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???
@fossilfishy just add the word “deliberate” and maybe “pleasing” to that definition and problem solved. Obviously, speech is not organized the same way music is, and the important part is the intent of the musician to make, or identify, music.
Isn’t one of the theories for the development of language the ‘sing song theory’? i.e. that singing came first and words developed from that?
I’m bettin’ there is a larger community of literature critics who believe “science fiction is not literature” than of music critics who believe “rap music is not music”… so…
IN YOUR FACE, TEDDY!!
Midnight here, so I’ll be brief. Can’t add ‘pleasing’ because that falls into the pit of subjectivity. Though you could say the very definition of music is subjective, making this whole discussion moot.
‘Deliberate’ is more difficult. To me music is a human construct so there’s an unstated premise in my definition that covers the deliberate.
As to speech, how is its construction different from music?
Going to bed now, I’ll look in tomorrow. This is a subject that fascinates me and I love hearing what other people think about it. Hell, I’d be estatic if someone gave me a better definition.
…Perhaps this is an appropriate time for me to attempt rap lyrics once again.
What’s current with rap was once ragtime’s realm
That’s just what happens in a society with white men at the helm
What’s generated by the black’s clearly an attack
On what we hold so dear, collectin’ dust on the rack
It doesn’t make sense to a more conscious mind
But y’all are the ones so hastily inclined
To assume everything’s a crime against their way of life
And then initiate some strife
Yeah, it’s technically a means to an end
But a history of hits just ain’t about to bend
It’s gained a life of its own, a quite specific sort of tool
And trying to cast that aside casts you as a fool
Now don’t be trying to track our asses down
You’ll just find yourself rantin’ and ravin’, showin’ yourself as a clown
Except you’ve already done that! [oh snap] Just come out and say
That you’re terminally frightened of the world of today!
-mic drop-
…Did I do alright?
‘Rock music is not music produced by rocks.’ I’ll raise you ‘music with rocks in’ from Terry Pratchett’s ‘Soul Music.’ ‘There’s a boy works at the chip shop and I’d swear he’s Elvish…’ Lol.
Can I just be nagging ex-roadie and beg that if you ever are in a position to drop a mic for real, please don’t. It’s really really bad for them.
@Alan
Sorry. At the least, let’s assume I turned it off so I didn’t violate everyone’s eardrums.
@ troubelle
Professional microphones tend not to have on/off switches. One less thing for the musicians to mess around with and cause chaos.
@Alan
Crap! …Well, the intended audience deserves feedback, anyway.
Was the rap good, at least?
@Troubelle
From where I’m standing it’s good, yeah 🙂
@ troubelle
It was excellent. Surpasses even your previous superlative standard. And who better to endorse rap than a white Brit in his 40s?
Thanks, @Sinkable John and @Alan.
Heh. Wonder if I can get someone to scour the comments and round up all my songs.
@Nerag I’m sure people said the same about Stravinski’s orchestral works, or most any modern ‘classical’ (i.e. art) music. Same old, same old ‘you kids, get out of my music!’ *rolls eyes* or in this case, “You black kids get out of music completely!!!!AIRUI URR O OARAA!!!”
(The last bit was a keyboard mash. Makes about as much sense as Vox. :D)
FossilFishy:
“Pleasing” is subjective from the listener’s end, but isn’t it always the writer’s intention for the music to be pleasing?
“Organised sound and silence, intended to be aesthetically pleasing to the listener” sounds close… but doesn’t that include a TED talk, or a stand-up set?
I think I have no problem with poetry performance being music under this definition. When done well, a slam seems pretty musical to me.
@Troubelle
Aren’t you the best person for that job though ?
I mean you’d be the one to remember which threads prompted you to write something.
(Also, nope. I aint doin it.)
Nerag:
I remember people saying that Cage’s 4’33” was just no noise.
@Sinkable John
Buddy, I can barely remember why I stand up from a resting position. Was I going to check my phone? Get an Oreo? Go to the bathroom?
@Troubelle
That’s what cats are for. A good cat keeps you from standing up in the first place.
@Sinkable John
I’m in a dorm. I can’t have cats in here…
In Anar Sami, an indigenous language spoken by a few hundred people in northern Finland:
@ Troubelle;
Might ping David about that, there’s probably a utility to find all the posts by a given poster. Barring that,
Google: “Bard of the New Movement”
that’ll return a selection set of all the Mammoth blog posts you commented on
@Weird Eddie
Attempting to Google that produced nothing relevant to my posts…though the first result was about another anti-Trump bard.
Pinging David it is.
There’s a handy command that you can use: Enter on your search query “site:wehuntedthemammoth.com” without quotes, and Google will only search wehuntedthemammoth.com. I use it sometimes to find the origins of some of our epithets.
@Troubelle
Try googling: site:https://www.wehuntedthemammoth.com “Bard of the New Movement”
Ninjad… ^^;