Rap Music

Subject: RAP Music. Ignore it?
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 13 Nov 02 - 04:56 PM

Mudcat has just closed a thread posted by a Black rapper requesting lyrics about a song that already has developed many folk variations, "Fifty N-----."
I agree that rap is beyond our scope, and understand deletion of the thread. On the other hand, we are rejecting a large part of new Black composed and folk music. Anyone who has read anything about ebonics knows that there is another language out there and that it is affecting the English we speak.
Yoyotlg apologized for submitting his request to this Forum ("My bad"); but is it "our bad" for cutting him off without an explanation?
I think some discussion is needed here.

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: alanabit
Date: 13 Nov 02 - 05:17 PM

For some of us, chanting (often violent,sexist and indeed racist) doggerel over drum machines is not really a serious attempt at making music - thus rendering the expression "rap music" a contradiction in terms. I personally loath it, although it may be defensible as a form of folk "music" on the basis that it now has a tradition stretching back some fifteen years. Fot me it's a very good reason to turn off a radio.
Now I am going to put my head down and duck for cover - because I know there is something unfragrant and messy coming my way!

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: Lepus Rex
Date: 13 Nov 02 - 05:25 PM

I didn't see the thread... What was the reason for its deletion?

---Lepus Rex

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: Mark Clark
Date: 13 Nov 02 - 07:21 PM

Beyond scope? Please point me to the Mudcat statement of scope so I can satisfy myself that no other posts are beyond scope.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 13 Nov 02 - 07:27 PM

Check out Rick Fileding's thread about Rap/Folk. Some very interesting stuff.

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Nov 02 - 09:48 PM

C-rap is not music, it is noise pollution of the worst kind. The culture around it is negative, and indeed racist, sexist, and violent.
The sooner all rappers are on the endangered species list the better.
I believe it will happen given the present rate of murders in the rap culture.

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Nov 02 - 10:22 PM

Rap music grew out of other traditions, both in the USA and more especially in the West Indies, with roots backmin Africa.

The music industry has cynically decided to concentrate largely on the nastiest varieties, and encourage and reward then, while effectively freezing out and starving out people who have tried to use the form in different ways, closer to the spirit of the traditional roots.

Don't blame the rappers, blame the money-machine that will try to corupt anything it gets hold of. Thank God that folk-music is out of fashion these days.

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Nov 02 - 10:24 PM

Rap music grew out of other traditions, both in the USA and more especially in the West Indies, with roots back in Africa.

The music industry has cynically decided to concentrate largely on the nastiest varieties, and encourage and reward them, while effectively freezing out and starving out people who have tried to use the form in different ways, closer to the spirit of the traditional roots.

Don't blame the rappers, blame the money-machine that will try to corrupt anything it gets hold of. Thank God that folk-music is out of fashion these days.

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Nov 02 - 11:28 PM

Rap is not music and has no roots except in USA black punks

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: Mark Clark
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 12:06 AM

I've heard a very nice hip-hop version of “Talking Union” that sure sounded like rap except it was “Talking Union”. I can't remember right now who did it.

Don't you think that to trash rap because some of it is offensive is similar to trashing magazines because some of them are offensive?

Thirty-five or so years ago, we used to delight in singing songs that pissed of the straights. Did we think the day would never come when we became the problem the new young radicals would sing about?

Just one point of view.

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 06:11 AM

Rap is not music and has no roots except in USA black punks

What a profound knowledge of folklore that GUEST clearly has...

This site deserves study Toasts & Other Roots of Rap

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: Mooh
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 09:30 AM

I have often tried to find something enjoyable in rap music but have failed every time. Many young people visit my home as friends of my children or as students of my music instruction business. Once in a while someone expresses an appreciation of rap but always say they prefer other things and that much rap is not to their tastes.

I agree that rap may have roots which run deep in a culture unfamiliar to me, and I wish as such it was better known. However, all the rap I've heard has either been trite pretenders or modern goons with little or no apparent knowledge of rap's history, and an inclination to capitalize on the themes of violence, vanity, and noise. In that respect I do blame the rappers.

Even if I could put aside my dislike of monotonous droning chant, I fail to see virtue in the message, the image, or the ethic. Educate me.

Whatever happened to peace, love, and understanding?

Mooh.

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: GUEST,Fred Miller
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 09:57 AM

Many people who like rap don't like the rap people describe when they say why they hate it. Some I like--usually the crowded, rough, multi-voiced stuff, gets something like that Wattersons sound, and some of the stuff that uses collaged samples of moody jazz. De la soul? I think, had a good record. Some Diggable Planets stuff. But I get tired of it, don't like enough to really follow it. It's certainly folk music, but as a question of filing it, most people would just say rap, hip hop, wouldn't look for it under Folk, so I don't see much reason to worry over it as a sensitivity or inclusion question. Most record stores Rap sections are triple the Folk.

