Is Rap Folk?

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: Mudjack
Date: 28 Oct 99 - 11:54 AM

Wheemoway, wheemoway wheemoway......Oh that might be catogorized as FOLK. Or a show tune since it was a tune used in a full lentgh cartoon movie.Or by its simplicity a rythymn of chants maybe a work song. It sounds like we are into a tug a war of opinions and taste. If I had to accept John Jacob Niles as a foundation of "FOLK MUSIC" then I guess I'd have to opt for calling myself a rapper. Simply put, his examples of folk music bore me. Modern interpeters have given folk music some life and vitality with heart.
If the academic asses insist on coveting the term "folk" then they can have it. Call it what you want, Maybe it's fulk music I'm into...
Why am I venting on this subject, everyone knows I sing FULK SONGS.
Mudjack the Fulk singer.

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 28 Oct 99 - 11:29 AM

Hmmm, Spice Girls eh? Now I wonder if "Girl Power" could find it's way onto some pre-pubescent picket line? Just kidding! If this thread starts winding down, I just wanna say "Thanks Catters". It's been informative, and reminds me that I find things at Mudcat that are unavailable to me in my "real life" in the big city.

Rick

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: Frank Hamilton
Date: 28 Oct 99 - 11:17 AM

Lonesome EJ,

The reason that Rap may transcend popular music as a folk art is because it borrows from historical traditions found in the African American and African Communities. These elements are chanting in a rhythmic fashion that tells of the events of the times and comments on them not unlike that of the ancient Girots in Africa. Rapping used to be called Jiving and was at one time popularized by Fats Waller. There is a longevity here that doesn't apply to Dylan or the Spice Girls who are basically popular performers that reflect the trends and fashions of the music industry. Rap does this too but where it differs is that it is black, not racially, but culturally and this culture has musical antecedents that go back centuries. In this way, Rap may not be new but a re-fashioning of older forms of expression. Leadbelly does a kind of "rap" on his recording of the Rock Island Line. The preaching of Reverend Gary Davis might be close to this in it's improvisational character. I have no doubt but that the talking blues originated in the black eommunity and was appropriated by white performers such as Jimmie Rodgers (The Singing Brakeman) and Woody Guthrie. Talking a song in rhythm is found in many examples of African-American culture. It's improvisational quality is another characteristic.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: Chet W.
Date: 27 Oct 99 - 07:42 PM

Let's forget about whether rap is music. I guess I've made music by some of these definitions while I was sitting in the smallest room in the house. (Very traditional, too). Let's say they are essays or editorials or even poetry. Fine. I'm saying that the popular forms of rap are a scourge to some of the most vulnerable young people in the last few centuries, and leads directly (although not by itself by a long shot) to the notion that crime, violence, and "bustin' the bitch's ass" is somehow normal or even justified. The idea that it has or will ever reach the same level of legitimate art as Blues and Jazz is one that I think was last heard on one of the moons of Neptune (I forget their names). If there are positive examples, as I'm sure there are (and not all expression has to be positive and wholesome), how many people do you think know about it, as least as compared to the number of kids in juvenile prison because they were immersed in fulfilling what their immediate culture expected of them. I am not being dramatic when I say that this is a crisis situation.

Thinking way out of the box, Chet

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 27 Oct 99 - 07:31 PM

LOL. Neil, I am sure you are right...again!

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: Neil Lowe
Date: 27 Oct 99 - 07:25 PM

Meanwhile, in a galaxy far, far away...at www.bustamove.org a similar debate rages whether Dylan's "Talkin' New York" qualifies as rap....

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 27 Oct 99 - 05:00 PM

It is interesting to me that, through all our discussions of "what is Folk", a sort of consensus was achieved that it was music which had been passed down through and modified in the oral tradition.Dylan, Donovan,Paul Simon and others stand outside this definition as "singer/songwriters" whose work, while sometimes sounding like other songs that meet the above criteria, are not truly Folk.Now I have to ask, is there something about Rap that makes you all think it comes closer to this traditional definition than the above-mentioned singer/songwriters? Why is a song written by Tupac Shakur closer to Folk than one written by Neil Diamond? Is it perhaps because Tupac was black, therefore his music is somehow "representative" of Black Culture?

I am not denigrating Rap by saying itis not fit to be part of Folk (although I think most of it is obnoxious). I am saying, unless you base your opinion on Rap being some kind of "voice of the oppressed" and thereby grant it some special dispensation, it comes no closer to Folk at this time than Neil Diamond comes to Mozart. To go beyond that and say "these songs may someday become part of oral tradition, and are therefore Folk-in-process" is speculative nonsense on the level of saying that the pablum spooned out by the Spice Girls is potentially Folk if we just give it a chance.

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: Frank Hamilton
Date: 27 Oct 99 - 04:36 PM

Rick, now I understand you better. Yes I can agree that there were some songwriters who might have been lionized principally for their political point of view. I think of a lot of the songs that were disposable as being relevant to a picket line or an immediate cause that have little durability. Some rap may turn out to be this way. It may reflect a moment in time without much substance and then there may be those "raps" that have a life beyond. There is folk song doggerel too. Not all folk songs are wonderful. I can think of offensive variations of minstrel show songs that are not wonderful although unfortunately, there are some that are in that they have infectious melodies and durable images. I think of songs like Jimmy Crack Corn and The Boatman Row which were in the minstrel show tradition.

