Rap “Music”
While home by myself yesterday, I found myself in great need of optical and aural stimulation. I flipped on the TV and browsed through the channels in our limited basic cable package. I was clicking through the channels at a rapid speed, as most of them were static. Remember–we have very limited basic cable.
After a while I found myself watching a rap video MTV2.
Let me describe this music video. It consisted of a male and female rapper. He’s wearing huge pants, a long shirt, and tons of “bling”. She’s wearing a miniskirt and a unbuttoned jean coat with no bra. They meet at a party and then proceed to “dance” by grinding their crotches together.
I’m sitting in front of my TV in complete shock. Here I am, watching a rather sex-charged music video where every other word is muted, where women are objectified.
What is this? I ask myself. Why do kids spend money on these CDs? Why do these performers sell millions of CDs? There is no lyrical quality, unless you consider lyrics full of profanity, promiscuous sex, and violence to be well-crafted lyrics. The music that backs the rappers is usually created on a computer and has very little musical quality. The music vides that are created by these rappers usually centered around the following:
- How rich the rapper is, and/or
- How many dancing, half-naked women the rapper is able to have in his presence.
In conclusion, I must say this: It’s sad to see that so many American youth have such low musical standards.
June 1st, 2006 at 10:23 pm
I agree with you John. I do my best not to listen to music that degrades women or promotes lifestyles I can’t agree with. It is disheartening to see artists with creative, skillful music and deep, insightful lyrics be given less air-time and radio play than 50-Cent and other such ‘musicians.’ It cannot be doubted that such music is shaping our youth’s morals, ideas, principles. Kind of a scary thought. One song that really bugs me is Chamillionaire’s “Riding Dirty,” a hugely popular song that potrays police officers as racist paranoid thugs who are eager to catch the artist ‘riding dirty.’ Wonder how that song influences the attitudes of today’s kids about law enforcement.
On a positive note, check out Matisyahu. He is amazing, an Orthodox Jew who can rap with the best of them.
June 1st, 2006 at 10:31 pm
I’m just stunned that your family didn’t walk in while you were gawking at your soft porn video and shout “John! What the **** are you watching?!?!”
That’s what always happened to me. Whatever I was watching would be completely clean except for 10 seconds - the precise 10 seconds that my mom or dad would wander in and decide to check out what I was watching.
Regardless of how offended you might have been by the content, you dodged a bullet, buddy
June 1st, 2006 at 10:36 pm
Trina,
I agree. It’s terrible to see songs like “Ms. New Booty” do so well on the charts, while songs with deep lyrics and brilliant musicianship don’t even appear on the the charts. I need to listen to music with talented musicians and insightful lyrics. That’s why I listen to bands like Dream Theater, Shinedown, Audioslave, Alter Bridge, Creed, Lynyrd Skynyrd, The Mayfield Four, and Virgos Merlot. I can’t understand why people would trade music with quality musicianship and lyrics for music with virtually no musical quality and lyrics full of cheap sex, violence, and bad grammar.
Matisyahu–I’ve listened to “Youth” by him before. Good stuff.
Tromos,
I did not receive any pleasure from watching the video! How dare you imply that!
Seriously, though, I have totally been there, where a parent walks in during the 10 bad seconds of a music video/movie. It’s just not right.
June 4th, 2006 at 2:45 pm
I can’t count the number of times what Tromos mentioned has happened to me. Particularly during episodes of the Simpsons. That show, for the most part, is clean. But I swear, anytime my mom walks into the room, something not so nice comes on the screen. It’s unavoidable, lol.
The current state of popular music isn’t very good. It honestly hasn’t been good in, oh, probably a decade or more. It all started with the boy band movement on the late 90’s. The N*Syncs and Backstreet Boys of that period dominated the airwaves. Suddenly, it didn’t take ANY talent to get airplay. All it took was either good looks(Britney Spears) or cheesy lyrics(N*Sync). Talent pretty much didn’t play into the equation. Really, when you think about it, it’s a miracle bands like Creed and U2 were popular during that period.
And, unfortunately, the late 90’s were when rap started to get more and more popular in mainstream music. Rap artists, wanting to stay innovative, began to push the boundaries with their music videos and lyrics. Women now were degraded in many videos and in the lyrics. Teens didn’t mind that they lyrics were degrading. They just cared that it was on pop radio and thus popular.
If there’s one thing all of this has taught me, it’s that if you get pop radio airplay, no matter how untalented you are, you will sell a ton of records. When you think about all of the incredibly talented bands(12 Stones, Alter Bridge, Dakona, Sanctus Real, Casting Pearls etc.) who aren’t getting pop radio airplay and thus aren’t raking in the cash, it’s really sad. Here we have incredibly talented individuals who have chosen to make music that THEY are happy with, not music that the record company has made them make. And what is their reward for all of the hardwork they put into it? Not much, except for a dedicated fan base.
A lot of people, particularly those who are fans of rap, will say that there aren’t any artists who make good, clean music in specific popular genres. This is a bunch of baloney. I can’t count the number of good, clean bands I have discovered just in the past week. You can find many good, clean artists in many genres, if you are willing to look. Want a good clean alternative to Eminem? Check out KJ-52. Want some good, clean reggae with a great message? Check out Matisyahu. How about some good pop-rock? There’s The Afters. Some good garage rock? The Elms are a good alternative. How about an alternative to bands like Nickelback? Dakona fits the bill quite well. Some good straight up rock & roll? Check out Sanctus Real. How about a better version of Linkin Park? There’s Falling Up and Mainstay.
My point is, good, clean music DOES still exist, even though it isn’t given its due. You just gotta be willing to look around and discover it, as I have over the past 2-3 years.
Well, that’s about enough ramblin’ for me.
June 6th, 2006 at 11:25 am
Surf.ro Blog Verification
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June 6th, 2006 at 11:35 pm
Hey John…
Well Whats up!? Hardly ever talk to ya any more.
By the way…. I LOVE rap. And 50cent for yall you seem to not like him. OH and ms new booty and riding dirty are good songs along with alot of other out there. i could list them all but i wont waste my time. LOL.
We need to chat some time. Laterz!
June 7th, 2006 at 6:59 pm
Blasphemy! It’s too bad that I like you, or else I’d disown you as a friend.
June 7th, 2006 at 8:44 pm
lol