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: Grab
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 10:19 AM

Really depends on your POV.

If you say "all rap is like what I hear on the radio", does that also mean that "all folk is what I hear on the radio"? So folk music is defined by Westlife and the Corrs? Hell, I hope not!

How much of what's on the radio from other genres is manufactured rubbish? Why should rap be any different?

Re the violence and sexism, blues has a long line of that, and folk music is replete with murder ballads and sexist, racist songs of every description. "Know thyself" indeed.

Incidentally, I've tried to see something good in Atomic Kitten, Will Young, Gareth Gates, Liberty X, HearSay...

Graham.

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: GUEST,Tim
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 10:19 AM

In my opinion, rap is misogynistic, racist, violence-inciting, amusical crap that probably reflects a misogynistic, racist, violence-prone culture. While there are high-profile performers attaining commercial success, there are many more in small venues or garages, or starving on street corners. Sounds like folk to me. Butt ugly folk, but folk.

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: Ron Olesko
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 10:37 AM

I remember the late Steve Allen did a bit where he would stand at a podium and read lyrics to pop songs of the day. He read them as if they were important works of art - poetry. I laughed along as he showed how ridiculous disco music was.   However, I remember him reading a Dylan song to an audience that was in stitches with his delivery of what sounded like childish drivel.   

What I took away from that is how important delivery can be. You can either elevate or mock a song.

To ridicule rap as monotonous, droning, racist, trite, non-music, etc. completely misses the point.   You don't have to "get it", and you are certainly entitled to listen to something else.   I cannot tolerate Gilbert & Sullivan. I would rather sit through root canal instead of The Mikado. However I do appreciate that the work G&S created has appeal to people and can be considered art.    Rap is the same thing. Obviously it speaks to a HUGE audience. Granted quantity does not mean quality, but it obviously shows that there are people who "get it".

As for the subject matter, I give them credit even if I don't agree with their politics. The FACT that these lyrics are speaking out on issues is something that can't be said for a lot of naval-gazing singer-songwriters and pop music artists.

You don't have to agree with something to repect it.

Ron

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 10:53 AM

Jeez, Steve I certainly can't remember doing anything on rap in a thread, but then again I can't remember what I had for breakfast today, and that was only three hours ago. Whatever it was, I've probably changed my views since then.....assuming that I've been paying attention for the last three years or so. The day my opinions become static (or my politics, for that matter) is the day they become completely irrelevant to me.

As far as rap goes, I'd gather that were I young, black, and pissed off, I'd probably embrace it wholeheartedly. The more it annoyed mainstream society, the more I'd probably get into it. I certainly remember Loving Phil Ochs, who REALLY annoyed the mainstream of 1966, ha ha!

Cheers

Rick

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: GUEST,Fred Miller
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 11:11 AM

I don't know about all the sexist, racist, misogynist thing. One aspect of rap is that it's often funny, and comic songs are hard to write, apparently--I can't think of many really funny popular songs, they get coy and clever without being very funny. A lot of comedy reacts against p.c. codified notions, and some of it is actually funny, to me. I've never heard a rap song as straightforwardly misogynist as Rocks Salt and Nails, or as butt-ugly as Run For Your Life, and it's a tough task to be bloodier than Trad Folk--might as well try to out-porn the ancient Greeks. Rap is a very young idiom, born in a hard place, and suffering from being hyper-commercialised. I'd rather keep an open mind.

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: Steve in Idaho
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 11:27 AM

Rap is not a young tradition. Listen to Seas Chanties. I also knew of at least two combat Marines that released two albums in 1968 of rap music about their experiences during the war.

Steve

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: kendall
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 11:43 AM

Rap is to music what Etch-a-sketch is to art.

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: GUEST,Guest A
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 11:47 AM

Calling myself "A" because I started this thread, and other guests are contributing.
Rap is the music of the inner city Blacks. As noted ib some threads, the music industry is capitalizing and spreading commercial versions around the world. Now no major city in the north America is without a rap radio station.
Do I like it? No. But I also realize that it is the music of millions and much larger than folk, country and the other branches of music we talk about here.
Unfortunately, we are only one half of what remains two solitudes, the white and the black (borrowing from the title of a book by a Canadian author talking about the separation between the French and English in Canada). We get almost no Black input here at Mudcat.

