars played over (the common loop point for most rap, hence the battlerap phrase "killing you over 16 bars"- "Your ability to rap is that bad, I won't even need the beat to loop to win this battle". But I digress, where was I? Oh yeah, Toasting...) are long enough to use an interesting section, but not so long that the music distracts the listener from the story. The stories were usually about a quick witted character using methods which were not always inside the law to defeat impossible odds (which is where the B-Boy culture takes it's inspiration from), which is kinda ironic considering it's use in Gangsta rap... This defeat of a physically larger opponent is still echoed today, where a 16 year old skinny white guy can beat a 24 year old, 6'2, muscle bound black guy, so long as the white kid has the punchlines.

Loops were also used because of the nature of the original record- Instrumentals are cheaper than fully vocalised tracks, meaning it was cheaper to take the instrumental as a "beat" and go from there. Toasting is the origin of Ska, Dancehall, Reggae and Dubstep, as well as Rap, R&B and Hip-hop.

Toasting was exported from Africa along with the Slave trade, and when black slaves were freed (and were still that poor that they were living in the ghetto and had to make money by illegal means), the tradition continued. The ancestors became further away, and Toasting quickly mutated into the Rap that some people seem to remember (NWA, DMX's older stuff, Public Enemy, that sort of stuff). The problem is that rappers have risen to fame and not gone back to help others get out of that situation (with the noticable exception of Eminem, as soon as he was able to he made Dre sign D12, and began releasing records with them).

[/history lesson]

 

[SharPhoe]

Trust me, that kind of volume is all in the bass. Woofers, sub-woofers, sub-sub-woofers, uber-woofers, they're all guaranteed to make your ears bleed. Luckily, they're not required to listen to the music. If you listen on your own time, in your own space, it's several times easier to bear.

Maybe I will try to be more tolerant.
Maybe.
But I still hate loud noises.

Don't we all.