What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: GUEST,Volgadon
Date: 23 Jul 08 - 12:05 PM

"I will grant people the fact that Rap is a Folk Art, but so is graffiti.

What Rap is not is Folk Music, and anyone who goes to a Folk Music Festival and has to listen to a rapper between Irish folk bands and bluegrass is being abused.

As far as angry? Not really. That would get in the way of putting up a good fight.

This cultural genocide must be fought the same way we fight drugs, street gang violence, air polution or organized crime.

About the intent of this thread, read the initial post. Perhaps those who want an cerebral discussion or with to post their favoirite Rap are invited to start a new thread. "

Speaking of graffiti, first time I was in England, I saw some stunning graffiti outside of one of the rail stations, in Muswell, perhaps, but I don't know exactly where. Graffiti IS an artform, so what if much of it is rubbish? Ezra Pound has to be one of my least favourite poets, utterly miserable stuff, but it's still poetry. Rap is a form of music. Whether or not it's GOOD music, is an entirely different matter. I dislike most of it, personally, but it's still music.

Why isn't it folk music? It's created in the community, it's living, it's vibrant, people sing about their lives and environment, in fact, it's a lot more interactive than you'd normally get at a folk club. Would I rather people listened to something else, yes, but rap is a form of music.

Anyway, here are some folk songs which are very close in subject matter to rap songs.
Cold, Haily, Windy Night- guy tricks girl into sleeping with him, then dumps her and her parents find out, landing her in trouble.
Gentleman Soldier- similar, but worse, girl is knocked up.
Ramblin' Sailor- guy boasts about how he's going to sleep with every girl he can and then leave them.
Lament of the Limerick Rake- last words of someone whose life consisted of sex and drinking.
Greensleeves- guy is upset because a girl rejected him, despite all the expensive stuff he's bought her.
Many, many more.


Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as cultural genocide. Culture is not a genus. Sloppy, sensational phrases, eh?

Cerebral discussion? Oh, are you saying that anyone who wants to discuss things intelligently instead of just posting "RAP is crap" ought to find a new thread? Reread the first post, olddude said he didn't like rap, but he wondered if it was folk music.

Can't remember which poster was talking about how modern society is obsessed with glamourised violence, but there's nothing new in that. During the 1700s, highwaymen and pirates were adulated. People collected pictures of, read books and sang about highwaymen and their exploits. Thousands flocked to see them when they were apprehended. The biggest difference is that the confessional aspect, the criminal recounting his misdeeds and cautioning people not to repat them, is missing.

---

Anyway, here are some interesting links about meykhana, Azerbaijani folk music, which should provide food for thought.

http://www.azer.com/aiweb/categories/magazine/91_folder/91_articles/91_dayirman.html

http://meyxana.iatp.az/meyxana/history.htm (MP3s)

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 23 Jul 08 - 12:13 PM

"anyone who goes to a Folk Music Festival and has to listen to a rapper between Irish folk bands and bluegrass is being abused."

Anyone who goes to a buffet and fills up on bread just wasted an opportunity. Likewise, you do not have to eat everything put in front of you.

Folk Festivals are the creative vision of an artistic director. If the director attempted to cover ever single tradition, they would create a confusing event that would struggleto convey the vision.

I don't think rap would fit in well at the major festivals here in the U.S., but that does not alter its classification.

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: olddude
Date: 23 Jul 08 - 01:00 PM

Well I starting this thread out aggressively due to my neighbors insistance that I listen to their bling bling, I shot her in the head music at all hours. So my apologies again for my opening comments. What I can take away from the thread is :

1) there are other forms of rap music that are not the violent form, and have social positive messages.

2) the commercial interests from a host of companies promote the "shock value version for commercial reasons"

3) Much like modern art most people have strong opinions. Like modern art, it is not going to disappear because some of us find much of it offensive.

4) My local police need to enforce the "noise" laws.

