Is Rap a valid musical form?


This has been way more than the progression away from tubes to SS!

Believe the world of Hip Hop has been around and evolving for around 5 decades.

And for most of that time I have dismissed and avoided that world and its “music”.

So angry, offensive and abrasive. Just a bunch of rhythmic yelling.

I believe my former thread was titled “Why Rap?”.  Through that discussion and somewhat of an understanding that this must be a new art form that engages and entertains millions if not billions. That and a long standing belief that if a type of music or a particular artist attracts many, many fans there must be substance and quality there. Even if I personally don’t particularly like it there must be something there.

Rap and the Hip Hop world was always so foreign and culturally untouchable.

Then my Rap thread and several others at that time got me rethinking my perspective and I watched a video of a group of student performance musicians at Juilliard all exclaiming their fascination with a Rap artist named Kendrick Lemar and his “masterpiece” “To Pimp a Butterfly”. I bought the double LP. Trying to listen to it turned out to be difficult because of my old view of Rap and that of the world of Hip Hop. But it was also becoming clear that this was truly something of significant interest. However, I just listened to the two discs only once-with some difficulty.

Today, after several weeks, I hesitatingly pulled the album out again. And to my surprise and actually delight hearing it with fresh ears it grabbed me and would not let go. I immediately heard the brilliance of a multi faceted, and to me, all new experience in sound. Not unlike great 20th century or progressive Jazz it evolved from section to section with a plethora of fascinating, yes musical, experiences. Tonal, atonal, percussive, rhythmic, breathing combined with incredible, energetic tongue twisting strings of mostly unintelligible words. And not merely angry yelling.

Sure, a ton of F bombs but words that don’t flow over you like lovely other genres but invade the psyche and don’t let go. Not particularly pleasant but gripping and interesting in its complexity. Words delivered with such power and drive which acted as a rhythmic counterpoint. It was impossible to turn away or turn off. 
And speaking of turned off, the experience was the opposite of that. Stories of life undeniable human. Yes, driven by bitterness, anger and raw emotion. Impossible to  dismiss it as not deeply felt.

I do think “To Pimp a Butterfly” is unique. But I also believe that there must be much more in this Hip Hop world that has deep musical interest. Some time ago I heard Drake on SNL perform a song that was amazing though not really Rap. Rather an advanced and unconventional musical form. I hear similar musical threads throughout “Pimp”. I did get a CD of Drake. “Scorpion”. I also could not absorb it in my first listen. I look forward to the next, fresh listen. I did try to hear several YouTubes of some very successful Rap artists. They mostly lacked the interesting musical themes threaded through. “Pure Rap” with just the rhythmic words-not my cup of tea. But a musically valid form none the less.

 

 

mglik

I remember a Duane Allman interview in which he said there is no bad music.  I agree.  There is music I like and music I don't like but I never presume to say any music is bad just because I don't like it. 

Only one CD available for $34 that ships from Korea. Leenalchi. I bought it.

And there is something on EBay for $134. “The Tiger is Coming”. On YouTube.

Fantastic! Check it out…

There is one other video of them that is more pure Rap but still very interesting.


So far, I own two Rap albums. The Kendrick LP and Drake CD. The former is super interesting even with many Rap conventions. The latter is ok but does not have the creativeness of Kendrick. I imagine the Beastie Boys incorporate elements of Hard Rock of which I am not a fan. Will check out Eminem. 

Eminem raps with some attention to pitch although, so far, is boring.

Can’t generalize, but, so far, the Rap I have heard is pretty much the same.

It does seem that, for me, ones who pay close attention to pure musical/tonal elements are most interesting.

@jonwatches1 

I gave All Falls Down a listen. My impression. OK, for a standard radio song, but still a monotonous four-chord progression. Now, I don't have a problem with some songs' musical simplicity. The Stones made a long career out of it and pretty much every pop song today, and most from the last 35 years, only seem to know one time signature and three chords. At least it isn't the "Boots and Cats" rhythm of so many hip-hop songs I was forced to endure in the past. But the talking (rapping) over the music is distracting. The background singing is decent though. I think the main problem is the talking is too fast and staccato, which is common in rap. Barry White could talk through a song and make it sound great.

So I figured I'd give a woman a shot and listened to Missy Elliot's The Rain. The same. A monotonous three-chord progression. At least the rapping was slower, so it didn't overpower everything else like the West song did.

One thing I noticed in the prevalence of YouTube music reactors is all the ones with a background in rap analyze rock songs from a lyrical perspective and mostly ignore the instruments. I couldn't tell you what the lyrics are to most of my favorite songs and I don't really care. I still don't know half of what Robert Plant is talking about in Stairway to Heaven, and it's my favorite song. It just isn't important. The vocals are just another instrument. I surmise that since rap's focus is the lyrics and it contains so little musical complexity, these people can't relate to the opposite. And I suppose that goes for me too. 

I take back what I said about Leenalchi. Heard the other cuts on their album.

Kind of like traditional Korean chanting/Rap. Blah. But Tiger is Coming is brilliant.