Poll: Hip Hop

[TheNamlessGuy]

DELETED

 

[Je Hones]

Lots of people in this thread are missing its point completely. We all know your misguided preconceptions about Hip Hop but OP's point is that it isn't all like that, so stop basing these opinions on what we've already established as NOT representative. Basing your interpretation of Hip Hop by what you see on TV is like basing your interpretation of Punk off those Iggy Pop insurance adverts. Apparently Punk is all about selling out and planning for the future. Who knew?

Yeah, my kids could listen to Hip Hop. If it was a section of Hip Hop I assessed to be detrimental to their mental growth, then as a parent I'd intervene, just like I would with a violent video game, film, or any other genre of music. Swearing isn't a big thing to me either. I'd hate to maintain that irrational social taboo my parents inflicted on me, for no other reason than it was a given that you do that. Fuck that. Curse words are powerful linguistic tools.

All that about violent imagery applies when they're really young though, like up to the age of 13. A year in high school is enough to tear through that metaphorical hymen so after that I guess I'd let them see, play and listen to whatever.

A better question is what the fuck I would do if my kid decided to devote themselves to a culture I morally loathe. I do not know the answer to that.

 

[Lightspeed Jack]

I love hip-hop and if my kids liked it more power to them.

 

[Jark212]

No... No way man...

Only Metal and Hard Rock for my children...

 

[Gildan Bladeborn]

My hypothetical children can listen to whatever they want - when they no longer live under my roof that is!

I will brook no hipping and/or hopping in my hypothetical household. They'll listen to what I like and be happy, or wear headphones at all times. Basically if I hate it, you certainly aren't going to be blasting it throughout the house.

 

[Je Hones]

The Escapist is a fan of the iron fist approach to child rearing I see.

 

[BonsaiK]

I know, and I'd like to know out of genuine interest why people say it's bad so much to the extent that they wouldn't allow their child to listen to it.

Uh-oh, here comes the guy who works in the music industry - warning, opinions may be strange.

When I was a kid I was listening to NWA, 2 Live Crew and I was also listening to stuff like Cannibal Corpse and Deicide. I also listened to socially conscious rap of the era too, like Public Enemy and the laughably shit Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy (how embarrasing that I used to like them). My life has definitely been evidence that what your kid listens to isn't going to negatively affect them, because by 12 years old I had heard it ALL and by the time I finished high school I was if anything a bit morally prudish and overly polite! I also loved Cypress Hill and have never smoked a joint in my life.

These days I like my rap music as violent and misogynist as possible and if they're also worshipping Satan that's definitely a bonus. I can't stand it when gangster rappers talk about God in reverential tones, that seems so hypocritical to me. If you're claiming to be "gangster" you're already sitting on the devil's side of the fence so you might as well stop posing and pretending that you have any morally redeeming qualities. I like entertainment but I also like people to have a consistent approach.

I hear a lot of rap music these days, whether I want to or not, because people send me CDs all the time. Most of it is garbage. I particularly despise "alternative hip hop" because those guys mostly have no idea how to write beats. Mind you most American mainstream stuff also has crap beats now, rap has been softening and softening ever since the late 1980s. The Australian stuff on the other hand usually has quite good beats (DJ Premier and Wu-Tang has a lot more influence down here with rappers than p-funk, crunk, dancehall etc), but the lyrics are usually horribly condescending and zero fun - I don't want to listen to a bunch of 22-year old Aussie dole bludgers talking down to me, telling me how hard their life is (Australia is a paradise, people here complaining about "hard times" should go and live in fucking Zimbabwe for a year) and giving me "lessons about life" - ugh, puke. I want a rapper to entertain me, not give me a university lecture. If they have something important to say, great, but don't forget that you're writing a song first and foremost, and I sure as hell don't want to be patronised.

I didn't really like your links, the first one was just kinda meh and the second was sort of a Portishead knock-off but with a really meandering melody instead of a really good one. I'm not going to link any of the rap stuff I like because I might incur mod wrath for it. But because people will ask me this - if you want to make rap music that someone else might actually like, my advice would be to make your raps ideologically consistent (no "I'm a gangster" in one song and "I love you baby" in the second song), and learn how to make a fucking beat, and if you don't know how to do that, find someone who does. If you really want to make your own beats, studying music theory and also psychoacoustics and audio engineering will help. Also don't drink heavily, smoke weed or do any other drugs - the sharper your mind is, the better your writing will be. And if you MUST talk politics, STUDY politics. Don't be one of those twits who talks about "knowledge" but thinks that the Illuminati is real. Rapping at its best is the science of wordplay and knowledge, not a "let's get stoned and talk shit" session, and if you believe stupid conspiracy theories or can't string a sentence together, you just failed rap class. Words are your friends, learn how to use them - the best MCs have excellent wordplay skills because they are smart, articulate people. Hilltop Hoods were from Blackwood, that's a pretty swanky area of Adelaide, they had a good education. Ice Cube and Public Enemy also have tertiary degrees. Your brain is your best friend and you will need to use it as there's a lot more to good rap music than people think. The proof that rap isn't just talentless shit is that not just anybody can do it well, and trust me, I know, because I see people who fail at rap but think they're geniuses handing me their CDs on a regular basis. Don't call me, I'll call you.

