Hip-Hop
I am what is today called a "classically trained musician." I suppose that means , I went to school to learn music.I studied composition and musicology, and played a number of brass instruments. I have played with orchestras and swing bandas, but I haven't been a professional performer for many years.Our new car came with Sirius so I played around with it one day, listening to various channels until I accidently landed on a hip-hop station.My ears were assaulted with a driving beat and some person chanting: (Please pardon the following)
"I just wanna fuck bad bitches,
Chicken head, chicken fed, with a dick in your mouth."
As I listened to this charming tirade, I could hardly believe my ears. I later found out that this was some person called Dr. Dre. I decidedto listen to more of this stuff. Surely it couldn't all be this bad. I was wrong, it was. And worse.
Apparently, to rappers, women are not fully human. They are all bitches and whores and are to be raped, abused, and beaten. Hip-hop is for young men who do things without consequences, and society says it is OK. It even gets various music awards though it is filled with violence, crime, sex-as-brutality, and more. And then, society wonders why its young men are so violent.
I suppose I am naïve in that I wasn't aware of the depths of depravity that this so-called music represents. I heard rap many years ago by Ice-T and others of that era, but had no idea how low this junk has gotten. If art is the flower on the tree of philosophy, this must be a stinkweed.
"I just wanna fuck bad bitches,
Chicken head, chicken fed, with a dick in your mouth."
As I listened to this charming tirade, I could hardly believe my ears. I later found out that this was some person called Dr. Dre. I decidedto listen to more of this stuff. Surely it couldn't all be this bad. I was wrong, it was. And worse.
Apparently, to rappers, women are not fully human. They are all bitches and whores and are to be raped, abused, and beaten. Hip-hop is for young men who do things without consequences, and society says it is OK. It even gets various music awards though it is filled with violence, crime, sex-as-brutality, and more. And then, society wonders why its young men are so violent.
I suppose I am naïve in that I wasn't aware of the depths of depravity that this so-called music represents. I heard rap many years ago by Ice-T and others of that era, but had no idea how low this junk has gotten. If art is the flower on the tree of philosophy, this must be a stinkweed.
Meets with rappers in the White House about criminal justice reform.
Obama claims they all have worked tirelessly in the Afro American communities for the young.
Ludacris an attendee has these lyrics as proof:
http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/ludacr...
For him $25 million in earnings and a trip to the White House. White privilege, hah.
This player is said by Eric Clapton to be the best guitarist alive today. He is old school ,80 I think.
Buddy Guy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuRha...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fALdO...
I would of had more time for music if I hadn't retired.
Robben Ford - likely my all-time favorite. I grew up spinning that Yellowjackets vinyl as a kid over and over and when a guitar buddy hosted a clinic by Robben I got to meet him. Haha...it was like meeting God. Fantastic talent.
Joe Bonamassa - Probably the most refreshing blues talent to hit it big since Stevie Ray Vaughn. Amazing chops and he keeps evolving, getting better.
My favorite rock star is a bay area guy named Dave Meniketti. Very soulful player. While he made his living with his rock band it was his blues material that really shines. Fantastic voice. Whenever I see him or his wife I always ask for more blues - haha. He had me join him on stage for a tune on his 50th birthday. That was surreal...
I played all over NorCal doing rock. But, one of my most memorable performances was when I threw together a very talented blues quartet with some buddies to raid a big, local jam. They got us up first to kick off the night and we did a Robben Ford song, a Tommy Castro song (love his stuff!), and a Meniketti blues tune. Never forget that set. Also, during one gig my rock band had in the east bay we noticed a young guy getting carried out drunk. Turns out he was going off to Afghanistan the next day to fight. So I dedicated our set to him and we blew the roof off the place with our tightest set ever. The venue was crammed with several bay area rock stars present. Very fun gig. All that stuff came to an end when my son got sick. My one prized guitar hangs on the wall of my home office right over my favorite amp. I pluck it for just a few minutes each year and that's it. I needed to try to heal my son so that was that...
As to your son, best of all possible wishes. But it was something similar that took me from music in order to make more income. Nowadays I have an electric keyboard that I play now and then. Sometimes I'll sit there and hours will pass, other times five minutes will do it. I highly recommend it for the ex musician, for therapy if nothing else.
Oh, yeah, the state prison where I used to work.
The MF-word is heard within almost every spoken sentence orally farted by some of those losers. .
Today, it is a global phenomenon. You can hear rap in Albanian. And it is not all violent or misogynist. It is just a musical innovation. Do not conflate the music and the lyrics. Was Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" an anthem for the Illuminati? Would Wagner have been a Nazi? The worst rap music is just that: the worst.
And it is only the bare naked reality of cultural artifacts that we accepted unquestioned. Rock 'n' Roll lyrics such as "I Will Follow Him" were only the mild suburban expression, benign sexism.
Based on you and Khaling, I've decided to put rap into a separate category in my mind, being neither music nor poetry, but some mixing of the two. Within that, like many metal garage bands who wouldn't know a chord progression from a camel's ass, I would put a separate category for unacceptable.
