Aodhan McDunnough

When HipHop artists themselves lament (and some already do) the "sameness" of HipHop releases you KNOW it's going downhil.

There are the occasional rap and hiphop songs that are really good and showcase real creativity. What I can't stand is that the rest are so ... manufactured. Same themes, same treatment.

Why can't we have more of say POD's "Youth of the Nation" or Charmillionaire's "Ridin (dirty)"

Rap and Hiphop are about using the spoken word as a musical instrument. A lot of them sound like the equivalent of a rock song that constantly strums one chord.

Fmeh

Tacoma Washington must be a real shithole, because there are SO many people here that live their lives that way here.

This town is VERY gang infested, and because of it, it's almost impossible to tell the difference between those that are just doing it "to be cool" and those that are really in gangs.

You can't even go to a Denny's that's located in the more redneck/meth parts of town without having 3 out of 10 people in the restaurant acting, dressing, mannerisms the same, as EXACTLY the crap in those "songs".

The thing is--I REALLY don't think this is a Tacoma thing--it's in Seattle, Kent, Auburn, Fife, even Bellevue (the rich snobby city where housing communities have rules as to what color you're allowed to paint your house)--I don't think it's a Puget Sound thing either--it's also in Portland, MUCH WORSE on the outskirts of Portland, it's REALLY bad in LA, San Bernandino, Riverside, it's even bad in many parts of San Fransisco. It's bad in Dallas and Fort Worth. It's bad in Nashville. It's a culture, it's a lifestyle, it's something that MTV pushes more than ANYTHING ELSE--and let us make no mistake about how much influence MTV has on youth. How about Flavor Flav's show on VH1? Yep, they're not promoting misogyny, or homophobia, or violence--not at all. Come on now.

This whole thing is WAY more out-of-hand than people are willing to talk about.

If MTV and VH1 and mainstream radio ACTUALLY HAD ALTERNATIVES TO THIS CRAP, and if it was something that wasn't MAINSTREAM, if it was more of an underground thing like what it was back in the days of NWA> EZ-E, Ice-T, etc., it wouldn't be an issue--AT ALL!

Let me repeat: THIS IS THE ABSOLUTE IN MAINSTREAM! Hip-hop IS top 40 right now, in the United States. When you put on a top 40 radio station, you hear rap and hip-hop, with those same messages.

The problem that I have is that it's MAINSTREAM, and the record industry and the whole entertainment industry is pushing it as if it's actually something worth while.

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Fmeh

We can only hope. We can only hope that we can get out of this 10-14 year time-loop.

Briar Bing

I agree with you that it's become mainstream.

In fact, I felt like the Grammys were a bit hip-hop/rap/r&b centric. That doesn't make it wrong. It's what people want, after all.

The key is focusing on what you like, and to make sure that you "dine out" now and then, if not just for some perspective.

That said, I don't envy your situation, sounds like a drag.

Fmeh

It makes me want to be closeted, something I never want to be. I don't want to go in the closet, but when I'm around that kind of culture, I sort of have to be--I'm not sure if you're familiar with the kinds of comments people from that culture make about gay people, but it's VERY ugly. I'm not necessarily worried about getting beat up, but I don't want to have to be in defense mode CONSTANTLY every time I go out somewhere because of how much this culture has spread--and it's NOT a black thing, it has nothing to do with race--it's a culture, plain and simple, a REALLY ugly culture.

The idea of that kind of culture gaining momentum quite frankly terrifies me. I DON'T want to live in the closet. I DON'T want to have to worry about dressing "flamboyant" if I want to. I've been out of the closet since I was 17, and I'm almost 35 now.

Joseph Worthington

Well, speaking as a self professed expert on black people (I've been one most of my life), there's nothing inherently wrong with rap music. I'll agree with you (Fmeh) on what you said about the Music Industry however, as it is really the problem, and not the music itself. Does rap music promote a lot of stereotypes, many of which negative? Yup. But other forms of music do as well.

Trying to single out rap music as a bane of what's wrong with America's youth isn't racist, but it is certainly biased and unfair. You asked how many people spend their live savings trying to emulate rock stars and the like. I ask you if you've never heard of someone blowing upwards of 2 thousand dollars on a guitar, when they can barely hit a chord?

Do some people dress in the outlandish jewelry and baggy clothes showcased in rap music? Yep.But don't some people also shave thier heads into a mohawk and wear ties with t-shirts because that's the style promoted by their particular favorite band and/or genre of music? Aren't there grown ass men who converge en mass on Las Vegas every year dressed up in rhinestone jumpsuits and pompadours? Don't the skater kids and whatnot share a similar style to the types of bands and whatnots that they listen to?