I'll let my kids listen to whatever. No matter what music they listen to, it's having me as a parent, period, that is going to be their biggest influence (positive or negative) in life. Moot point because I'll never have kids, but if I found my kids listening to something that I thought was offensive I'd probably just sit down and have a discussion with them about or something, and make sure they understand it and aren't just blindly accepting it. If I am satisfied that they have the mental faculties to see it for what it is, then as far as I'm concerned they can listen to anything.

As an aside, I really like a lot of Nerdcore stuff. To me, that stuff is closer to the true spirit of hip-hop than just about anything else.

 

[Je Hones]

I think a lot of people in here are against Rap just because it doesn't mesh well with the parameters their current clique set up. There's lots of "no way, (arbitrary genre) only" not because Rap occasionally has themes you can interpret as harmful to a child, just because they don't like Rap. Remember how domineering your parents were, how much you hated it and how you'd swore you'd never be like them? You're not so different.

I know, and I'd like to know out of genuine interest why people say it's bad so much to the extent that they wouldn't allow their child to listen to it.

Uh-oh, here comes the guy who works in the music industry - warning, opinions may be strange.

When I was a kid I was listening to NWA, 2 Live Crew and I was also listening to stuff like Cannibal Corpse and Deicide. I also listened to socially conscious rap of the era too, like Public Enemy and the laughably shit Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy (how embarrasing that I used to like them). My life has definitely been evidence that what your kid listens to isn't going to negatively affect them, because by 12 years old I had heard it ALL and by the time I finished high school I was if anything a bit morally prudish and overly polite! I also loved Cypress Hill and have never smoked a joint in my life.

These days I like my rap music as violent and misogynist as possible and if they're also worshipping Satan that's definitely a bonus. I can't stand it when gangster rappers talk about God in reverential tones, that seems so hypocritical to me. If you're claiming to be "gangster" you're already sitting on the devil's side of the fence so you might as well stop posing and pretending that you have any morally redeeming qualities. I like entertainment but I also like people to have a consistent approach.

I hear a lot of rap music these days, whether I want to or not, because people send me CDs all the time. Most of it is garbage. I particularly despise "alternative hip hop" because those guys mostly have no idea how to write beats. Mind you most American mainstream stuff also has crap beats now, rap has been softening and softening ever since the late 1980s.

I didn't really like your links, the first one was just kinda meh and the second was sort of a Portishead knock-off but with a really meandering melody instead of a really good one. I'm not going to link any of the rap stuff I like because I might incur mod wrath for it. But because people will ask me this - if you want to make rap music that someone else might actually like, my advice would be to make your raps ideologically consistent (no "I'm a gangster" in one song and "I love you baby" in the second song), and learn how to make a fucking beat, and if you don't know how to do that, find someone who does. If you really want to make your own beats, studying music theory and also psychoacoustics and audio engineering will help. Also don't drink heavily, smoke weed or do any other drugs - the sharper your mind is, the better your writing will be. And if you MUST talk politics, STUDY politics. Don't be one of those twits who talks about "knowledge" but thinks that the Illuminati is real. Rapping at its best is the science of wordplay and knowledge, not a "let's get stoned and talk shit" session, and if you believe stupid conspiracy theories or can't string a sentence together, you just failed rap class. Words are your friends, learn how to use them - the best MCs have excellent wordplay skills because they are smart, articulate people. Hilltop Hoods were from Blackwood, that's a pretty swanky area of Adelaide, they had a good education. Ice Cube and Public Enemy also have tertiary degrees. Your brain is your best friend and you will need to use it as there's a lot more to good rap music than people think. The proof that rap isn't just talentless shit is that not just anybody can do it well, and trust me, I know, because I see people who fail at rap but think they're geniuses handing me their CDs on a regular basis. Don't call me, I'll call you.

^The majority of that I agree with. I can't stand the posturing, both above and below ground. The patronising tone you mentioned depends for me. I don't find a moral patronising if that's what you mean. I agree with somebody rapping about something they don't experience being laughable. I can't stand that. I just have a problem with your comment about alternative rappers having shit beats.

