In A Very Brady Sequel, the second film in the irony drenched 90s reboot of the Brady Bunch, Marcia Brady asks a guy she’s on a date with what kind of music he likes. He tells her he’s “really into hip hop.”
Like all of the Bradys, Marcia’s cultural references begin and end in the early 70s, so she has no idea what he’s talking about.
“Hip hop?” she replies, incredulous. “Sounds like something a rabbit listens to.”
Marcia Brady isn’t the only one confused by hip-hop. In a blog post yesterday, everybody’s favorite racist fantasy author, Theodore “Vox Day” Beale offers a strikingly similar, er, critique of rap music, which begins by taking issue with the name of the genre.
“The fact is that rap is not, technically speaking, music at all,” Beale announces.
To call it music is akin to describing “scatting” or “falsetto” or “rhythm” or “electric guitar” as music. It is, rather, a non-melodic vocal styling; it is an element of music, or if you prefer, a musical tool, rather than a form of music in itself.
And while that vocal styling can be utilized in a broad variety of music, from metal to ambient, it is not music in itself.
Yes, Mr. Excessively Literal Minded, rapping is, technically, a vocal technique. “Rap music” is one of the names that’s used for a particular genre of music in which rapping is the central element, not just a term used to describe a capella raps. Sometimes “rap music” is called “rap,” for short, but the people who call it that aren’t referring just to the rapping.
I mean, this is all completely fucking obvious to everyone in the world, including Beale himself, but he’s choosing to be deliberately obtuse here. Obviously, the names of music genres can’t always be taken literally. Latin music is not sung in Latin. Rock music is not music produced by rocks.
Beale continues to dig his little hole:
“[R]ap music” was never anything more than a proto-SJW seize-and-ruin operation and an exercise in branding.
Er, what? What’s a “seize-and-ruin operation?” What do SJWs have to do with anything?
That’s why it hasn’t gone anywhere. It can’t go anywhere because there is no actual vehicle to do so.
What does this even mean?
[A]s a musical form in itself, [rap] simply does not exist.
I’m not sure how exactly to rebut someone whose head is this far up his own ass. So instead let me present this Freestyle Rap-Off from Mr. Show, which also features a bald white dude who doesn’t really understand rap. Or does he???
Also, “funk” means “a strong and unpleasant smell”, so how can there be “funk music”? Music doesn’t smell!
Music must be a frustrating subject for a racist, since PoC played such a huge part in the development of popular music in the 20th century and beyond. Unless you stick to polka, I suppose.
Vox lives in a special personal bubble universe. The mistake he has made is confusing a stupid opinion he has with any actual objective reality beyond the bubble. I suspect he simply turns off any rap that should come on to preserve his bubble. He probably thinks that food he hates isn’t really food or that if he doesn’t like a person then she is objectively a bad person. To really see things from another view point probably gives him trouble.
Maybe he still eats nothing but sweeties, alphabetti-spagetti on white bread and turkey twizzlers because other foods are yucky hes sure; he tried them once. No complex nuanced flavours for our lad, those things are just foreign muck that will never be popular bacause he says so and your taste buds are wroooooong.
Pretty much every country has their own rap music. I think its pretty important to be honest.
https://youtu.be/o9RDYUtLANM
https://youtu.be/WGoR1rsblxo
Also it’s good way to learn a language. Not that i did learn danish in the end. Turns out it is harder than english.?
@Viscaria
Its funny that ted associates all rap music with ‘social justice’, cos I’m fairly certain that a certain proportion of it is notoriously about the subjugation of women and shooting people which isn’t a traditional SJW goal. Maybe he’s annoyed because he feels that the hard working white man invented misogyny and senseless violence, and he doesn’t like seeing this sort of cultural appropriation?
I’m going to be the first to admit that I listen to very little rap music. What I know about the genre comes from people more interested in it than me, such as my older brother (whose non-stop listening to it while we were growing up might have contributed to me simply having grown tired of it). Recently, I’ve been actively trying to fix the holes in my cultural knowledge by listening to influential rap albums and “getting into it” as the kids of today would say (no, they wouldn’t. Insert “how do you do, fellow kids” Steve Buscemi here).
I have been known to express some disdain towards rap and hip hop on a few occasions, although most of my criticism has been aimed at what I perceived as “middle-class white guys rapping about the hardships of life and society”. Also rap songs about going to the club and hitting on women have never appealed to me; In my eyes, rap has always been an explicitly political genre, but I suppose that’s my ignorance and privilege talking. Not all rap can just be about overthrowing the racist, patriarchal, capitalist system and fighting the law which exists mainly to uphold it. Although everything sure should be about that. That, and occasionally kittens. Kittens and puppies. Damn, now I want to hear Snoop Dogg rap about puppies.
I also have a knee-jerk anger reaction towards sampling for some reason. Not cover versions (that are explicitly cover versions), just taking a sample of a melody composed by someone else and using it as a central piece in your own song. It’s probably an elitist thing, I don’t know, I can’t really explain it.
So, I’m definitely a cranky ol’ guy with a lot of baggage in this aspect. However, even in my judgemental eyes, rap has always been a music genre. That fact has not been under scrutiny.
Beale here seems to be using the tried-and-tested cultural racism approach, attempting to mask his disdain for anything relating to black people with snobbish cultural elitism and pretentious wordplay*. He’s pretending that it’s the “culture” part in “black culture” that he finds unappealing, when in reality it’s the other part.
*Oh god, never let me read any actual prose by Beale. My heart won’t be able to take it.