I will never like the music only because it doe not appeal to me. I relate it to modern art. I love art - all kinds of art from the great masters to the modern masters. Jackson Pollock presses my buttons but Dali's painting "baby eating rat" I despise even though I love most of his other works. Why? why does anyone like or dislike anything? Others believe the painting is one of his best for reasons that I don't understand. I believe Dali painted it purely for the "shock value", Likewise I feel many of the rap artists try to out shock one another for reason number two.

However paintings and other music that I do not like, I can easily avoid by not looking for them. However, with the ganster rap that I also dispise, I cannot escape from it. Hence my opening comments out of frustration.

It has been a very interesting discussion.

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: pdq
Date: 23 Jul 08 - 01:11 PM

I'm with you all the way on this one, olddude.

Have the cops tell them "you are free to listen to that stuff anytime you want...just wear earphones".

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: GUEST,Faecal Occult Blood
Date: 23 Jul 08 - 01:55 PM

Why would rappers want to sully their art by associating it with folk music? Whilst it's true what Spleen says, folk remains about as non-cool as it gets with no appeal beyond its own ageing middle-class white graduate demographic for whom the answer is still, alas, blowin' in the wind...

Faecal Occult Blood

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: olddude
Date: 23 Jul 08 - 01:58 PM

Fair enough, like I said why does anyone like anything or dislike anything, Personal taste. So please - no need to share the "Cool" with others that don't like it don't need to hear it ... headphones please when driving through town or at least, volume that you can enjoy and not the entire street

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 23 Jul 08 - 02:23 PM

" "Why would rappers want to sully their art by associating it with folk music? " "

Do you honestly think anyone cares? Unlike folkies, rappers are not spending time on forums trying to figure out what they are.

Likewise, I doubt if a tomato worries if it is considered a fruit or a vegetable.


" Have the cops tell them "you are free to listen to that stuff anytime you want...just wear earphones". "
You may wish to check your local laws. The last time I heard, it was illegal to wear headphones when driving.

"no need to share the "Cool" with others that don't like it don't need to hear it "
As long as the levels are not out of spec with local laws, there is a freedom of speech issue involved with telling someone they cannot play music in their own car.   

Comeon, haven't you ever turned the volume up to 11 on certain recordings for the pure joy the sound brings? Ever try to listen to the Rolling Stones or Ramones on "soft"?   Doesn't cut it. I cringe when I see two guys with banjos playing together and I run in fear when a tone deaf geezer sticks his finger in his ear and sings with all the gusto of a cat being castrated, but I'm not going to make a fuss. Move on, life is too short!!!

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: greg stephens
Date: 23 Jul 08 - 02:50 PM

WEll, I mixed rap with shanties at the just finished Liverpool Shanty Festival, and nobody complained (that I know of).

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: olddude
Date: 23 Jul 08 - 03:07 PM

MY POINT LEVELS are out of SPEC, 18 inch speakers and 400 watts that rattle the windows, and drowns out even the lawn mower - cops don't seem to bother unless they are next door to them , heck I sure hope some folky moves in next door to you guys and rigs out their car with a similar system sharing the coolness of Dylan. And if it is cool why share it with us un-cool better to keep the cool with the cool. Seems to me you are spending quite some time on this forum also hmmm we both should move on for sure. I got better things to do good luck to you and enjoy your music. Because no matter what music a person likes they listen to it because it brings them joy and if that is what you like that if great for you. Likewise what I like is great for me fair enough

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: Big Phil
Date: 23 Jul 08 - 03:57 PM

RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?

You must be joking.

Phil*

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 23 Jul 08 - 04:24 PM

Olddude - what you describe seems to be an illegal level. People should know better, but they don't.   There is a difference between loud and illegal. Also, I don't think anyone said they like it. To each their own. Live and let live. Move on!

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 23 Jul 08 - 06:25 PM

Word Up, for those who are interested, here are some YouTube links for your consideration.