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: Jeri
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 12:38 PM

I saw the thread in question. The person asking for the lyrics never said what race s/he was or that s/he was a rapper. It doesn't matter. S/He just asked for the lyrics. We don't know that stuff unless the poster volunteers the information and half the time they're lying anyway. It really can't matter. If language is racist, it's racist regardless of who says it. To judge something OK or not based on the race of who's saying it is...racist.

Also, in this case, the thread had to have been deleted because ...because why? It's not the language. We've had worse. It's not because the person was asking for a modern song. That happens all the time. My guess is it was perceived to be a troll even after the person had apologised. But I guess we need parents to make sure we don't keep it going.

Guest A, I don't even think we're one half of one 'solitude.' We're a very small part of that solitude and we've separated traditional music from tradition. Or if you like, we've taken the music of the people away from the people - heaven knows they can't be trusted with it! (Deliberately not useing the "f" word.)

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: Mark Clark
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 01:30 PM

I found the reference to the rap version of “Talking Union”. It's by John McCutcheon and Corey Harris and is included in an album of Pete Seeger's songs by other people.

The song link is to ArtistDirect and lists the tracks on the album. You can click the appropriate speaker icon to hear a short RealAudio clip from the track. Check it out!

      - Mark

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: GUEST,The Etch-a-sketch kid
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 01:33 PM

"Rap is to music what Etch-a-sketch is to art." How dare anyone ridicule Etch-a-sketch this fine prewindows device has taught me all I know about art ha ha..

Wasnt there a type of rap around in the sixties or seventies....British (scouse) Comedian and actor(probably best known these days for appearing in "Red Dwarf") Craig Charles used to do a very enjoyable line in rapping....that was nice to hear and very often excellent poetry...Does anybody recall that style of rapping, it was so much more pleasing to my ear at least than what passes for rap today??????...

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: GUEST,J
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 01:38 PM

I'm a guest who hasn't posted previously to this thread. I too saw the thread in question, and agree with Jeri's recollection of it. I didn't realize it was deleted, don't understand why it was deleted, and don't think it should have been, as it was completely innocuous.

We see strong language used in folk songs discussed here all the time. Many people love to sing murder ballads, rape ballads, and about all sorts of things every bit as violent and misogynist as anything rap has in it.

And not all rap fits the violent, misogynist label either. Give a listen to Last Poets sometime.

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: GUEST,Les in Manchester
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 01:54 PM

It either does something to you or it doesn't.

Some music is simple and effective and some is complex and ineffective.

As Martin Carthy said on that TV programme about him "It's simple it comes out of someone's mouth and it goes into someone elses ear.

Some of the abuse above says more about the people who write it than it does about Rap.

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 01:58 PM

"misogynistic, racist, violence-inciting, amusical crap"

Not like folk music at all is it then?? Which is mostly about cheating on wives, murdering husbands and children, drinking and fighting in wars they never understand, and knocking up barmaids...

Get off your collective high horses...

You ever stop to think that perhap you are NOT the target audience (and I'm sure the rappers are very happy about that)

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: harvey andrews
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 02:09 PM

It's just that I'm happy to be sung too but very soon wound up when I'm shouted at.

Some years ago when rap was just starting I was trying to buy some shoes for my son who has size 11 feet. Now not only was it difficult to find the size, we had to find a pair he liked. By the sixth shop I was a taut bowstring ready to snap and when the shop's speakers started yelling at me backed by a drum beat of two hundred to the minute I could take it no longer and found myself standing on a a chair beating the speaker with my hat and yelling "Shut up you moron..SHUT UP!!"

A crowd of people gathered to watch through the shop window.
I read an article on Mathers the other day and the lyric they quoted for my admiration had him rhyming "Math" with "Half". Now that's just plain lazy and not Cole Porter.

My feeling is that both black music as represented by Rap and the culture it comes from is a blind alley and I hope for the good of everybody that that young culture reverses out of there and finds a good road for a better journey.

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: GUEST,The Etch-a-sketch kid
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 02:10 PM

Thanx for the pointer Guest J to the "Lost poets" now thats quality rap music...the sort of stuff I remembered hearing before todays modern commercial abomination ....

The lost poets (you can listen to some wav samples here)

You can listen to dozens of good old classical English sound poems and acoustic music of many types at

acoustic musicians and poets sound archive

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: GUEST,Guest A
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 02:18 PM

Put "Fifty Niggas" in Google, and 87 results come up. A French site prints a selection of Black rap from Dr. Dre. Dr Dre lyrics .
The content may stretch one's mind in directions it doesn't want to go, but the language of the street is expressive if not always understandable.

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: Ron Olesko
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 02:20 PM

Harvey,

Anger management classes!!! Imagine music being so subversive that you had to take it out on a speaker! Talk about inspiration music!!!!