It is not just the Music industry. The Movies are not much better. It is rare to see a leading lady who doesn't have to strip and display herself on screen even when there is no good reason for the nude or sex scene. It is there because the director and producer want it there for the display of the female form.
Almost all the entertainment business has degenerated into this foul disply. The very few exceptions are over the air TV and one or two Cable channels like Hallmark and ABC Family (and I'm not sure of the latter either.)
The have been multiple time that I've not seen movies or cable TV shows because of the nudity and sexual content.
It is depressing. I’ll admit that having two daughters and two granddaughters plus a wife has something to do with my outlook, but filth is filth and you know it when you see it. and most of today’s entertainment is just that -- Filth.
It's sort of like blaming an early hominid for the evolution of man. If they only stayed where they were and toughed it out.....
I have the distinct impression this is only a component of the overall strategy to destroy our civil society. Dumbing down education, creating an atmosphere of anger and resentment directed at anyone with a degree of moral fiber as "oppressors," awarding the worst offenders, and condemning good people.
I cannot bear to listen to ANY of this hiphop rap junk, even if the lyrics are not objectionable. The problem is that it's EVERYWHERE YOU GO - even the grocery store!
Just a few years ago, could anyone imagine a singer who couldn't stay in tune? If you have that one ability, when it comes to any form of popular music, no matter how ragged your voice, you can get away with it. (Not counting rap.)
I don't think so, but then :
"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?
The Shadow knows". -- Orson Welles
Sorry, but some discord is needed in music as well as in life..
"Nothing is as boring as an endless succession of lovely days." -- Goethe
Obama's favorite rapper this link are his lyrics for one song (sic). http://genius.com/Chance-the-rapper-n....
As far as sexual promiscuity -- that is and should be accepted, by a lot more than just blacks.
to much since Gilbert and Sullivan died (not that
the music itself need ever finally die, but I mean
the era). But it was some time before it got to be
as nauseating as "punk rock", etc. (Of course,
there was Stravinsky; that could be blasphem-
ous and offensive without words--like an attempt
to destroy music from within).
Oepratic type musicals such as those by Sondheim, or how about The Phantom of the Opera? Don't throw away the 20th century.
that much. Now Berlin is better, I think--I really
care for "God Bless America". But I like a 4/4
rhythm, and not swing--not saying that's all they
wrote. But I think there has been a certain amount of deterioration for a long time. As to
Stravinsky, don't try to make me throw up, please.
about not saying putting content on that was ob-
jectionable or offensive, so maybe I ought not to
have made the reference to "throw[ing] up".Rogers
and Hammerstein was reasonably good, but it
never excited me like G&S. Though my ab-
solutely favorite song was not by them--it is
La Marseillaise. (Not that I favor France over
the U.S.A., but they do have one h**l of a
national anthem).
s
Thank you, I will steal that from you and place it in my verbal arsenal.
great and wonderful--(and I really do mean it)---
GILBERT & SULLIVAN?!!!
lack of opportunity. Several different versions of
The Mikado; also I saw H.M.S. Pinafore on stage once; some years ago, my mother had got-
ten a few on a VCR to show me on a visit home.
But I learned them mainly from record albums.
HMS Pinafore is my favorite.
(maybe 1968). I had seen it at the Waynesboro
High School in 1966. I was more excited by the
school performance; there was a sort of smugness
in the film that I didn't exactly cotton to.(Not that it wasn't good, but I liked the school perform-
ance better, though some of it lacked polish.
And no, it wasn't my high school).
The pendulum is about to swing the other way...way to far as usual.
I like almost every genre of music except rap. Hip Hop is not high on my list either. There are a few songs that I can stand that are in that genre, but they are the rare exceptions that actually have a melody, not just a thumping repetitive drum rhythm accompanied by vulgar street poetry. That is not music. I just keep waiting for it to go the way of Disco. Galt I hated the Bee Gees. :)
Respectfully,
O.A.
just a little optional side dish.
You own it, you better never let it go (go)
You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime (yo)
You better lose yourself in the music, the moment
You own it, you better never let it go (go)
You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime (yo)
(You better)
The soul's escaping, through this hole that is gaping
This world is mine for the taking
Make me king, as we move toward a new world order
A normal life is boring, but superstardom's close to postmortem
It only grows harder, homie grows hotter
He blows. It's all over. These hoes is all on him
Coast to coast shows, he's known as the globetrotter
Lonely roads, God only knows
He's grown farther from home, he's no father
He goes home and barely knows his own daughter
But hold your nose 'cause here goes the cold water
His hoes don't want him no more, he's cold product
They moved on to the next schmoe who flows
He nose dove and sold nada
So the soap opera is told and unfolds
I suppose it's old partner, but the beat goes on"
I looked the dude up and noticed he's white or at least looks white.
Bet there's been no WH invites for this Mr. Clean.
Me dino still finds it fascinating that Eminen can actually perform one hip-hop number without a single f-word or anything else off-color.
Speaking of color--new thought:
I can see by skin color why it would behoove him not to use the n-word.
Not saying he has not done it.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0298203/
Bunny Rabbit can do a drive-by on my hood any Easter.
an Objectivist who is young from the gulch-jml (jmlesniewski) used to share his rap songs here in the Gulch.