Hip-Hop

Posted by Herb7734 8 years, 4 months ago to Culture
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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.


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  • Posted by KevinSchwinkendorf 8 years, 4 months ago
    One of my strongest criticisms of The Left (and believe me, I have PLENTY!) is their total, unapologetic hypocrisy. As repugnant as this so-called "hip-hop music" is, not only do the Obamas entertain these stinking, low-life pieces of human excrement in OUR White House, they then have the gall to attack Donald Trump because "he said dirty words" 11 years ago!
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  • Posted by ObjectiveAnalyst 8 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    yeah... some of the Bee Gees' songs weren't too bad by today's standards... eventually they would grow on you... like fungus
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  • Posted by chad 8 years, 4 months ago
    I love music, but this is not. Obama has met with rappers at the White House, might indicate what he thinks of women??
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  • Posted by tohar1 8 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I live by the old saying, "If it sounds good, it is good." when it comes to music. I listen to classical (though not a big fan of opera) blues, hard rock, heavy metal, blues, some pop...even a little country...
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  • Posted by 8 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    There is hardly a music genre that I don't like. As a result, I can listen to Stan Kenton one day, Frank Zappa the next, Beethoven, after that and Pete Seeger after that. Can't cut it with rap.Just finished listening to Tchaikowski's 6th symphony. The so beautiful, first movement, the heart-rending fourth movement, and it is hard to imagine the same species wrote that and rap.
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  • Posted by 8 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I am familiar with Buddy Guy. Beth Hart's rendition gave me goosebumps. Rap doesn't seem like it belongs in the same world as that. Took my breath away. I haven't heard Guy for years and years.
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  • Posted by DrZarkov99 8 years, 4 months ago
    I remember Charlton Heston humiliating the board of directors of a big entertainment company by reading the lyrics of one of Ice T's rap ballads out loud at a stockholders' meeting. The stench in the music industry has been around too long, and has only gotten more rotten. The hip hop artists appear to be trying to top each other in just how outrageous their material can be, with not only degrading lyrics about women, but advocating violence against police and whites in general.

    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.
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  • Posted by ObjectiveAnalyst 8 years, 4 months ago
    Hello Herb7734,
    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.
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  • Posted by 8 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Always a thoughtful, rational post. Thank you. Mike.

    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.
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  • Posted by 8 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    That's rather a stretch, don't you think?
    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.....
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  • Posted by 8 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    OK, I will admit that some older rappers and probably some others I do not know are acceptable, but I'd have to put them into a separate category as being neither poetry nor music.
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  • Posted by 8 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Wes Montgomery - excellent taste. I was just put on to Bonamassa by another Gulcher.
    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.
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  • Posted by 8 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Autotune should only be used for karaoke.
    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.)
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  • Posted by 8 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    This is exactly what was said about RNR back in the day. However, I truly think that when it comes to rap, it is fully, completely, totally justified.
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  • Posted by 8 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Hold on. No cacophony?
    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
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  • Posted by khalling 8 years, 4 months ago in reply to this comment.
    his movie 8 mile is about his life trying to break into the hip hop scene. He was not wanted. they called him "bunny rabbit"
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