From your reaction to Rap music, I guess you went through what every parent has gone through - not understanding and getting pissed off by the music of their children's generation.

Ron

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 02:27 PM

"found myself standing on a a chair beating the speaker with my hat and yelling"

Try decaf, or therapy...

"that young culture reverses out of there and finds a good road for a better journey."

Thank you Mr High-and-mighty... should we all cut our hair like you do too? wear the same clothes? speak the same language??

What did that other white guy sing?

"Don't criticize what you don't understand"

Leave rap, and hip-hop, and ebonics etc. to the people who's culture it is... And I'll bet you don't even WANNA hear what they think of us and our 'music' (And I use the term loosely)

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: M.Ted
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 03:18 PM

Clinton, you've hit the nail on the head--

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: RangerSteve
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 03:36 PM

When I listen to rap, it's by accident, but there have been at least two pleasant accidentsof rap over the years. "The Gucci Man", which I believe was done by Doug E Doug is a genuine piece of art, and shows what a good rapper can do. Another was called "Butter Beans", I don't know the artist, I heard it on a store PA system. It's all about southern cooking and had some pretty clever lyrics. So I'm willing to say that rap can be enjoyable, it's just that the stuff we usually hear is just shouting with rhythm.

And I've seen some darned fine Etch-a-Sketch work. Like rap, anyone can do it, but only a few can do it well.

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: harvey andrews
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 04:06 PM

Well,got some people angry there! Seems anger and rap are indivisible.

I understand some people think an unmade bed is art.

I just think culture built around drugs, guns, violence and woman hating is a blind alley for the young men and women trapped in it. And if it's high and mighty to think there's a better way and a better culture out there for those kids..then so be it.But then, once a teacher always a teacher I suppose.

In the shop incident by the way I was criticising the shop for pouring out youth oriented dance music at the wrong time in the wrong place. In a social experiment in the North of England they tried a novel way to clear anti-social youths out of a shopping mall. They played classical music. Apparantly it worked like a charm and the kids left. Delius's music got them out quickest. But then I suppose they too were expressing criticism of what they didn't understand.

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: fat B****rd
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 04:12 PM

Outstanding, Clinton, outstanding. I don't pretend to have the slightest notion of what it's like being brought up and living in South Bronx, Watts, Compton or wherever but I love Rap Rhythms. On the subject of the attitude to women sometimes heard, I would point out that most of the highly thought of black blues artists were hardly shining examples of respect to the ladies.

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 04:21 PM

"drugs, guns, violence and woman hating"

Sounds very 'folk music' to me!

You just described 98% of the music that gets called "celtic"... OR blues as FB above pointed out...

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: death by whisky
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 04:23 PM

I entertain people with songs about drnkeness,adultery,treachery,mob-violence,war,shooting,even beheading.Is the content of rap any different?.What about all the metal/grunge/thrash type music.Not exactly diddle-de-de.But thats what the young people listen to.My parents werent too keen on Rush/Horslips/ACDC/Sex Pistols/Undertones etc etc.Now I sing what Mum wanted in the first place...mmmmmmmmm

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: harvey andrews
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 04:23 PM

"You don't have to agree with something to respect it"

"It's almost impossible to respect what you don't agree with."

Discuss.

(Don't argue, don't shout!)

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 04:29 PM

I read an article on Mathers the other day and the lyric they quoted for my admiration had him rhyming "Math" with "Half".

That looks weird in print, but maybe it might not be so weird when spoken aloud. Math does rhyme with Half in some accents, with "Th" becoming "F", and a short "a" in Half, so that it would be Maff and Haff. Of course, whether the guy in question uses that kind of pronunciation I don't know. I've never got into listening to rap much myself.

One of the types of music in which rap is rooted, and which has developed alongside it (in a much more interesting and less commercially degraded way) is Dub, coming from Jamaica (and with roots in American music - this kind of pl;process goes round in circles). Here is a site with some interesting sound files; and here is a site with an essay about this type of music, and a massive bibliography and some good links.

As has been said, if you judged folk music by some of the stuff that gets the most media coverage, you'd be badly misjudging it.

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 04:34 PM

"You don't have to agree with something to respect it"

Well, there's a good few people round the Mudcat whom I respect while disagreeing with things they say.

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: GUEST,Fred Miller
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 04:35 PM

I don't know if I'll look up that rap version of Talking Union that Mark provided links to, but Corey Harris is friggin' great. Apparently he's branching into rap, because I've only heard him do more blues and traditional sounding stuff. I think similarities of rap to some European folk are one of those coincidental things, like how Persian kilims look like Navaho designs--my sister followed African performance art up into early rap, and claims that the slang "cool" goes back to a eighteenth century Frenchman's description of the attitudes of Yoruba dancers.