"The Message" was one of the first "Rap" hits, around thirty years ago. "The Signifying Monkey" is an old and widely circulated folk recitation that has been documented and recorded in many forms and is always cited in discussions of the origins of Rap. "Shine and the Titanic" is old, though probably not older than 1912:-). "This Beach" is a more contemporary rap, done in the old style, by Oscar Brown, Jr. "I Apologize" is for all you folks that haven't figured out that a lot of Rap is ironic.

Oh, and "The Signifying Monkey" is probably best listened to in an "adults only" situation.

The Message
I Apologize
This Beach
The Signifying Monkey
Shine and the Titanic

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: pdq
Date: 23 Jul 08 - 06:34 PM

Why don't some of you who want to glorify Rap start a new thread?

olddude has the right to keep this one one the point he wanted to make.

BTW, it sounds like we are going to be told that Rap has it's roots in Gregorian chants of other Church music. Garbage. Also, I don't think it is fair to claim Sun Ra's work was Rap when the man is not here to defend himself.

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 23 Jul 08 - 06:59 PM

PDQ - I don't think anyone is telling Old Dude to change his point. He doesn't like the music and that is fine. I don't like it either.

It seems like you do not care to discuss the roots and the subject of this thread. Listen, if you don't want to learn - stay out of school.

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: pdq
Date: 23 Jul 08 - 07:25 PM

You and M.Ted should start your own thread and tell everyone (at least those who care) all the fine nuance found in Rap. It is you two who are hijacking the thread, which will be obvious if you read the initial post.

Also, in your 04:24 you told olddude to take a hike. What gall since he started this thread!

Who died and left you in charge anyway, Ronbo?

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 23 Jul 08 - 07:47 PM

We're here, because we are just as entitled to say what we think as you are, PDQ. And personally, I disagree with you. Simple as that.

As to the Old Dude's "right" to keep the thread on a particular point--if that were true, an awful lot of your own posts, over the years, violated the rights of people, but as we know, you had and have a right to say what ever is in your heart, no matter what anyone else happens to think about it.

The price you pay for that is, guess what? We all get to do it, too!

As to Sun Ra, I am surprised that you know enough about him to know what is fair to say about him, and what is not.   You should listen to this, if you don't think that Sun Ra and the Arkestra did rap. Sun Ra--Nuclear War

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 23 Jul 08 - 07:51 PM

Or maybe you shouldn't listen to it--it has one of the seven words in it, and i know how you are about that. After all, just because we disagree with you, doesn't mean we don't care about you;-)

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 23 Jul 08 - 07:52 PM

"Also, in your 04:24 you told olddude to take a hike. What gall since he started this thread! "

That is a lie. We are having a discussion, sorry if you can't keep up.

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: Barry Finn
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 12:41 AM

The Last Poets refered in their release of an album & introduced a sound the group called "jazzpoetry", leaving behind the spare percussion of the previous albums in favor of a blending of jazz and funk instrumentation with poetry. (see my link above for more on the Last Poets). What they did way back when is pretty much & basicially the same art form that lives on today.

I was impresed with this "Rap" when it came out in the late 60's & early 70' being of a radical political persuasion myself, fitted well along side the hen counterculture's civil rights stance & the then opporsition to the Viet Nam War, but I never took it to be music then or now, I did write alot of poetry in those days & I wasn't a white middle class kid from the 'burbs'. I grew up in the inner city section of Boston called Roxbury, in an area know as Mission Hill. The only folkie area at the time was 'Fort Hill' (the next hill over). It was a racially mixed area, white, black & the 1st area for immargrant Latinos, what was in common was poverty. Though 'Rap" is the voice of poverty. It's a medium that those with a dislike & a distaste for how the system & life circumstances has treated the poor from the inner city it's not the same medium nor music that was used by those who were raised in the poverty of the rural areas, it's not even a musical form & when those who were some of the originators of this medium called it "jazzpoetry" they named it well.

Barry

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 12:50 AM

I don't get quite why you think it isn't music--why isn't it music? or do we have to get down to "what is music?"