Whenever someone says “rap is not music” or “I hate all rap”, you can safely assume they’re a racist asshat.
This reminds me of Louis Armstrong’s 1933 visit to Sweden, which left racist music critics bewildered and angry. Here are some, erm, highlights from the major publications at the time.
Armstrong’s Gothenburg show was absolutely hated by journalist Gösta Nystroem, writing for a local paper:
Armstrong’s Stockholm concert was covered by Aftonbladet’s Gösta Rybrant, under the headline “N***** Delight at Auditorium”.
Knut Bäck wrote, for a Gothenburg based paper:
Sten Broman, who was relatively positive in his coverage as compared to most other critics, still felt the need to write:
When Armstrong returned to Sweden in 1959, the times had changed and his shows were widely celebrated.
All of these journalists are now dead and forgotten. 🙂
TB has been roleplaying VD for so long, he doesn’t know how to stop. Every paragraph, he makes sure you realize he thinks he’s smarter than you. Using sesquipedalian words whenever possible, pulling in alt-right jargon every chance he gets… this is standard VD stuff.
Random references to SJWs? Of course! Why not. I’ve often come to realize that people using SJW as against other people are much better ignored than engaged. As with trying to teach a pig to sing, it’s frequently worthless to try and change a mind that embedded in its own worldview. The more trollish of them, and I include VD in this because of recent and previous publishing antics, enjoy the argument because they know, whatever happens, they can just declare victory and move on.
I’ve tried reading VD’s prose, but after the fifth right-leaning jargon word in the first paragraph, I gave it up as a waste of time.
Even J-Pop has embraced rap. Example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1oxh8Z-2ko
IP, I’d forgotten that people wrote that way about Louis Armstrong. Louis Armstrong, who gave us some of the greatest music ever! You’re right: those journalists are forgotten, whereas people will still marvel at Satchmo’s performances a hundred years from now.
@IP
Not quite forgotten, as you’re demonstrating. But somehow I doubt they’d have wanted to be remembered for being regressive assholes consigned to the dumpster of history reserved for things we find especially embarassing.
It’ll be even harder to be forgotten these days, when your children’s children’s children will be able to search the internet for “racist asshat” combined with their family name and go “ooh, there’s great-grampa”.
@Pie:
O SNAP
Those hiplet dancers have more genuine talent in their little toes than an army of Vox Days would in the resounding caverns they would call their brains.
I mean, wow, I’m watching them and that is badass.
Also the fact that they’re based in Chicago gives me a warm fuzzy, as I’m from Northern Illinois originally and I know the city pretty darn well. <3
@Moggie:
Well, since making it from Europe to the Americas, polka now has developed a long and flourishing tradition in Mexico, so…
@Anarchonist:
If you’re interested in explicitly political hip hop/rap, may I recommend The Coup?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQthFDpYCys
And to add just one example of the many, many ways hip hop has influenced and created other music genres, there’s Black Violin, which blends classical violin with hip hop influences (and occasionally gets political as well):
You’d think a man of Mr Vox’s literary prowess would understand the use of synecdoche.
@ kootiepatra
I went out with a ballet dancer and her feet looked like she’d been caught cheating in a mafia run casino.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEddixS-UoU&w=560&h=315%5D
I can’t imagine why he might be intimidated
This guy’s got other things to do than pay attention to what Pox Bay thinks :
“Oh, so you like opera and Medieval plainsong? Well, I’ve got news for you, jackass. Those aren’t “music”. Those are “singing“. LOL REKT”
*Stomps off into the distance in a one-man “victory march”, as onlookers shake their heads in a mixture of pity and bewilderment*
More like synecDOUCHE amirite
After “it’s alway projection !”, I think it’s time to add “it’s alway technicalities !” to the list of recurring problems of any text vomited by the far right.
I vaguely remember reading in a book about the history and development of the English language, that rap originated in African-American poetry competitions held in public places. It then developed into a musical style. I think the book was called ‘The Prodigal Tongue’.
I’m not a fan of rap myself, I was put off by the misogyny of many popular artists as a teenager and have never really been into music in general. However, if people have any suggestions, I’m willing to give the genre a try.
Ugh. Beale likes to pretend to intellectualism and fails hard. The question “What is music?” is sub-101 stuff. It takes little time or mental effort to realise that the definition has to be pretty damn broad to encompass everything humans have called music over the years and across cultures.
The definition that works best for me is: organised sound and silence^. So yeah, rap, even a Capella, *is* music.
^The best argument against this that I’ve heard is that it doesn’t distinguish between music and plain speech. Personally, I’m willing to lump everyday speech in with music. There’s a beauty to that notion that appeals, YMMV.
There was a great band in the 40s called Spike Jones and the City Slickers. They were years ahead of their time. One of their gigs opened with a portentous voice over “Ever since the dawn of time man has striven to create music…”. Then the lights went on and there were two guys dressed as cavemen banging rocks together. The preamble continued throughout the history of music with guys dressed appropriately and playing period instruments. Then the voice announced “Until man reached the pinnacle of musical evolution…Spike Jones and the City Slickers!”
The lights went on again to reveal the band, banging rocks together.
What was an especially brilliant touch is that they weren’t quite as good at it as the cavemen.
Neurite: holy shit that black violin piece — I’m enthralled.
For me rap music is a mixed opinion. I like sythnpop and new wave, but my then my dad has a Cypress Hill album on his computer, plus GTA: San Andreas exposed me to rap music from a radio station I only listen to now