Darwin > RappersFollow

See, it is the early stages of rap that make it musically important. Pioneers, such as Run DMC and later NWA, took forms of music, combined them, and created their own form of expression. It is moments like that which make music move forward, even if you don't particularly care for the genera.

I feel the way you do, sort of, more about pop music than rap. I believe what is going on "underground" pushes music forward, not necesserily pop. There are some exceptions, however, such as some people would consider the Beatles "pop" and they were important musically.

I see this type of statement from time to time, and as a fan of some, but certainly not all, rap music, I have to disagree. Consider the following definition:



Based on this I think we can agree that poetry is art. If not, the rest of my post is moot and you can stop reading now.


Assuming that we can agree, consider the following scenario. The numbered points are presented in chronological order.

1) A poet writes his poetry on paper and allows it to be read silently by others.
2) A poet writes his poetry on paper and recites it aloud to others.
3) A poet recites his poetry in a public place, and there is music playing in the background.
4) A poet recites his poetry in a public place and notices music playing in the background. He likes the way his poetry sounds set to music and decides to recite his poetry so that the syllables of the words coincide to the beat of the music.
5) A poet and a musician know that their individual works sound best when performed together and travel to public places together so that the poet can recite his poems on beat to the musician's music.
6) The musician from #5 cannot perform at a time when the poet would like. The musician gives the poet a CD recording of the music. The poet then recites his poetry in public in time to the recorded music
7) The poet and the musician notice that their art is getting a good reception, but they realize they can't perform everywhere at once. They decide to go into a studio and record their performance and sell the recording.

Now, assuming that we agree that poetry is art, it would follow that you agree that #1 above is also art.

You have already stated that rap music is not art. The following is the definition of 'rap' as given by the dictionary:



This is exactly #7 above. So, my question for you is this, at what point did the poet in the above scenario cease to be an artist? We know that at #1 he was an artist but by #7 he is no longer an artist. Where/how did this happen?

As a side question, is the musician still an artist even though he allows his work to be the backdrop for poetry? Is the resulting work still art at all?

It is perfectly understandable for you to not like rap music, but to claim it is not art is ridiculous.

There are a lot of rappers that I do not like at all but they are all poets. Rakim even delivers many of his raps in iambic pentameter.

Take the following verse by one of my favorite rappers, Common:




That is poetry.

None of this means you have to like their work or enjoy listening to it, but it is art.

In that scenario the Rapper is an artist but if you add in a step #8 then you get what is realy happening with most of rap music today.

8) The poet decides he doesn't have the mass appeal needed to become a great rapper so he hires some thug to rap his poetry. He then becomes the song writer and the thug is called the "Rapper."



If most rapper's would write their own music then It might be considered art, but as long as they are just reading the words that someone else wrote then they are not Artists. They are the tools a real artist uses to get his message across.

So, do you think there is no art to be found in the human voice?

Also, do you have statistics to back this up? How do you know that in "most of rap music," the lyrics are not written by the rapper? Not that I really think it matters, I'm just curious. The vocal delivery is art regardless if it was written by the vocalist or not, but I'm just wondering where you find your facts.

Ever been to a book reading?

Yeah but anyone who is even halfway literate can read a book and make it sound good. Once again the artist there is the author, the reader is just a tool.




It takes skill and dexterity in order to hit the keys at the right times in the right order. It takes almost no skill to read some words to music.

It does to put it across the way the writer intended. That's my point.

Only if you also hook me up with the millions of dollers worth of mixing and editing equipment that the mainstream rappers get to use in order to make themselves sound better then they realy do.

I don't have much of what would be considered "mainstream" rap but I do have Kanye West's latest album. He is one of the top selling musicians today. I have read the liner notes and K.West is credited on every track except the intro.

The following are also credited on the album using their real names:
Common credited as L.Lynn
Camron credited as C.Giles
Consequence credited as D.Mills
Nas credited as N.Jones
Lupe Fiasco is credited as W.Jaco
Paul Wall credited as P.Slayton


The only one that I can confirm is not credited by the real name is Jay-Z. Sean Carter does not appear in the credits for the song on which he is featured.

If you want to do some research on your own you can use this page and compare it to your liner notes.

I gave you examples of 8 rappers and 7 of them are credited using their real names.

You have still not provided any evidence to support your claim that most rappers do not write their own lyrics.

I am now assuming that you have no proof of your claim or you would have used it by now.

I believe that you just dont like rap music and don't want to consider that it can be 'art' if you don't like it. The claim you threw out about rappers not writing their own lyrics is completely unfounded.

So is Aretha Franklin not an artist because Otis Redding wrote "Respect"?

I have as much disdain as anyone for teeny-bopper pop stars that don't write their own music, but a good singer can infuse so much emotion and feeling with their voice that it becomes transcendent.