Regarding Aunt Molly, she was principally a labor organizer and had a traditional folk singing style. I'm sure that she sang many disposable songs in her day as did many other folkies of the time. Pete has sung a few in his day. Whenever there is a body of song material being created, some of it is bound to be "doggerel". Some of the traditional folk songs have been so hacked up through the process that they are fairly unintelligible without footnotes. Here is where I would take the liberty to step in and mess with them so they would make sense to today's audiences. But this may be one of the roles of a "revival" singer.

In a sense, this is what the rap singer does. A lot of the images are caught in the "rap" and borrowed for others. This is kind of a folk process as the ideas adapt to new circumstances. Harlem and Watts have similar conditions. The LAPD and the NYPD may not be far apart in their marginalizing practices. I think of rap as a kind of protest music. This is similar to the style of Fela Anikupalo Kuti in his African pop songs which were based on traditional fusions of African music and jazz. His were basically chants as well. The African chant has a venerable history. Some found Fela so politically offensive that they bombed his home. He was incarcerated for his songs as Victor Jara was. In this, rap isn't all that different in content from Reggae or Calypso music in the Islands. What I'm trying to point out, here, is that rap may have corollary forms over the world, today, which increases it's tendency to be folk music. I find it necessary to keep an open mind that some of it may be quite good and that I haven't had the opportunity to be exposed to that yet. If we thought of folk music as only being that which we heard on the radio (that's being called folk music, today) our appreciation would be limited.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 27 Oct 99 - 02:52 PM

Interesting post Mandochop. I hope you stick around in this thread for a while. You've pointed out knowledgably (and certainly forcefully) what I've been trying to say with far less inside info. More articulately as well!

Frank. No, I didn't mean that Aunt Molly and Leadbelly were used by the New Yorkers..just pointing out that I've read how many seemed to think that. Actually I wouldn't put those two names together at all in a music sense. I felt that Leadbelly was a hugely inventive and original musician. Just thought that because someone (I forget who now) said that rap was doggerel (and PERHAPS) because of that was not true folk music, I could think of some VERY accepted trad style writers who certainly wrote no better than that...but were lionized solely on the basis of their politics.

Rick

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: Frank Hamilton
Date: 27 Oct 99 - 02:36 PM

Hi Rick,

I'll get in touch with you. Thanks!

As I understand it, Aunt Molly wanted to be "used" in any way she could to advertise the plight of the coal miners. I don't think that Leadbelly was really "used" any more than any performer is "used" by an audience. I think I know what you mean but I'm not sure. I think you're talking about the political scene in the left-wing movement of the time. (This is probably another thread but it might relate to rap). There was a political agenda. As there is with many rap artists. They have some point-of-view to sell which can be interpreted as political. If you say that Leadbelly and Aunt Molly were dupes of the CP then I would have to disagree. If you say however that the audiences for folk music including Leadbelly and Aunt Molly were predominantly left wing I would thoroughly agree with you. Also, there was the other way of looking at it. Leadbelly, Josh White, Burl Ives et.al. "used" the left-wing to furthur their own careers. I don't have a problem with that, though, unless they didn't agree with that philosophy in which case they would have been disingenuous. In those times, regarding the left-wing movement considering the state of the country in the aftermath of the Depression and at the inception of the war years, what was not to like? Not all Lefties were CP-ers or dupes for Stalin. Many were for social reform (maybe like some of today's rap artists) and they thought they had a handle on how to create a better world.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: Mandochop
Date: 27 Oct 99 - 11:42 AM

Hey all

I just would like to say that those of you who share the standpoint of Chet and Alice seem to me no better than the straight-lacers and rigid conservatives of old who immediately dismissed any form of black music until at least a few decades after it came into being. The exact same thing happened with jazz and blues. Scott Joplin was forced to play in only the sleaziest of bars an restaurants. King Oliver's Creole Band, one of the turning point ventures in jazz and Louis Armstrong's first professional job, was dismissed almost automatically by white society. In this sense, jazz and blues took over 20 years to be accepted as legitimate musical genres. Sugar Hill Gang's "Rapper's Delight", the first rap record ever, came out in 1979. If rap does not become a significant part of modern and "folk" music to people like Chet and Alice soon, then it will be way behind in the trend.