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: mattkeen
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 04:35 AM

Thanks for all youe intelligent fair minded points Ron

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 05:05 AM

I don't think it is fair to claim Sun Ra's work was Rap when the man is not here to defend himself.

Nuclear War notwithstanding (already linked to in my post of 22 Jul 08 - 08:36 AM!), as anyone with even the most casual acquaintance with his work will know, Sun Ra rapped every word he uttered. And he rapped a length at every show right up to his first stroke. Any amount of this on You Tube of course, but here's one to get you up and dancing:

Sun Ra : Face the Music

Sun Ra's acquaintance with the celebratory colloquialisms of the street is perfectly illustrated by his story of a black youth being beaten up by some white kids; out of the sky comes the voice of God: Leave the mother-fucker alone!

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 05:48 AM

And for those truly initiated into the mythos of Sun Ra, here's something a bit special:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Un6pmJK_ZE

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 03:21 PM

Thanks for that, Sean. What a phenomenal clip

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: Stringsinger
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 04:13 PM

Alice, I'm into it! Straight-Edge sounds good to me since I write songs also that
are "on the edge" but I like the trend that Wiki mentions. Why not have folk as a clean
life style?

Frank

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: Stringsinger
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 04:17 PM

I remember Ira and Inman, Art. Worked on a record session, the only one I ever walked out
on. They had this A and R fat man with a cigar from Columbia who wanted to crap up
their record with a sax section and other stuff that didn't belong. They were doing an
a cappella chain gang song. I hated to see it being destroyed. Frank Fried never did forgive me for that I guess. I couldn't sit by and see their career ruined by a stupid A and R guy.
Well, chain gang is close to rap.

Frank

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: Stringsinger
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 04:23 PM

Rap is international. Much folkmusic (songs from Appalachia and Blues) are violent,
and speaking about terrible things. A lot of rap you don't hear because the radio only
plays the commercial kind, (the kind that sells to white kids). There is political rap which I happen to like from Chuck D and others that will never make radio stations. Rap is folk
because it is transmitted culturally and emanates from the street corner and not from the pens of paid songwriters necessarily. Maybe some of you would like to be listening to Pretty Polly and think that's different. Or Fair Ellender staving off the Brown Girl's head and throwing it against the wall. It's all relative.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: Barry Finn
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 05:40 PM

That's not the point Frank. Rap is the now poetry of the getto, of the streets, of the poor inner city with a strong beat & a strong rhyming structure & a fast flow & with a musical back up behind it that fits well with the emotion. They aren't singing, they really aren't singing to the back up musicals, that back up just reinforces the original beat of the poetry. Back in the late 60's & 70's you wouldn't have heard even the performers claim this as a music. I remember people dancing to it but it was the back up they were dancing to not the poet.

Rap is more a mastering & mixing of a rhythm & rhyme sceme. Take away the back up music & you still have rap, it was very common in the poor inner cities sections & no one toted a band around to do it, there was no need for a band unless you wanted to market it but that wasn't how it started. It was a shamefull thing back then if a white boy out rapped a blackm, it was their art form from the beginning & the music only came after in started going commerical. 'It only became international because it sold & was capitolized on otherwise it would've been happy saying in the inner city & possibly dying.

BTW, Rap doesn't come close to Prison Work songs, no connection at all unless it's just because the skin color of the singers. That's like saying shanties are related to jump rope rhymes, exercising the leg muscles

Barry

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: Barry Finn
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 05:46 PM

Was "Rap" Brown a musician or a singer??
He certinally could "Rap"!

Barry

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 08:48 PM

It is fairly ridiculous to assert that a part of a musical piece is not music, Barry--I'd be curious to see if you could find you either musicologist or ethnomusicologist that would accept that--there is are many musical pieces that have spoke elements, and I don't recall ever having heard anyone say that "Peter and the Wolf" is not music.

Beyond that, there is a huge body of collected folk music that consists of percussion and chanting, and an awful lot of chanting alone.

