wabio

I just watch a couple of rap videos on MTV. One had Missy Elliot acting like King Kong, and reciting heck knows what. Another had some girl shaking her tits and clamouring on about milkshakes. If it wasn't for the tits, it would have been a complete waste of time. Anyways....what happened?

SnoopDogg

Kelis isn't rap, and Missy Elliot is a tool.

Listen to real rap music.

the aftermath

Exactly.

MJKTool

I would imaginge, just like any other genre of music, you have to weed out the BS and find good music. Its out there, its just not shoved in your face.

Ergyu

Exactly. It's unfortunate too, for all types of music, because it allows others to easily stereotype the entire genre.

DodgingCars

Bring back the songs about bitches and hos!!

Dubya

I'm certainly not the world's biggest rap fan, but I do like/appreciate some of the classics (The Chronic, Straight Outta Compton, Run D.M.C., Eminem, Beastie Boys, Some of Public Enemy, Snoop). Is it just me or is every rap video the same these days? It seems everytime I see one it shows the brooding rapper (decked out in 10 different retro jerseys throughout the video) walking in front of his posse in slow motion, followed by numerous references to how much bling-bling he has. It is really ridiculous how repetitive rap is these days.

BRIAN 1972

true. i can't stand the Ferrari's parked in the 'hood, the yachts with the bitches on them, meanwhile the guy singing dropped out of 4th grade.

Ergyu

The funny thing is that most of them don't even own those expensive cars and Bikes you see in the videos. Hell, a lot of them don't own an expensive car period, it's all a big facade hah.

balancer

not to mention all the half naked, grinding models in the videos (God love em'), but it's so obvious they wouldn't give most of these guys the time of day without being paid to dance in the video..

raiders757

I'm not a fan of Rap at all, so my opinion might not matter much, but as someone outside looking in, I'm going to give it anyway.

What has happened to Rap/Pop is a thing called "overcommercialization". What you see on MTV, and in TV adds, is all fluff with little substance made for the all mighty $$$. What has happened is a bunch of rich corporate suites have taken advantage of Rap in order to sell, sell, sell, and in turn they have destroyed everything it was probably meant to be. I have no doubt in my mind, even though I am no fan of Rap, that there is rap out there that kicks all this commercial crap right in the balls.

All MTV cares about is how much pimple cream, shoes, and Pepsi it can sell. MTV knows most of thier viewers are suburban sheep in thier pre-teens to very early teens(who will like anything they play, no matter what the hell it is), even though they try to claim diferent. They know suburbia is where all the $$$ is at, and that there is no better way to sell pimple cream, shoes, and Pepsi than to use the vanity of the Hip Hop culture, which Rap is a part of. ( Please nobody get mad at me for saying that, but as far as I see it, as an outsider, the Hip Hop culture is very vain. Ya' know the Bling, Bling etc.. Seems to me, that image means a lot. Not that there is any thing wrong with that.)

I guess what I am getting at, is if you can push some of that vain mentality onto our suburban youth, you can make a lot of $$$$. Hence the flashy, fluff, made for sheep, with no substance rap/pop you get on MTV these days.

If you are a fan of Rap, the question should really be, where the hell can I find "REAL" Rap at.

It's just like back in the 80's when all those Hair Metal bands made all the other "REAL" Metal bands look bad, but Rap is on a larger more commercial scale. That crap on MTV, as well as those terrible McDonald's adds etc., just make "REAL" Rap, and the Hip Hop culture look bad.

Ralph Wiggum

If you only look for new music on MTV or commercial radio, then you deserve whatever crap they feed you.

Steveweiser

Truth.

Julie Walker

Well I would agree with what Raider said. in fact,just viewing old metal wannabe bands on Vh1 Classic has made me realize how much shit their is in all genres once something catches on.

Yet rap is still far away from its roots as it can get. It used to be pretty cool & enjoyable back in the early days before it became hip. Sure there was alot of shit in the 80's as well. But at least we had the likes of RUN DMC(true rappers in my opinion),Public Enemy,N.W.A.(before gangsta rap became a joke) & even one hit wonders but at least they rocked Young M.C.,Biz Marchee among others.

Yet I can not find ANY good rap today. Even the so called 'real' stuff some 'anti-MTV'(or so they claim music channels)play pure shit since the morons are trying to copy whoever is popular & making money at the moment.

One important aspect missing from rap today,other than talent(which todays 'rappers' don't have!) is a GOOD BEAT!

Have you heard the generic 'beats' all the songs use today? They all sound alike & Missy Elliot. She is annoying as all hell!!!

At least in early rap,even if not all the rhymes worked,the beats usually made up for it. Not so with what you hear today. Heck many seem to have forgot how to rap altogether & just brood on about various things. Which has really gotten old,stale & boring.