To answer the ultimate quetion: Rap most definately is folk music. That is, by my own personal definition it is. I consider folk music any music which is considered an original art form and influences other art forms. Rap music started with the street gangs of upper Manhattan and the Bronx, who long before the era of drug trafficking and drive-by shootings competed in 3 areas: beat-boxing, break-dancing, and rapping. Rap was a form of self-expression and competition, and when Wonder-Mic and Master Gee recorded it with the Sugar Hill Gang in 1979, it became one of the most influential forms of music ever. It spawned the entire hip-hop culture, which by my prediction will soon be accepted as an art form of the masters, respected as highly as jazz or blues. Furthermore, in response those of you who think that rap is all bllod and guts and sex and drugs, you obviously have not had a taste of the cream of the rap crop. Try these names for size: Spearhead, Us3, Arrested Developement, Black Star, The Roots (who recently went multi-platinum for their album "Things Fall Apart"),A Tribe Called Quest, and yes, even Puff Daddy. These artists do not fill the heads of america's youth with sin and gore, they merely give young people a sense of enjoyment, appreciation, and confidence when they are played on the local hip-hop station. I myself have done work at the after-school program at the Manchester Craftmen's Guild in the nefarious Manchester region of the north side of Pittsburgh (known for having the highest murder rate in all of Pennsylvania). Here, renowned bassist Dwayne Dolphin (of Wynton Marsalis and Stanley Turrentine fame) runs the music program for urban youth. I have watched as young boys and girls come in day after day, week after week to express their fears, emotions, and dreams through the art form known as rap music. Never do they freestyle about shootings or rape, nor about liquor and drugs, nor about violence and abuse. They simply recite beautiful poetry to lively beats, and the result is something to behold. To me, that is rap music. That is hip-hop.

Rob

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 27 Oct 99 - 10:54 AM

Chet, you make an interesting point about listening to a music that encourages you to grow up to be a thug. I still think this thread is apples and oranges, and should be two threads: "Is Rap Folk"? and "Divisive Music".
In my teens the music I SHOULD have listened to exclusively (rock and roll) was sending a message to grow up kinda tough, macho and anti-establishment. The music I ACTUALLY gravitated to (Folk) said: be a wanderer, dress in a homespun (hence, VERY hip) way, sing ballads and girls will approach YOU, and think about social issues before your own concerns. Never did my music say "you must kill to be hip". Of course country music always implied to it's devotees that "to protect freedom, killing might be neccessary", but that had a more "in the future, if need be" ring to it. I think you're right about the immediate message of rap. Terribly sad though.

Rick

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: Neil Lowe
Date: 27 Oct 99 - 10:40 AM

Based on the above discussions, perhaps only the passage of time will tell whether or no Rap deserves to be labelled as folk. However it shakes out, Rap has redeeming social value - in the minds of some not as a musical genre, but that reflects personal opinion only - as a window to a world to which most of us aren't privy, or probably wouldn't want to be. It portends to be representative and reflective of a section of our population that feels disenfranchised and alienated from the umbrella of opportunities and benefits usually bestowed on the "acceptable" members of our society: the young urban black American male. It seems as though the large metropolitan areas located on the fringes of the U.S.(specifically New York City and Los Angeles) are at the forefront of styles and fashions (or actions) that eventually spread into every small town nook and cranny of this country. What those cities manifest, for better or worse, is a harbinger of things to come in Anytown, U.S.A. The glimpses of the future they provide can sometimes be harrowing. That doesn't mean we shouldn't be looking.

Neil Lowe

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: catspaw49
Date: 27 Oct 99 - 07:02 AM

Either or both of the above Jon......Much classically constructed music being currently written is done in distonal and styles and odd "almost" rhythms. Its still music as poetry can be or beating drums.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 26 Oct 99 - 08:44 PM

OK then spaw, here is a question:

Some verses or poems could be read in a very rhythmically but with not melody - does that make it music if it is read in that manner?

Some singers will vary the timing of their songs quite considerably so to a large extent there is a lack of rythym - does that mean it's not music even though it has a melody?

Jon

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: catspaw49
Date: 26 Oct 99 - 08:30 PM

What possible arguments can you make for rhythm not being music? In its earliest and most simplistic form, music came from the human voice and some percussive sound combination. Find me a musicologist who says otherwise. But as to Rap...Frank makes his own point, "Its not folk now, but it could be."

But I think of this thread as Chet's more than anyones. In his last post I think he makes the best point of all. Its the old "yelling fire in a crowded hall" argument and it always bears the burden of first amendment infringement. But the culture that says its us against them will always triumph, at least for awhile. Worked for Hitler and it works for the gangs. But I can equally choose not to buy it, not to let it be played in my home, to discuss it and see what the proponents like so much....blah, blah, blah........We all know both sides of this debate and it still comes down to one on one with kids...your own and others you might influence.

This could get really drawn out here, but let me say that I don't go in for divisive music.......music that tells of the social condition, yes....music that works for a betterment of that condition, yes......Same reason I don't sing songs of the antagonism of the VietNam era...of the condition and times, yes.....of the devisiveness, no.

Ah to hell with it....I'm a screw up anyway. I need a few days at the Young Center.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: Chet W.
Date: 26 Oct 99 - 07:35 PM

I'm not nearly so interested in defining rap as I am in repudiating it in the emergency/crisis state we're in. I know some of you have also worked with disadvantaged children, and can't you see the effect it has on them? I am much more interested in the life of one child than in the absolute freedom of speech of the gangsta crowd. And of course there are intelligent, sincere, intelligent young people out there, like the guy in the booth, who are writing artistic poetry in the rap style. I'd like to see them rise to the top, but that sort of thing doesn't happen in any art form very often. The art of rythmic poetry with music accompaniment has been around a long time (Kerouac, Ginsberg, Ken Nordine). We can promote that sort of thing, but that don't sell records to a kid whose immediate culture tells him he's supposed to be a thug.