Bomba and plena can be amazingly like rap, for instance, and, in fact, both of these traditions existed in the New York communities where rap/hip-hop originated--and both have roots West African musical traditions, such as the griot traditions that are often mentioned in connection with the genesis of rap.

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: Ebbie
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 09:15 PM

"I will grant people the fact that Rap is a Folk Art, but so is graffiti.

"What Rap is not is Folk Music, and anyone who goes to a Folk Music Festival and has to listen to a rapper between Irish folk bands and bluegrass is being abused." pdq

That's my thought too. How can it be music if it can't be sung? Can you imagine sittng around the library table teaching your children the songs?

"I don't get quite why you think it isn't music--why isn't it music? or do we have to get down to "what is music?" M.Ted

My question: Is everything that has a beat music? Is the hooting of a grouse or a distant hammer tapping tacks into a board or a neighing herd of horses or the screaming of a crowd greeting a rock star music?

I would no more book a rapper into a folk club than I would book an opera singer. I like opera, as it happens, and I can appreciate the muscle of a rap rendition but they ain't folk music. Like pdq, I contend it is folk art, pure and simple.

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 09:46 PM

"I would no more book a rapper into a folk club than I would book an opera singer. I like opera, as it happens, and I can appreciate the muscle of a rap rendition but they ain't folk music. "

It just doesn't seem to sink in - folk music has more than one style and more than one audience. Folk music is also more than a style - it is a process that can be found in modern times.

A rapper would be nuts to accept a booking at a folk club, and a folk club would be nuts to booker a rapper - IF the audience is used to a certain brand of what THEY consider "FOLK MUSIC".

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: Barry Finn
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 11:24 PM

So "Peter and the Wolf" is now folk music?

Barry

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 11:30 PM

I've heard rappers on programs of folk music, and the crowd invariably loved them. Check the Dolomite and Oscar Brown, Jr. links above--It's the kind of thing that folkies love-I think that they'd have gone over like gangbusters with most folk audiences--In fact, it seems to me that Oscar Brown, Jr. used to perform in folk clubs--

At any rate, surprising for folks here, perhaps, the question of whether it is music or not, if it ever was a question, was resolved long ago, in it's favor.

As to whether the sounds that the birds make are music, ain't you never heard, "Let's all sing like the birdies sing"?

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: Barry Finn
Date: 24 Jul 08 - 11:53 PM

So I start recanting the "Wreck of the Hesperus", give it a little back beat, it has a rhyming structure, I could read it or recite it fast put some anger into it, then all I need is a back up band & I got a folk song?? Add a little dance to my moves make a vwith my fingers, I'm on the road to "Folkdom" glory hell-a-lu,lu.
Give me a break!!
For all that I could sing "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere" is that all it takes to make a folk song??
Again, give me a break!!
The Blacksmith's fair daughter gets a poem for dying at midnight but it's doesn't get "folk song status" even when it's backed up by a single acoustic gitar & gets her head blown off by a shotgun??
And these rapper guys do??
Go ahead now argue weither or not that's a folk song!!
So is BeBop/DoWop gonna be the next folk style?????
Some sing that at gatherings.

"Rap" Brown was a rapper, he practically brought on the genre. He was no singer, he was no musician, he was a political activist & civil rights advocate & a rapper. He got his nickname from rapping not as a folk singer.

To bad, "Rap" could've been showcased at Mystic along with Stan Hugill,
or at Newport when they presented the ex-cons doing prison work songs during the 'Vanguard' era. Seems a bit far from folk when you stand them along side other genres.

Take the instruments away from a folk song & it's still a song, take the instruments away from Rap & it's poetry, it's no longer a song!!!!


Barry

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 25 Jul 08 - 12:06 AM

Anything that you want to do is cool by me dude, but it don't make you right.

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 Jul 08 - 03:41 AM

In England, a rant poet like Nic Toczek used to perform in folk clubs. And damn good he was too.