I still don't think it's a big deal if the post was deleted, or wasn't. It's just a filing thing, basically. I doubt many people here know much rap, and there are many better places to get Rap info, I'm sure.

   But I still remember the Christmas my mom picked up my gift to her, and shook it saying I wonder what this could be? Mom, it was The Last Supper on an etch-a-sketch.

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: Ron Olesko
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 04:53 PM

Harvey - you wrote
"It's almost impossible to respect what you don't agree with"

Well I don't agree with your statement, but I still respect you.

Your statement (which you put in quotes but I don't think anyone on this thread said that) is really what is wrong with the world. Of course there are disagreements, but when the respect for the other sides view disappears we end up with chaos and war.

Ron

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: harvey andrews
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 05:04 PM

Ron, I see your point, but the more I think of it the more I know I don't respect foxhunters, Maggie Thatcher, the Royal family,George Bush, Osama Bin laden, The IRA..should I go on?
But I do know I disagree with all of them.

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 05:22 PM

Respect is an odd word. If I disagree with an idea strongly, I don't actually respect it, I despise it - but that doesn't mean I might not respect the person who holds it, or respect their right to hold it.
It's partly a matter of how strongly I disagree with the idea. There are Tories I respect (not Maggie Thatcher), and I'd respect their right to hold their views; but I feel a bit different about Nazis, or woman-haters.

When it comes to aesthetics, there's plenty of music I can't stand, and books I can't read but I'm willing to admit that the failing is very possibly in my inability to understand and appreciate them. And the same goes for lots of other things where I disagree, but aren't that confident that I'm wholly right.

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: Ron Olesko
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 05:36 PM

Respect is mutual. If a person cannot respect the rights of others, then they do not deserve respect.

In the discussion of rappers, if they COMMIT the acts that they sing about - or actually support it, then I would not respect them either. However my point is that with music I respect the artists right to create art.

Ron

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 05:42 PM

Damn! This is getting good, and I have to go and teach. Bugger. By the time I get back, everybody'll be agreeing and respecting and yada yada.

I think sometimes we use the word "respect" when we really mean "like". If someone here (Mudcat) absolutely disagrees with my view on....say.....abortion, or attacking Iraq, or whether religion should have ANY part in Govt. or whether I might feel that the President of the U.S. is all but illiterate....I can't see how they could POSSIBLY respect me, simply because if I had my way, many of their dearest beliefs would be diminished, and vice versa. Now, we may have met (or chatted ) and get along famously in a number of areas like music, sports, or whatever. And maybe they like the idea that I'm not rude, and am always willing to LISTEN to another point of view (if they've invested in the subject) but bottom line...can you RESPECT someone who disagrees with many of your core values? I'm simply not sure. I've SAID I respect someone whom I REALLY disagree with, but maybe I simply LIKE them.

Just thinking out loud.

Rap on folks

Rick

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: WFDU - Ron Olesko
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 07:04 PM

Sure you can Rick. Perhaps it is just semantics. I feel that you are just confusing "respect" and "like".   To me, respect is understanding how the person is building their opinion or idea , understanding their environment, how they are treating others, and as the saying goes "walking a mile in their shoes".   You don't have to agree with what they are trying to do or say, but if you can understand where they are coming from - that is respect. Like or dislike has nothing to do wit hit, it is simply acknowledging their right to form their opinion based on values.

Ron

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: harvey andrews
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 07:27 PM

Sorry Ron, I'm trying like hell to understand your point but I'm with Rick. I understand how Hitler, Thatcher, Bush, Bin Laden etc build their opinions and ideas, I understand their environment, but I ain't walking an inch in their shoes. Sometimes you have to judge and find guilty and the guilty don't get my respect. Neither does the local racist, bigot, etc.Respect, I was brought up to understand, is a thing that has to be earned.There are musicians whose music does little for me but they have my respect as being damned good at doing what doesn't turn me on, but coming back to rap, I can't respect someone who does something I actively believe is harmful,dumbed down, and exploitative, as a lot of it is.(Not all.)

Subject: RE: Rap Music
From: Bert
Date: 14 Nov 02 - 07:37 PM

...Rap music grew out of other traditions, both in the USA and more especially in the West Indies, with roots backmin Africa....

and

...Wasnt there a type of rap around in the sixties or seventies....

The earliest that I recall was around 1948, The Billy Cotton Band Show.

Down in the Jungle
Living in a tent
Better than a prefab
- No Rent!

Does anyone have earlier examples?