Many good points here, Chet

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 26 Oct 99 - 07:09 PM

Rick, I am not aware of the artist (my ignorance) but I would think that there is a lot that could argueably be classed as folk but couldn't be classed as music - I am pretty ignorant but there must be a lot of verse that would fit "folk" but not "folk music".

Just asking, like yourself, I am enjoying the thread.

Jon

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 26 Oct 99 - 07:00 PM

John do you remember those wonderful records that Robert Pete Williams made? Would anyone have suggested that he was not a magnificent folk artist?
If you're not familiar with them, he "talked" long improvised stories about his incarcerations, hopes, etc. and played many festivals during the 60s.
I'm still enjoying this thread.

Rick

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 26 Oct 99 - 06:52 PM

I can appreciate the arguments towards rap being part of a folk culture but is rap music? What is music? What is a song? Where do these borders lie?

Jon

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 26 Oct 99 - 03:50 PM

Frank I agree with you. By the way, I wasn't talking about Florence Reese. Aunt Molly was quite a disappointment when I finally heard her, but only in the sense that I felt she was being "used" a bit by the New Yorkers, in the same way that some claim Leadbelly was "used". I just didn't think she had much to offer in a "songwriter" sense.

I just don't feel comfortable with the arguments that because rap might be "doggerel, violent, devisive, and (at the top end) a huge cash cow," it ain't folk music. 'Cause it doesn't START at the top level, it starts at street level, and as Leej says "the grey area is a mile wide". Surely it's at least IN that grey area.

Wanna trade albums? What's your e-mail address again, I've lost it. Mine's [e-mail]

Rick

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: Frank Hamilton
Date: 26 Oct 99 - 03:24 PM

Hi Rick,

I guess my album is doing OK. Thanks for asking. How's yours doin'? I think in the case of folk music type albums, it takes time to find a market. All I can tell you is that I'm happy with what came out and I feel it represents me. I think that if we just hang in there, we'll find our audience, don't you?

I agree with you that folkies have been forgiving about lyric quality and content. I think this is true about much singer/songwriter material. But this has always been true. There were great pop songs from past eras and for every great one, there were forgettable ones.

Would this protest singer from the thirties that you mention be Aunt Molly Jackson or Florence Reese?

"Come all of you good workers, The truth to you I'll tell, Of how the good old union Came in here to dwell.

Which side are you on? Which side are you on?

Don't listen to the bosses, Don't listen to their lies, Us workin' men don't have a chance, Unless we organize!

Which side are you on?"

This mighn't pass muster in an academic poetry class but it's pretty dynamic folk poetry IMHO. It's specific, real, simple and hard-hitting.

Union was a big issue in the days when coal miners were being shot at by strike-breakers and gun thugs hired by the mining companies. Nowadays, when a union is mentioned, one tends to think in terms of Jimmy Hoffa. Today's songwriters might tend to hide themselves behind a plethora of metaphors and waxeth philosophical or exhortative. Don't know how this plays in poetry classe taught by serious poets.

You are right that much folk music is divisive. Some racially insulting. I think, though, if you do take an academic stance in folklore or musicology, there might be a good case for determining that rap is a folk musical style based on musical tradition found in the black community.

Now the question remains, does that mean that "rap" songs are folk songs? This might be another issue. But IMHO they have a promising candidacy to become them in time.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: Fortunato
Date: 26 Oct 99 - 10:46 AM

IMHO (Thanks kat/katlaughing):

Rap is doggerel, and though some may qualify as verse,I've heard none that rose to poetry.

But unlike Talking Blues it has no relationship to melody. It has a relationship to rhythm.

Chanting over drums has a relationship to rhythm, but it is not called folk music, it is call chanting. It is in the oral tradition, but it is not music.

Rap is, at best, verse spoken over rhythmn, and not music at all.

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: Jeri
Date: 26 Oct 99 - 08:21 AM

I have a strong feeling the stuff we hear blaring out of other people's music systems is to rap as the stuff coming out of the elevator and supermarket speakers is to folk - or even pop. We hear what record companies think they can make money from, not what's good. When you want to hear folk in its natural environment, you listen to people in their communities, not the box.

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: M. Ted (inactive)
Date: 26 Oct 99 - 03:41 AM

One day, as I was returning to my car in the parking ramp behind the city court building in Philly, I heard some early Dylan coming out of the attendant's office--I stuck my head in, and there was a young black man, with the hat, the baggies, the shades and the look--we started to chat, and he spent the next twenty minutes playing me his favorite Dylan cuts, stuff like "who killed davey moore"> and "the lonesome death of hattie carroll" and several of the bootleg talking blues, and then this guy pulled out his note book and started reading me raps that he had written--

I swear to you, he had a crew and they were doing spots at the Showcase off of 52nd street, and the whole deal, and this guy knew dylan upside down and inside out--The thing is, that he said that he was not alone--

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 26 Oct 99 - 01:26 AM

Wellll, Katlaf, isn't generalizing at the heart of defining categories like Folk and Rap? I could certainly say that Pete Seegar stands pretty squarely as an example of Folk, and that The Insane Clown Posse are fairly well entrenched in the Rap camp, that they are generally representative of those types of music, and say that there is almost no common ground between the two, and I feel that I would be quite accurate. Indeed, Queen Latifah and Bob Dylan may move into the gray area that lies between, but I believe that that gray area is at least a mile wide, so wide as to render any inclusion of Rap into Folk Music at least as ridiculous as my other (See First Post) examples.