His words always seemed more urbane than most rappers you hear nowadays. In fact several of the punk bands used to have rant poets like Nic and Seething Wells as support acts.

I think it was a worthy contribution to the tradition of English folksong, and in time because it was there and people heard it - it will flower again. Its there in the common tongue.

I'm not sure about 'rap' as we know it. It seems very bound up with the new music technology. And that in a way provides the context, rather in the way that classical music provides its own context - neither of which 'feel' like folk to me.

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 25 Jul 08 - 04:06 AM

I think Barry and Co are still hung up on this strange idea that "folk" is a type of music rather than a process.

I struggle with the idea that "folk" is the property of a narrow band of white, English-speaking people - probably strummers of acoustic guitars, probably disgustingly "mellow"... every culture has its folk music(s) and few of them sound how the "folkies" would like them to. Good, I say.

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: mattkeen
Date: 25 Jul 08 - 04:43 AM

Spleenoo! Spleenoo!

(PS you will only understand this if you know English footie chants or you are Spleen himself)

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: Barry Finn
Date: 25 Jul 08 - 11:02 AM

Spleen read again, I didn't say it is or is not folk I said it's not music. Therefore how can it be "Folk Music", maybe a folk art, but that's a strech too.

You don't know me well enough to know what I think of folk but I have tried to explain what I think is this type of poetry.

Barry

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: mattkeen
Date: 25 Jul 08 - 11:03 AM

He knows what you said Barry, and so do I .

For myself< I just think your wrong

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 25 Jul 08 - 11:42 AM

Go Matt! Go Matt!

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: GUEST,Spleen Cringe
Date: 25 Jul 08 - 11:46 AM

No Barry, I don't know you. I'm inferring slightly from your posts and using facetiousness as a rhetorical device... bad Spleen!

I instinctively flinch at That's not music! type statements. Call it a reflex reaction. Nothing personal, Barry.

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 25 Jul 08 - 01:17 PM

Best appreciate that music is music even if you hate it; I hate tripe & trotters but I would never say they weren't food or yet deny anyone the right to enjoy them as such. All music is a manifestation of creative human genius on an individual & collective level; it emerges out of absolute necessity. I don't think it's essential to like all music - I actually find Bob Dylan physically painful to listen to (but I love the unfaltering eclecticism of his radio show) and would personally ponder if much of the slick young trendy things that inhabit sessions these days are actually playing music, but that's just my personal bugbear, as undeserving of a thread as olddude's uncalled for bitching that started off this little lot.

Like art, not everything is music, but everything can be music if that's the way one chooses to define it. So open your ears, and maybe your hearts and minds will follow.

In the Ocean of World Music, genre folk is just a stagnant little puddle slowly drying up for the want of some rain; the drought is on, but the rest of us are out there, swimming in the cool blue depths. Come on in! The water's lovely!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uRnvMwD6jM

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 25 Jul 08 - 02:35 PM

""Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T - PM
Date: 21 Jul 08 - 06:28 AM

I guess I'd say that, in its best forms, it is arguably a variety of folk art.

They would definitely have to introduce a melody before I would use the word "music" in relation to it, and I would need a serious amount of time to consider whether "folk music" would ever apply. About fifty years or so.

It's not my style, but I have nothing against it either.

Don T.""

RESPONSE BELOW!


""Why is this subject under discussion anyway? What is with folkies that they have to turn on something they have no appreciation or understanding of? What qualifies them to pass any sort of judgement at all or even think they're worthy of holding an opinion in the first place? Ignorance writ large, folky fuckwits - you give folk a very bad name indeed. FYI - Hip-Hop is the antithesis of everything wrong with folk music - it's alive, vibrant, traditional, relevant, happening, universal, youthful, respectful, dynamic, creative, experimental; it is the ingenuity of humanity at its most ruthlessly inventive. Oh, and it actually knows what it's talking about, first hand.