What constitutes a good and bad beat to you? I'm guessing you receive a lot of amateur demos, so maybe that explains it. If you mean all alternative Rap then as far as I can guess, I might dig some beats you don't. Are you assessing how good a beat is at coinciding with your interpretation of Rap, or music on the whole? If it's the former, then that doesn't make it good or bad at being music, just good or bad at the function you've mapped out for it, which sounds like a really constricting way to look at it. Genre yields expectations that affect our perception of the quality of music.

With respect though, one person is never representative of a whole. For every one person that listens to Rap that celebrates gang culture and doesn't feel the need to copy it, there are about 30 other kids who lap it up and idolise it. All I have to do is walk down the street or step on a bus and they're there, playing shit from their phone, smoking and talking about beating people up.

Also, OP wasn't debating how good the music he posted was, just providing examples of exceptions to people's perceived interpretation of Hip Hop, because that's how I and most likely OP understood the prejudice to have arisen from.

 

[MiserableOldGit]

Too broad an umbrella to comment on- 'rap' as a label would throw Chuck D into the same bin as Fifty cent. Actualy, being stuck in a bin with Chuck D for a couple of hours might be a good thing for him...

 

[TheRightToArmBears]

I wouldn't stop them from listening to it, no. I wouldn't give it to them to listen to though, unless they had a firm grounding in decent music (music that I think is decent, don't quote me and moan)!

 

[EscapeGoat_v1legacy]

Would I allow my kids to listen to hip-hop? Sure.

Would I encourage it? If that's what they liked, yes.

Would I personally give them hip-hop to listen to? No, but that's more to do with my music taste than any particular hate against hip-hop.

I've got nothing against hip-hop, myself. Its just a matter of personal taste for me - I've not found any hip-hop that I really enjoyed. However, stuff like "gangster rap", that's generally not something I'd want my kids listening to, if I had any. Still, yeah, nothing against hip-hop, just not my kinda music.

 

[Burningsok]

I like the old school, today all you need is some voice changing tech and you can get put in the record books with a song that repeats itself over and over, little effort needed. back then it was all about hard work and talent. Eminem, and a few other hip-hop/rap artist today are actually legit music producers who don't constantly use all that shit to make their music.

 

[brtshstel]

Absolutely not. I do not like hip hop culture. It seems like it's becoming a symbol of decadence. Grills? Do you need to put jewelry on your teeth? Medallions the size of CDs? Do you really need to have your pants hand down to your knees? I also hate people who have sub-woofers in their cars that rumble so goddamn loud you feel it in your house as the car rolls by.

It's disgusting, and the music today often talks about things like that too, as well as fighting and all that. It's just tasteless garbage to me. I don't have anything against the people who do like it, so long as they don;t force it down my throat.

 

[Slaanax]

If they wanted to sure, but I would try to keep it age appropriate material.

 

[Private Custard]

Needs an option for 'depends on the age of the child'.

Anyway, if they were to listen to it, I'd hope they had the good sense to listen to some of the early stuff from NWA, Tupac, Coolio, Ice Cube etc...

Back then they told stories, now it's all bullshit apart from a few rare exceptions.

 

[Soxafloppin]

Im sorry but Dizzee Rascal's Bonkers is a tune.

 

[Private Custard]

Im sorry but Dizzee Rascal's Bonkers is a tune.

I prefer more lyrics than this

Spoiler: shallow

I wake up everyday it's a daydream
Everythin' in my life ain't what it seems
I wake up just to go back to sleep
I act real shallow but I'm in too deep

And all I care about is sex and violence
A heavy bass line is my kind of silence
Everybody says that I gotta get a grip
But I let sanity give me the slip

Some people think I'm bonkers
But I just think I'm free
Man, I'm just livin' my life
There's nothin' crazy about me

Some people pay for thrills
But I get mine for free
Man, I'm just livin' my life
There's nothin' crazy about me

Bonkers

I wake up everyday it's a daydream
Everythin' in my life ain't what it seems
I wake up just to go back to sleep
I act real shallow but I'm in too deep

And all I care about is sex and violence
A heavy bass line is my kind of silence
Everybody says that I got to get a grip
But I let sanity give me the slip

Bonkers

Some people think I'm bonkers
But I just think I'm free
Man, I'm just livin' my life
There's nothin' crazy about me

Some people pay for thrills
But I get mine for free
Man, I'm just livin' my life
There's nothin' crazy about me

Mmm, yeah, I'm back in the floor now

I wake up everyday it's a daydream
Everythin' in my life ain't what it seems
I wake up just to go back to sleep
I act real shallow but I'm in too deep

And all I care about is sex and violence
A heavy bass line is my kind of silence
Everybody says that I got to get a grip
But I let sanity give me the slip