And Catspaw, I would also strongly suggest you paint Don't Milk! on the flanks of all your bulls, for the safety of all your loveable but naive sidekicks.

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: catspaw49
Date: 26 Oct 99 - 01:04 AM

Well gawddamn Leej...first off I gotta say that I recently lost a considerable amount of money when a local farmer delivered a load of what he purported to be Shinola to my front yard and, with dollar signs in my eyes, I put the Reg boys on the job of canning it up before it dried out. But when the three of them were blown over the back fence in a methane explosion, I realized I'd been had. Now I'm invested in a patented device to engrave piss pouring instructions on boot heels and am hoping for the best.

Say, could I interest you in a few shares of the "Implosive Pedro Guitar Co." of Texawallahatchie, Mexico?

Spaw

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: katlaughing
Date: 26 Oct 99 - 01:01 AM

Wouldn't that be generalising, LeeJ?*BG* I don't think Queen Latifah could be categorised as Shit or Shineola!

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 26 Oct 99 - 12:37 AM

If extremely bad poetry (defined by assembling phrases with end-words that have some relative similarity ie while the brother was haulin out trash, somebody rolled by and poppa cap in his ass), coupled with musical performance primarily limited to a 900 watt Bass, drumpads, and record-scratching fed through a PA system, all piled on top of a 30 year-old guitar riff from Led Zeppelin 2... if that is your definition of Folk, then by God Rap is Folk, no two ways about it. Also, Ricky Martin plays Progressive Jazz, The Strawberry Alarm Clock were leading proponents of Classical Music, and Rick Springfield does Gregorian Chant.

I mean, for Christ's sakes, we are surely an open-minded, all-embracing, life-affirming bunch here at the Mudcat, but wouldn't it be OK if we stood up for our right to tell Shit from Shine-ola?

I am humbled, LEJ

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: Jeri
Date: 25 Oct 99 - 11:24 PM

Lyle, click here. (hehehe...)

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: sophocleese
Date: 25 Oct 99 - 11:22 PM

Run away! Run away!

Sorry Lyle. A basic definition of folk is not going to be easy to come by. People, being folks, differ. Part of this discussion is that it helps some people figure out their own, and other people's, definitions of what folk is and isn't. You might like to try searching previous threads and seeing what has been written on this before. A lot has.

Sophocleese

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: catspaw49
Date: 25 Oct 99 - 11:17 PM

Oh gawd, not again...............

Spaw

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 25 Oct 99 - 10:57 PM

Lyle, ya got us!!

Rick

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: Lyle
Date: 25 Oct 99 - 09:39 PM

This is meant as a sincere question, not one to agitate or anything like that.

I've never seen two people who can agree completely what "folk music" really is. On bluegrassL, a big argument appears on a regular basis about what "bluegrass music" really is. The same can be said for lots of music styles.

So my question is, how can anyone say rap is or is not folk music without a clear definition of what folk music is?

Thanks for enlightening me!

Lyle

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: M. Ted (inactive)
Date: 25 Oct 99 - 08:39 PM

I don't think the violence occurs because of what kids see in the media, even though there will always be examples of kids who seem to have copied something that they saw or heard about--those connections exist mostly because someone writing a newspaper article emphasized something that may not even have been there in the first place--

Even the "drug" connection to violent crime is a distortion--malt liquor is generally the drug of choice in the ghetto, and it is frequently connected to violence and crime of all sorts--most drug related arrests are for possession and occasionally sales, with no one getting hurt--even the drug related shootings often turn out to be arguments over money, after a night of drinking--

As a former Philly resident, I can tell you that, if you see a cop pull a car over, nine times out of ten, it is a car driven by a person of color, with occupants of color, so to speak--

I have seen Philly cops beating people of color bloody, and worse, it happens all the time, and though white yuppies and suburbanites don't believe that it happens, every black person knows that it does, and fears it--

Cable TV and video rentals are very popular in the poorer, ethnic urban areas, not because the residents hunger for violent entertainment, but because they stay inside a lot--

I think if you live in a rough world, you tend to to be less sqeamish about what you like to watch on TV--and maybe you wouldn't mind seeing a "bad" cop get splattered every once in a while, if it was done tastefully and contributed to the story line, and maybe you wouldn't be adverse to hearing a song about it every once in a while either--

Anyway, I think it wouldn't make much difference if all the Gangsta rappers shut up, and they stopped rerunning RoboCop--

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: Chet W.
Date: 25 Oct 99 - 05:50 PM

MTed and Rick, Of course you're right about what you're saying, but I still say that the gangsta rap, in its current enourmously popular status, adds to the problem. Teenagers have always chosen to "like" whatever was popular at the time in order to fit in. If fitting in means engaging in violent and deadly crime, I can't see how this is not a qualitative difference from the music that alarmed our parents and theirs and theirs, etc. A lot of my students devote ALL of their free time to violent media, so it stands to reason not that it makes them do things, but it sure does make it seem a lot more normal. The first time you see somebody's brains spattered on the sidewalk it probably will make you sick; probably the second and the tenth time; but after a few thousand times it probably seem less normal to see a sidewalk without brains splattered on it.