I make possibly the mildest, and least offensive, comment on this thread, and the above is the response to that. Who is this poster, anyway, who believes he alone has a right to hold an opinion. I don't intend to defer to this ignorant, foul mouthed troll. I am as entitled as any here to express my opinion.

If you have a problem with that, Sedayne, maybe it's YOU that's on the wrong forum, as this one IS about the folk music YOU neither appreciate nor understand.

Don T.

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: Spleen Cringe
Date: 25 Jul 08 - 02:51 PM

Oi, Don, hold your horses! I don't think Sedayne was in any way specifically refering to you. The last word for Sedayne is "troll" unless that's a specific reference to degree of hairiness...

So open your ears, and maybe your hearts and minds will follow. Or in the words of the great George Clinton free your mind and your ass will follow...

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: Stringsinger
Date: 25 Jul 08 - 03:19 PM

Barry, I respectfully disagree. You can't separate Rap from the rest of African-American
culture. It did not sprout up out of the ground but remains a form of expression that
emanates from a rhythmic and lyrical tradition. To try to confine it the way you suggest
is to deny its roots.

Rap is very much alive because it is changing (as folkmusic does) and I was privileged
to hear Naz do his rap about Fox News and I applaud this direction that Rap is taking.

Rap does have the quality of other forms of expression such as chain gang songs or
blues because it conveys history and storytelling that is not a part of the Anglo-American
experience. It is an eclectic expression that borrows from many sources and is not confined to a rigid form except when it is commercialized for a specific market.

African-Americans have been expressing views that are unique to their culture for years.
In a sense, Rap reminds me of the revolution in jazz through be-bop and the beginnings of rock and roll. Both forms were rejected by a proper white community who considered
them violent and "immoral". Eventually these musical expressions were accepted and understood by a larger audience. The same will happen with Rap.

I think that Fela Kouti has had an influence on Rap. His mode of expression was to take
current political events that occurred in his country, not unlike the Calypso tradition in
Trinidad. Rap has elements of this expression particularly when it takes a political bent.

Barry, I have sung be-bop at some gatherings and the songs of Hendricks,Lambert and Ross were accepted. In some circles, ears have opened to new ideas and not imprisoned
by labels or cliques of musical personalities. As we become exposed to more new and interesting ideas in music, the acceptance rate for innovation and change becomes more apparent.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: Jack Blandiver
Date: 25 Jul 08 - 03:45 PM

Right on, Frank. Respect. I wonder - any Fela Kuti on you Tube? Let's have a look...

Oh yes! Oh yes! Check this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4AA6EuZe-k

And more. Watch this - LOUD! Saw him at Glastonbury in 84 & I'm still dancing!

*

Yo, Spleen-o - reckon I need a haircut then? In this heat I'm inclined to agree. This one's just for you...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wq8eb74nIKc

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 25 Jul 08 - 04:02 PM

here is a Nick Toczek track that apparently is currently the subject of a legal wrangle with BabyShambles.

What a folksong!
http://www.myspace.com/nick_toczek

Subject: RE: What is Folk? Is RAP the NEw Folk?
From: M.Ted
Date: 25 Jul 08 - 05:44 PM

Chant and percussion are fundamental elements of African music, and are fundamental elements in the African diasporatic cultures of America,The Caribbean, South America, and Europe.

When some of you make statements to the effect that Rap/Hip-Hop, and by extension, all African music "is not music", you dismiss the validity of their musical culture because it doesn't conform to the aesthetics of your own musical culture.

This is serious, because it denies the validity and legitimacy of cultures that are not your own, and simply on the basis of the fact that they are not like your own.

None of you have presented any credible reasoning as to why chant should not be considered music, and no credible reasoning as to why very narrowly defined western style "folk melody" is necessary for something to be considered music. In fact, there is no credible justification for these ideas.

Basically, this position is chauvinistic, and without much trouble, can be interpreted as racist.

It may surprise you to know this--but generally when someone says "Rap isn't music", people of the relevant culture take is as a racist, chauvinistic dismissal--and tend to respond to it as such.