I mean,at least N.W.A despite being gangster rap had good beats AND rhymes!

Yet the so called wannabe gangstas of today are just pathetic. Same 'dark' boring beat,same old lyrics over & over again. All really souless & dead with no heart put into it.


Anyway I am not a huge rap fan,but I do appreciate GOOD rap,which seems to be rare to come by these days.

fumanstan

Which is why i'm looking forward to Eminem's next album. All of his work has been solid and hasn't let me down yet

harpo787

Time to post my own two pennies of passion about this subject.

Back when I was a young school boy (say around age of....10 or so in 1982), I enjoyed just a little bit of everything, including country (which I now despise, except for what I liked back then). I liked Kiss (I guess at 10 all that bizarre make-up, fire and blood spitting can be pretty damn cool). I liked Journey (and still do like the old stuff, call it a guilty pleasure if you must). I also liked pretty much whatever was on the radio.

My first genre of music I attached to though was rap. After attempting to list the obvious, I've pulled out what old albums I still have: Run DMC, Fat Boys, Beastie Boys, way old 2 Live Crew (Throw The "D" & We Want Some P***y as well as the female response with Throw The "P" by Anquette), LL Cool J (first two albums), Gigolo Tony's Smurf Rock, and DJ Jazzy Jeff and some dude called "The Fresh Prince" (wonder if Will Smith likes to reminisce (sp?) of the old days?).

Then I heard some Iron Maiden (Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, around 1988) and was hooked to metal. It's been my main music ever since, with the occasional enjoyment of rap. I still dig Beastie Boys, everything they've done.

The point of all this? All these groups (and so many smaller ones including those who barely got anything put on wax at all) were about their rhymes and beats, and trying to one up each other. I suppose you could call them "wars", but I don't remember any references to actual violence, other than perhaps lyrically beating someone up. While I couldn't exactly feel that they were talking to me directly (if you know what I mean), I didn't exactly feel isolated by it. When gangsta rap came around, as I started to listen to rap a bit again, I felt totally isolated. I couldn't relate to the guns and gangs etc. Even on the commercial stuff nowadays, I can't relate to aspiring to riches and bitches etc. I'm not down with the bling bling I guess.

I guess one final rapper to comment on for me: Eminem. I think he's very talented (hey, it's a matter of opinion, you may disagree), and I think he's done something a bit different with rap. I guess you could say he's like the grunge of rap...in the sense of singing of broken homes and battered family type stuff...sorta like a rapping Staind.

Well, I'm not sure how to end this, so I guess I'll just end it here.

Steveweiser

Get the new Kanye West album. He doesn't talk about the same old topics, the beats are incredible (as long as sped-up vocal samples don't give you a headache), and he has a true love and passion for the music. Great album.

maxinquaye

in defense of missy, she is taking hiphop in new directions that it really hasn't been in. her music is more 'hiphop' than it is pure 'rap', since it is a jumble of all the musical elements of hiphop. but sonically (with timbaland), she is as daring and experimental as anyone in the genre (if that word even holds for her music), and is really reaching for sounds and effects that transcend what we normally think of as 'rap' or even 'hiphop'. sure, some of their experiments don't hold up, but you have to admire the ambition; they're doing something different, with sometimes exciting and exhilarating results. i think the reason a lot of people don't like her is because they're sort of approaching the music in the wrong context. she seems to be more enamoured with the form of hiphop, the sounds, textures, atmospheres, and feelings, than with how the music as traditionally been approached. i think that's one reason why when she does rap or sing 'normally', it is often in a way which references hiphop itself. without getting too esoteric, it is sort of the way Jean-Luc Godard often approached filmmaking, paying homage to as well as trenscending the form, all while retaining a playful sensibility which is undeniably commercial.

so in many ways, i feel that missy is not only an exception to 'what's wrong with rap', but a example of what is right, how artists are begining to self-analyze themselves and their art, showing how far hiphop has come since the battle-rap-on-the-corner days. she makes daring and challenging music, backed by Timbaland's ridiculous beats (who should be mentioned in the same sentence as artists like Aphex Twin), creating something strange and new but still familiar.

yeah, i'm being way too intellectual here. but i think hiphop/rap is at a point now where people should begin giving it that level of thought.

lostatmidnight

its degenerated like rock back in the 90's (oh not to mention all "artistic" culture in the US these days): sound-alikes, recycled riffs, melodies, beats, phonies who think they are great "artists" when all they are is corporate America's puppets. There is Outkast, Roots, Jurassic 5, Badu, Mos Def and Talib Kwali who are a quick few who have major record deals but still create ambitious music the MTV warped minds never see....