It's a complex issue for sure, Chet

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 25 Oct 99 - 01:16 PM

Chet, I really wish I could agree with you - 'cause you're a Mudcatter that I usually DO agree with. From what I've seen over the last 11 years working at a VERY diverse radio station...a lot of folks feel they're at war. The content and attitudes of the Native People's radio show sure reflects a state of seige mentality. The shows dealing with homeless street people, mental illness, Gay rights, and the physically disabled, all take the approach that nothing will be done to address their concerns unless they play serious hard-ball..which means actions, re-actions, and arrests.
The black programmers certainly haven't given the impression that any form of compromise with white society is a goal. It may have been 11 years ago (to a certain extent) but not anymore. As a white liberal, I would neither be considered an ally or an enemy, but more likely, just non-existant. This is in Toronto Canada, where the racial stakes are probably lower than many other places. Naturally rap has evolved into big bucks, (as did folkish music in the 60s) but I think at the street level it keeps their hopes up for some kind of power on a daily or weekly basis. I just don't think plans for a better world generally are a part of their reality. Daily survival seems to me what rap is about. (for those who aren't making the millions)

Rick

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: M. Ted (inactive)
Date: 25 Oct 99 - 11:47 AM

Spaw,

Thanks for the kind words--

Chet--

I sort of agree with you here--I am fond of rap, and have been for a long time (though it is only one of about 10,000 different things I enjoy listening to) and have not been really happy about the whole "gangsta" thing--

Back when rap was first coming up, in the early "80s, it was still more or less a neighborhood thing, associated with and often overshadowed by break dancing (remember "break dancing"?) and the rappers covered discussed the full spectrum of the human experience from what it was like to get invited over to somebodies house to eat to getting kicked out of a club because your dancing was too sexy, to how you lost an eye, to how the girls liked "gettin' wit" you even though you were fat to deaths of friends and family, etc, occasionally with great insight, and often with great humor--

When rap really got embraced by society at large, the "gangsta" thing became a major marketing emphasis--it sold big with the suburban white teenagers in a way that the other stuff didn't--and that is where the big money is, not marketing to the folks in the neighborhoods (homeys in the hood)

I lived in Philly which was and is a rap center(and has been the home to way more popular music than any other city in America!!!) and was aware of situations where record company A&R people literally roamed the halls at local schools (especially Overbrook High School--home of Fresh Prince and Jazzy Jeff) looking for talent--I remember when the two kids who had been dropped by their record label after a couple of hits, tried to rob a bank and ended up killing a cop--

It wasn't the words to the songs that drove them to that, it wasn't the gangsta attitude, possibly it was the words in the record contract and the promises, made by white men and women in expensive clothing, of money, fortune, and fame that never quite happened--and it was definitely being washed up while they were still teenagers--

The "gangsta" image stuff all comes from the record companies--The kids who write poetry in school, the kids who spend every free minute rehearsing with a group of other kids, they are not the same ones that go down and lookout for the drug houses, run the money, bring vials crack out to the 'cars (again, mostly from the white suburbs) and blow people away or get blown away--

They are close to it, and. in the same way that black actors with advanced degrees and prestigious theatrical and cultural credits may convicingly assume the roles when the script requires it, they can assume the roles--when they are offered the part--

Only thing is that a lot of people like fans and cops and newspaper editors don't realize that it is just a showbiz gig--

The sad truth is that at the bottom of all of it is the issue of racism--The white people that control the entertainment industries believe that the work of black artists is appealing because of the overt sexuality and violence that are stereotypically associated with the "ghetto"--

And so the stereotypes get mass marketed--and everything that happens becomes proof that the stereotypes are true--and the worst thing is that kids start to believe more in what they see plastered all over place in advertising and promotions than in what they see around them--

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From:
Date: 25 Oct 99 - 09:03 AM

Most do not feel that they are in a war, like the ones in the movies. Most feel compelled to imitate the media culture that is presented to them and absorbed by their adjacent peers. They do it with varying degrees of success, and many end up in just as much trouble or just as dead as the real gangstas. But it is a big misstatement to say that there is any politics or struggle for rights of freedom or even the end of everybody's poverty and violence in their songs. It's about making money, pure and simple. The idealists get swept away the same way they do in other forms of expression.