I mean seriously. Look at some of the subcultures here in the United States and tell me that the style of clothing prevalent in them doesn't reflect the type of music most in that subculture listen to.

As for the negative stereotypes, mannerisms, and thought processes Rap/Hip-Hop puts forth (IE, women as property, crotch grabbing, etc) you can't honestly tell me that other genre's of music, for instance hard rock or punk, didn't inspire certain people to adopt certain attitudes and behaviors. The notion and music of rebellion has been around long before rap, and more or less doing the same thing. Songs about sex, drugs, crime, and violence are almost as old as music itself. Hell, one of my favorite songs ever is "Summer Wine" which is more or less a song about getting drunk off your ass and then robbed by some chick you just met.

I'm fairly sure "I Think I'm Turning Japanese" and "I Touch Myself" are songs about masturbation. Also, didn't The Clash have a song about fighting The Law? And didn't the Sex Pistols remake said song so that The Law lost?

Johnny Cash if I recall correctly had a song called Cocaine Blues. And didn't he kinda glorify murder in Folsom Prison Blues? I mean, "I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die" is one of the most quoted lines ever.

Dean Martin played a notorious lush back in his day, so much so that being constantly drunk became a part of his celebrity. Chuck Berry found his only real hit with the aptly named song "My Ding-A-Ling". But at this point I'm just ranting and raving.



Sigh....






The short version of what I'm trying to say is, all the things you hate about Rap music have been around long before it was, and they were glorified long before rap started doing it. Ok, another semi-rant....but isn't Keith Richards partially famous for, lacking a better phrase, still fucking being alive? I mean seriously! I'm not a huge Stones fan, but just about everyone on the planet knows that man's had more drugs in him than whatever fictional hospital Dr. House works at. I mean for crying out loud, for the longest time the phrase has been "Sex, Drugs, and Rock n' Roll". Funny how you can lump one bad thing in with two good things and no one really bats and eye.

Hell, I listen to some of the names or rock and pop groups out today and ask myself WTF? Bullet for my Valentine? Seriously? Death Cab for Cutie? Fall Out Boy?

Eck...






Second tl;dr....

All music is crap. Except Salsa and Merengue.

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Do what now?

Brenda Archer

Yeah, this pretty much describes my life in North Houston. When I'm around liberal people I'm quite out. When I go home to the apartment complex, I won't even bring a friend home with me. This is by no means a very bad neighborhood, but the homophobia and sexism are extreme. I have to maintain a public image at the complex that would almost be fitting for a nun. It's very tiring.

Joseph Worthington

(FUCKING DISCLAIMER AS THE FOLLOWING POST IS A JOKE!!!)

So wait.....rap hates gay people.....most mainstream religions hate gay people....

Oh shit son! We gotta go cop that new single by Young Weezy and Da Pope, "Stigmata fo' yo' bitch ass!"

Bard Jameson

I don't mean to in any way diminish the discussion so far, but just for perspective. In 1975 I not only loved, but played in garage bands, the following Blue Oyster Cult song, "Career of Evil":

I plot your rubric scarab,
I steal your satellite
I want your wife to be my
baby tonight
baby tonight

I choose to steal what you chose to show
And you know
I will not apologize
You're mine for the taking
I'm making a career of evil
I'm making a career of evil
I'm making a career of evil

Pay me I'll be your surgeon,
I'd like to pick your brains
Capture you, Inject you,
leave you kneeling in the rain.
kneeling in the rain.

I choose to steal what you chose to show
And you know
I will not apologize
You're mine for the taking
I'm making a career of evil
I'm making a career of evil
I'm making a career of evil

I'd like your blue eyed horseshoe,
I'd like your emerald horny toad
I'd like to do it to your daughter on a dirt road

And then I'd spend your ransom money,
but still I'd keep your sheep
I'd peel the mask your wearing,
and then rob you of your sleep,
rob you of your sleep.

I choose to steal what you chose to show
And you know
I will not apologize
You're mine for the taking
I'm making a career of evil
I'm making a career of evil
I'm making a career of evil
I'm making a career of evil
I'm making a career of evil
I'm making a career of evil
I'm making a career of evil

---

Now, forgetting for a moment the strange lyricism and attempts at mid 70's obscure metal meaning, is this really any different than glorifying an AK drive by? Doesn't it all jsut sort of fit with the time?

And Fmeh...one word..MONEY.

Malachi

This is the same argument that has been advanced for all media and never (to my eye) been successfully determined. Do the media create a want or do they provide for a want that already exists?