Oh, scream at the those two Neptunes idiots these days for hearing the same beats...their "style" has single handled polluted the airways, MTV and the kiddies minds along with genuflecting press that labels them "brillaint, genuis, artists". (Yawn)

Drexl

It seems that based on the two examples wabio gave, they're now performing their own songs rather than having songs written about them.

fallow

Soooo so so so so on the mark. I don't think you're over-intellectualizing anything.

jay77a

Well put maxinquaye.

Michael Corvin

I have to agree with Raiders and harpo. They have hit the nail on the head, especially raiders metal anaology. I was going to use the same one.

I have noticed 2 things that differentiate rap of today vs. rap 10+ years ago.

1. Rap used to be fun. Current stuff takes itself waaaaay to seriously. I mean DJ Jazzy Jeff and the fresh prince, Digital Underground, LL Cool J, Snoop, Beastie Boys, Run DMC and the Fat Boys just made fun music that you wanted to listen to. Today you have 3 dozen artists with no talent, that sound the same, that are all serious about their 'bling-bling,' wars with other rappers, and a bunch of other nonsense. Not to mention of these current artists only about 1% make a hit second album. It is all about the first album and getting in your 15 minutes because they know they won't be around come next year. The only thing that comes close to fun recently was 'the Thong Song.' You may not like it but it somewhat harkens back to the 80's rap, it was entertaining.

2. Originality. 99% of rappers today have zero originality. Their beats are stolen, someone else writes the song, someone else makes their image for Mtv, and so on. Every current song is about one of the following: bitches(or some part of their anatomy), drugs, money(ahem..bling bling), and being an O.G.. It is laughable. Another metal analogy if you will, AC/DC alone has more songs about different topics than the entire rap genre combined.

sararekuforever

I think it's more of a stigma that rap performers can't get out of. I mean, look at Tupac, or even Outkast. I think they have reached out and found a following in, umm, the demographic that rock and pop music typically caters to. I think [even though I absolutely hate Outkast] that they have tried to make something different from most rap. And Tupac in some moments, quite a few, wrote lyrics with more substance than most rappers of his time. However, they can't get out of it. Look at Outkast, maybe they are intelligent, creative, or whatever, but they're still stuck in the same mindset, same kind of material. The reason the typical rap audience can still relate to Outkast is because they get what they want, lyrics about sex, the ghetto, fame, and lots of pride in a certain city. And Tupac, lots of his songs are just like every other gangster rap song, about killing people, about how great you are, about how you're running from the cops, etc. Biggest example too, they still curse a lot, maybe not as much as some rappers who put **** in between every word..but they still do.

Listening to older rap, I realize this stigma isn't present. There's not a million curse words in every song. And not every song is about sex or violence or power. Some of the songs are just plain goofy, and make no sense, but at least they are light hearted and almost innocent. And the beats are fun because they're simple. They have enough rhythm to separate them from pop music, aren't so far out that someone who isn't used to it won't get it, and are just moving and upbeat. Even more serious stuff, like Public Enemy, Run DMC, it's not at all like the "serious' stuff today.

As for Missy Elliot, I can't believe anything about her "intelligence" or "genius" as ong as her songs are still what they're about. Most of her songs are the kind of songs people freak dance to, they're raunchy and sexed up, and just sink deeper in the stereotype of rap music. The same for her project "Tweet", the same for people similar to her like "Kelis". It's the same trash, just like "Little Jon" and "Fabolous".

And I'll say I really am not a fan of the music, but I can tell where it's good, where it's bad,where it's right, and where it's wrong. It's very wrong right now. However, people like this stuff, back in high school, everybody loved this stuff. Ying Yang Twins, Little Jon, Missy Elliot, they all loved it. The only people who didn't love it were the slow jam/R&B fans I used to know. They really didn't care for rap..just for ballads and stuff. Quite honestly the singing is quite good. Sure, some of the topics are the same [sex, sex, sex, sex] but at least it's approached in a much more..how should I say..musical manner. The songs, no matter how..umm...perverse..had really nice string arrangements..great saxophones, nice mellow beats, and good vocals....

Then there was the remixes of those songs....ewww....

Generic rap song has it all right.

scroll2b

Hate to be off-topic here, but this is precisely why I find The Beatles to be so amazing. Their volume of work is out there and quite varied. Paperback Writer, A Day in the Life, Come Together, Yellow Submarine, Eleanor Rigby, She's Leaving Home and many others were not the typical musical clichés of the day. They were beautiful, original constructions.

Not that they never sang about love, but at least they tried writing songs about other things. This is why I really hate today’s ROCK music. Where is it? What is it? It's terrible. It all sounds the same. (What happened to the beauty of grunge?) The Beatles at least were able to change their sound constantly (not to mention their look), and were quite successful at it. Just my opinion....