Chet

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 25 Oct 99 - 12:19 AM

Hi Frank, how's the new album doin?
A couple of things confuse me about the "rap is/is'nt folk" thing. As far as the "doggerel" part goes...surely folkies have been hugely forgiving when it comes to lyric quality and content. I won't get into names but a lot of traditional singers (and writers in traditional styles) have gotten away with stuff that wouldn't pass muster in a grade 3 poetry class today. I remember wondering why a "protest" singer from Kentucky in the 30s and 40s was held in such high esteem when it seemed to me that her "writing" skill was almost non-existant. Only later did I realize that no matter how awful she seemed to me, her lionization was because she used the word "union" in everything she wrote. And that's really all that counted.
As to rap being divisive...on a purely superficial level, the vast majority of those Clancy Bros. songs I learned when I was 15, were definitely divisive.
Granted, the stakes are so much higher now, but how many old ballads do we sing where a crime is being commited? Lots and lots. I worry that a lot of people would be much happier if young blacks just sang about Jesus like their (Grand) mothers did. But they don't. Most feel that they're in a war and their gun and their attitude is all they've got to do battle with. It's very frightening, but it's their reality, and they sing/rap about it.
This has been a fascinating thread and the arguments have been so well thought out, but, unless you take a real academic stance, I think rap is folk music.

Rick

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: catspaw49
Date: 24 Oct 99 - 09:40 PM

M Ted....I hope you didn't feel I was getting "preachy" back there....I hope not, for it wasn't my intent. If I haven't said it before, I have really enjoyed your postings to the 'Cat and I'm glad you feel as though you belong here because you certainly do. And, too, we needed some new blood to keep Ol'Frank in line!

Here at the 'Cat, "Mud is Thicker than Water"--a completely idiotic expression which makes it the perfect slogan here. Welcome aboard my friend.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: M. Ted (inactive)
Date: 24 Oct 99 - 08:40 PM

"Spaw,

Thank you for letting me know how things go here--and for telling me about your situation--I people here have tended to be very friendly, understanding, etc about everything, and of course, very diverse in background and experience, so it doesn't surprise me that there is a sensitivity to special needs kids here, but it does make me feel even more like I belong--

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: Chet W.
Date: 24 Oct 99 - 07:08 PM

Ah, so much to read after being away for a couple of days. Regarding special needs children, I learned during my time as prison-teacher to notice that some kids with huge learning disabilities were actually quite aware and intelligent, as is a friend's autistic child. You come to realize that they are all different, like everybody else, and need to be related to in different ways. Hard to get administrators to understand this though. My friend with the autistic child has shaken up quite a few of them. She tends to know more about the subject, and certainly about her child, than the teachers or administrators.

A lot of my current students affect an illiterate character because it's not fashionable, especially among the rap culture, to have learned anything in school. I can tell in a very short time whether this is real or not, and if not, I call them on it, sometimes with great results.

Rap started in the late sixties and seventies in Jamaica when bored dance club DJs would chant, sometimes nonsense but more often "adult" rhymes over the instrumental records they played. Didn't anybody else listen to Yellowman and King Tubby and Eek-a-Mouse back then? Then years later, in the historic 80's, the same thing happened with bored club DJs in New York. Then the "art" of rap (which the Jamaicans called "Dub") leaked out into the streets, became the voice of the neighborhoods, and eventually evolved into being about violence almost exclusively. When it began to sell, the big record companies, including the two biggest in the world (Sony and Warner) got into the market and soon it was mainstream, for sale in above-ground stores and even Wal-Marts. I guess the good question would be why didn't they do this for Al Capone and the other gangsters from the twenties on. I guess in those days there was not as much money in records in general, and in those marketed to a criminal culture in particular.

I wish I knew the answer to this problem. Certainly there was violence before there was rap. No chicken-and-egg argument here. But it's hard to deny that a cycle was created wherein a violent culture leads to violent media which then lends legitimacy or at least a sense of normality to more and more violence. Until I do know the answer, I'll call on thoughtful people of good faith to keep it away from children whenever possible. For many it may be the only way they can avoid the cycle.

There is no absolute freedom. I'm not saying that somebody is keeping it from us. I'm saying that it cannot exist in anything that can be called civilization.

Still raging after all these years, Chet

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: katlaughing
Date: 24 Oct 99 - 06:19 PM

Good points, Gint. Tibetan monks, technically do not use music; their chants are intoned words and ethnic!

Thanks, 'Spaw.

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: Gint
Date: 24 Oct 99 - 06:08 PM

As far as I'm concerned the only thing missing from rap is the letter C, but I have to say whatever my personal feelings you ant ignore the following

It comes from ethnic roots,

it has rythm,

I noted someones comment that it did not have musical backup, I won't go into the various forms to be found throughout history, because you proberably know vast amounts more than I.

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: catspaw49
Date: 24 Oct 99 - 02:26 PM

M Ted........Please understand Kat and what she is saying. I know you haven't been around the 'Cat a long while and many things come up in threads that you may not see or would normally interest you.

The subjecy of "Special Kids" has come up with some regularity around here and I think we're damn near a "Support Group" at times. From the profoundly retarded to autism to CP to DS others, many of us like Margarita, Barry Finn, and myself are all parents of these kids. Barry has a wonderful song he wrote.