As an example, a huge number of US films depict people shooting guns at other people. Do people shoot each other as a random selection from a video store might lead you to believe? There probably wouldn't be many movies, or stores, or customers if they did.

Daisy Rimbaud

Rap "music" is hardly music anyway. Bring back singing!

Clancy Sullivan

Singing never went any where. If you don't like rap because it's not like "singing music", fine, lots of other stuff out there. But, rap is a legit form of artistic expression in my book. So's gospel music. Now, if you want to talk about some really fucked up lyrics, sing some of that! lol

Fmeh

Joseph Worthington: The only other culture that I can think of that hates gay people more than hip-hop culture would be Islamic Fundamentalists.

LET'S ALL EMULATE A BUNCH OF THUGS, catching on more and more--I've watched the hope I had many years ago of the possibility of gay acceptance pretty much go down the toilet. So many of the strides gay people have made are pretty much RUINED by that culture. Maybe YOU haven't been called the names, maybe you haven't seen people call other people names, maybe YOU aren't nervous around people who act like thugs, but I AM! I'm not willing to go back to the way it was in the 60's and 70's, I'm not willing to go back to the times that Brokeback Mountain describes, and that's EXACTLY where hip-hop culture is bringing us.

We're supposed to move FORWARDS, not BACKWARDS, and backwards is EXACTLY where hip-hop culture is taking us. Intolerance, violence, misogyny, treating women like crap, the list goes on.

I would say that redneck culture is 20 times more tolerant of gay people than hip-hop culture, than gang culture. I've been out-of-the-closet to rednecks--they can handle it a LOT more than gangsters and gangster wannabes, which is pretty much what I equate hip-hop culture with--gangster wannabes, since that's what they seem to admire and look up to.

Daisy Rimbaud

Artistic??

Let's see -

Step 1: Set a drum machine to go thumpety-thumpety without a break.

Step 2: Get some really crude, stupid words that just about rhyme and recite them in an affected way over the thumpety-thumpety.

Step 3: Get some vocalists to go "doooo-WAH" at the end of each verse.

The rest is marketing. You call that artistic?

Clancy Sullivan

No. I call rap a legit form of artistic expression. Some rap artists use it to bring attention to and protest problems in society. I am very supportive of that.

Fmeh

And how often is it actually used to bring attention to and protest problems in society?

Yes, it can be used for good things, but how often does that happen? If it NEVER reaches the mainstream, like "911 is a joke", what difference does it make?

When Flavor Flav is putting out misogynistic shows like the crap he has on VH1, it seems that he really doesn't give a shit about making society better--it's all about the bling and turning women into objects. Maybe at one time he was about trying to make a positive difference, but those days are long gone--now it's all about the main message that MTV puts out--"I'm so hood".

Joseph Worthington

Jeebus Cripes......

First of all, the "hip-hop culture" doesn't hate gay people any more than any other music based culture. At least, not that I can see. I may however be wrong, so please feel free to cite one song by any major band of any genre about the "mansex" that has been a hit. Because I must have completely missed it. I mean c'mon. To associate an entire culture with the actions and antics of a few of the more visible members, whether they be in the media or in one's personal life, is downright....well.....stupid. And more so...offensive. Why?

You say the hip-hop culture hates gay people.

I'm saying I'm a part of the hip-hop culture.

You're then saying that I hate gay people....no?

Sloppy, circular logic I know...but that's the way it sounds to me. I hate being lumped into the fallacy of "These people think this and feel this way". NO!! Some people may think that and feel that way, but that doesn't mean that the culture onto itself does. Is that what's portrayed? Yes. Does that make it true? Fuck no.

Some of the more visible gay stereotypes would lead me to believe that all gays are superficial, chubby hating, clothes whoring, sissy boys. Are some gay people that way? Possibly. Is the entire gay culture that way? Fuck. No. To touch back on one of your original questions...why does no one discuss rap music's effect on society as a whole (paraphrasing).....is because to do so would be to discuss a stereotype's effect on society as a whole. The truth is, it doesn't have an effect on society, but rather on individual's perception of such.

At my last job I had a total of 5 direct co-workers. 3 of them were gay. But as I'm a part of the hip hop culture, I obviously had a problem with them because ohwaitasecondholdthephone ......two of them were lesbians, black, and listened to way more rap music than I do. (Potentially offensive line coming up.) Damn those self hating Dykes. Damn them straight to hell.

Not everyone who listens to rap music shares the mentality you seem to think they do. Same way most people who enjoy Linkin Park are not little namsy pamsy cry babies. Same way not everyone who listens to country is an inbred hillbilly. Same way not everyone who enjoys the old Jazz Standards is some over the hill fogey.