Bon, bon, bon, bon, bon, bon, bon, bon

Some people think I'm bonkers
But I just think I'm free
Man, I'm just livin' my life
There's nothin' crazy about me

Some people pay for thrills
But I get mine for free
Man, I'm just livin' my life
There's nothin' crazy about me

Bonkers

I wake up everyday it's a daydream
Everythin' in my life ain't what it seems
I wake up just to go back to sleep
I act real shallow but I'm in too deep

And all I care about is sex and violence
A heavy bass line is my kind of silence
Everybody says that I got to get a grip
But I let sanity give me the slip

Bonkers

Some people think I'm bonkers
But I just think I'm free
Man, I'm just livin' my life
There's nothin' crazy about me

Some people pay for thrills
But I get mine for free
Man, I'm just livin' my life
There's nothin' crazy about me

Mmm, yeah, I'm back in the floor now
Mmm, yeah, I'm back in the floor now
Mmm, yeah, I'm back in the floor now
Mmm, yeah, I'm back in the floor now

Sure it's a good track to crank up when pissed. But compare it to some 2Pac

Spoiler

[1]
Come on come on
I see no changes wake up in the morning and I ask myself
is life worth living should I blast myself?
I'm tired of bein' poor & even worse I'm black
my stomach hurts so I'm lookin' for a purse to snatch
Cops give a damn about a negro
pull the trigger kill a nigga he's a hero
Give the crack to the kids who the hell cares
one less hungry mouth on the welfare
First ship 'em dope & let 'em deal the brothers
give 'em guns step back watch 'em kill each other
It's time to fight back that's what Huey said
2 shots in the dark now Huey's dead
I got love for my brother but we can never go nowhere
unless we share with each other
We gotta start makin' changes
learn to see me as a brother instead of 2 distant strangers
and that's how it's supposed to be
How can the Devil take a brother if he's close to me?
I'd love to go back to when we played as kids
but things changed, and that's the way it is

[Bridge w/ changing ad libs]
Come on come on
That's just the way it is
Things'll never be the same
That's just the way it is
aww yeah
[Repeat]

[2]
I see no changes all I see is racist faces
misplaced hate makes disgrace to races
We under I wonder what it takes to make this
one better place, let's erase the wasted
Take the evil out the people they'll be acting right
'cause both black and white is smokin' crack tonight
and only time we chill is when we kill each other
it takes skill to be real, time to heal each other
And although it seems heaven sent
We ain't ready, to see a black President, uhh
It ain't a secret don't conceal the fact
the penitentiary's packed, and it's filled with blacks
But some things will never change
try to show another way but you stayin' in the dope game
Now tell me what's a mother to do
bein' real don't appeal to the brother in you
You gotta operate the easy way
"I made a G today" But you made it in a sleazy way
sellin' crack to the kid. " I gotta get paid,"
Well hey, well that's the way it is

[Bridge]

[Talking:]
We gotta make a change...
It's time for us as a people to start makin' some changes.
Let's change the way we eat, let's change the way we live
and let's change the way we treat each other.
You see the old way wasn't working so it's on us to do
what we gotta do, to survive.

[3]
And still I see no changes can't a brother get a little peace
It's war on the streets & the war in the Middle East
Instead of war on poverty they got a war on drugs
so the police can bother me
And I ain't never did a crime I ain't have to do
But now I'm back with the facts givin' it back to you
Don't let 'em jack you up, back you up,
crack you up and pimp smack you up
You gotta learn to hold ya own
they get jealous when they see ya with ya mobile phone
But tell the cops they can't touch this
I don't trust this when they try to rush I bust this
That's the sound of my tool you say it ain't cool
my mama didn't raise no fool
And as long as I stay black I gotta stay strapped
& I never get to lay back
'Cause I always got to worry 'bout the pay backs
some punk that I roughed up way back
comin' back after all these years
rat-tat-tat-tat-tat that's the way it is uhh

[Bridge 'til fade:]
Some things will never change

It's the storytelling that I like.

 

[bassdrum]

It honestly depends, there's some really good hip hop/rap out there. Gangster rap, or other such music which only exists over simple beats with profane lyrics, I would try to steer a hypothetical child away from. DJ Shadow, UNKLE, RJD2, etc. are some artists I might steer them towards.

Plus, I am personally more of a fan of instrumental hip hop (I'm a musician, so I love to focus on the instrumentation of music), and there's plenty of good stuff out there on that front: DJ Shadow and RJD2 (again, as well as Free the Robots, Blockhead, DJ Krush... there's plenty of stuff out there.

In summary, I don't plan to censore my hypothetical offspring's music unless it's base and vulgar to ridiculous degrees.