I too get touchy on those same issues when my autistic almost 8 year old with major language/speech problems is confronted with the scenario you described, which happens often. In any case, my two salient points are that you are not alone here at the 'Cat and my dear buddy, Katmyluv, would be the last to preach to you on that subject or be anything less than understanding and supportive.

I don't remember where one of the longer discussions took place, but if I locate the thread, I'll let you know.

Spaw

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: Frank Hamilton
Date: 24 Oct 99 - 12:48 PM

Jon,

What I attempted to say is that "rap" is not necessarilly all on recordings. It happens in the street. In that way, in the black community, it has the ear marks of folk music. "Contemporary Folk" is a kind of recording company label, a euphenism for "singer/songwriter".

I confess that I don't understand the words of rap singers. Many black people do however. It's speech patterns that are genrally unfamiliar to the white community. I had trouble understanding the African style speech in the "islands" as well. Eventually I guess one can learn to "hear it". The subject matter of commercial rap music of that which I do understand is so offensive to me that I lack the motivation to want to understand it furthur. I feel that it is a socially divisive music and that there are judgements expressed by it that are not constructive to racial harmony. My opinion, but of course, there's a lot that goes by me. So I really don't know. A lot of the words that are improvised tend to sound like doggerel to me as constrasted by the tradition of early calypso singing in Trinidad which reached quite a folk art level of sophistication, IMHO. Here, the diction of such singers as Lord Burgess, Lord Melody, Mighty Sparrow and others were clean and trenchant. But, this is my limited experience with rap so I feel it necessary to listen to a lot more and keep an open mind.

Frank Hamilton

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: katlaughing
Date: 23 Oct 99 - 07:13 PM

MTed, it's okay, we all vent on the Mudcat because it is safe to do so and understood with compassion. I didn't take it personally.

You are right about the kids who used to be shunned and hidden and abused. And, you are also right to go into an "educator-mode" when the opportunity comes up.

I know a friend of a friend who has CP. She is in a wheelchair, drives her car all over the state and uses a computer which recognises her voice to write. She works to a fuller capacity than I am able and holds a position of high merit. It's hard to believe some of the medical community would claim someone like her is "mentally retarded". Go figure, huh?

All the best,

kat

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: M. Ted (inactive)
Date: 23 Oct 99 - 06:24 PM

Sorry if I vented on you--I get a little touchy sometimes--

The reason that you hear a lot about things that you never used to is that it used to be that everyone was encouraged to shut up and keep it all out of sight--The allegedly retarded and spastic children were shamefully stowed away and forgotten about--

Up until fairly recently, many kids were classified as mentally retarded and institutionalized for life(and there often drugged and shockingly abused and mistreated), because they had a limp and a speech impediment--

Not surprisingly, even the designation of Mental Retardation has come into question--even still, you find many so called "enlightened" books about children's medical issues that say that the majority of CP kids are mentally retarded--

The truth is still is hard for a lot of people, doctors, teachers, and other professionals included, to get past the walkers, the limping, and lisps and occasional drooling to really appreciate how bright most of these kids are--

By the same token, a lot of kids ( many grown into adults) have had cognitive problems that have gone completely unnoticed because they didn't have accompanying motor impairments--

Sorry for the lecture, but I tend to go into that mode at any opportunity--

As to your parking lot kids--what can I say? The fact that kids nowdays manage to survive their childhoods seems like a miracle--

Subject: RE: Is Rap Folk?
From: katlaughing
Date: 23 Oct 99 - 05:07 PM

M. Ted, I would never do something like that woman did! How rude and thoughtless. I was just talking in a general sense, which I know, I shouldn't be doing. From what I could tell on the radio show, it was just a normal, but out of control 5 year old. Having worked in medicine for several years, I am pretty observant and do try to go out of my way to make people comfortable or to help out if possible and appropriate.

I wonder, sometimes, if there is more to our physical environment, besides tv, I mean, that contributes to the apparent rise in a lot of disorders we used to never or barely hear about; or is it just we are more aware and there is less stigma attached? I am thinking not along the lines of in utero, but after birth, or whenever things like ADD and others seem to develop. I would be interested in hearing from those of you who deal with these things.

It is wonderful that you are doing all of those things with and for your daughter, M. Ted. A challenge and blessing all at once, just like a kid, huh?*g*

One other thing and I will shut up. This is probably more what I had in mind, M. Ted. I see parents who seem to be so ambivalent and unaware with their kids. I am appalled, for instance, at seeing things such as in the grocery store parking lot today. A mother with two babies in car seats and a little girl, probably about 3 or 4, parked her car, got out, left her door wide open and walked across the lot to get a cart. The 3/4 yr. old went bounding across the parking lot after her mom, and the mom didn't take any notice. Babes were left there all alone witht the door open, the 3/4 could have been run over and the mom was oblivious. Besides being careless, I think it is just plain rude. I see so many parents who walk into a store, never holding their children's hands, the little ones straggling behind, dodging cars, while the parent moseys on in the store or, worse, yet, in a way, turns around and yells at the little one, with tiny legs, to hurry up. I am appalled at the lack of civility and caring. How will children learn to be courteous and kind if they aren't treated that way?

I think I am wearing out the soapbox.

kat