I mean, for a fella who's so concerned with acceptance of your sexuality among a certain group of people, you sure seem rather quick to lay out the blanket statements and judge said same group of people yourself.

Maybe the issue here isn't that hip-hop hates gays....but rather that you hate hip-hop.....and just so happen to be gay.


Of course after all that, I am genuinely curious if Rock, Pop, Punk, Techno, Jazz, or any other music based culture has come out as being openly loving of, or even accepting of gays.









And no I'm not counting Broadway/Showtunes because those are fucking stereotypes.

Joseph Worthington

Ummmm....The Bachelor was on the air...on network TV long before Flavor of Love. And you know what that was about? A Guy taking his pick out of a group of women, dismissing the ones he didn't like for whatever reason, publicly humiliating them on national tv by giving them a rose and more or less say "Don't let the doorknob hit ya where the good lord split ya."

And wasn't there a Bachelorette show? God damn mainstream media treating us guys like meat...


Wait a sec....the Dick Clark (or was it Chuck Woolery) and the dating game!! The Guys and gals on that show couldn't even see who they were picking. And let's not forget the Newlywed Game, were both guys and girls embarrased, humiliated, and poked fun at people they claimed to love for kitchen appliances and whatnot.

Oh Yeeeah. it's really hip-hop that's destroying the way men treat women and women treat men.

Tyche Shepherd

Pet Shop Boys, Soft Cell, Tom Robinson, Bronski Beat, Frankie goes to Hollywood,Communards and many others

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Sarah Nerd

I think Flava Flav is smart doing the shows, he's getting a 2nd shot at fame thats probably making a pretty penny for his kids and a nice retirement nest egg in the process. I'd make out with lady's all day, getting paid would be a major bonus.

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www.SarahNerd.com
http://www.your2ndplace.com/sarahnerd

Joseph Worthington

I could say the same for Punk, Metal, Pop/Boy Bands, and some Rock n' Roll. Just because I may not like it, doesn't mean it's not a valid form of expression.

Listen to artists like MF Doom, Jean Grae, Talib Kweli, Aesop Rock, even the Wu-Tang Clan. There are stories being told and messages being voiced. Is it the fault of these artists, others like them, and fans of these people that the mainstream gravitates more towards the gangsta-rap end of the spectrum? Like I said earlier about some of the "rock" bands out there.....ewww. I mean...seriously. I'd take Led Zep and The Doors over 90% of what passes for rock nowadays. Does that make it garbage? Nope.

I could say that 90% of the rock songs out there now a days are mopey, whiny," oh my god will you please shut up about that broad?"-esque songs. But that doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the genre as a whole. Societies, like the people who live in them change over time. And as they do, what they perceive as enjoyable entertainment changes.

Humanity has gone from Gladiator games to American Gladiator style shows (check out Ninja Warrior, MXC, etc).

We've gone from applauding and loving celebs with alleged crime associations (Sinatra), to shaming them. Once, Smoking and Drinking and being sexually promiscuous in the public eye were ok....now they're all but shunned. What happened to the days of yesteryear where pin up girls were adored because of the fact they came across a little slutty? Now a girl dresses in a manner less than the acceptable conservative amount and she's branded a slut immediately.




Gah!! I swear.....if Steve Rogers were still alive we'd all be having a nice, pleasant conversation about how "slutty" those dresses in Ten's thread are.

DAMN YOU QUESADA!!

Joseph Worthington

Well I did mean current bands and artists....but duely noted.

Clancy Sullivan

Rap is a legit art form, sometimes used to promote positive ideas, and the "911" video is an example. Because Flavor Flav has done some shitty things doesn't make rap something that requires no talent and therefore doesn't qualify as songs with "singing", as Daisy suggested; my post was in respopnse to her rather crude description of rap music. But please, do not view one artist's poor choices as proof that the entire genre of music is negative, that's just absurd, and I know you agree with me on that, you aren't an unreasonable person and you know about the music industry because you are in it.

And, the message in the "911" video was very good (unless you want to now say it wasn't), reached a wide audience when it played on MTV and other video music TV stations, in clubs and lots of corner bars.

Joseph Worthington

Yanno...after re-reading some of my posts and some of Clancy's, I think It's best I just take a step back and remove my self from this particular discussion. I'm tired, upset, and swearing entirely to much. And more importantly, I believe I may be to biased to provide valid, impartial arguments for my case.




If I did over the course of my rants offend anyone, my apologies. I just get carried away sometimes.

Clancy Sullivan

Fuck it, man, we're all just one, big dysfunctional family here at SLUniverse!

Word up, yo!!!! (OMG, that's so 90's!)