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???
Okay, I can’t say I’m a rap connoisseur but I know what I like and here’s some tracks I found on some of my Spotify playlists. Some of these are NSFW lyrics so caution I guess:
Angel Haze, Dirty Gold; 070 Shake, Trust Nobody; Childish Gambino, II. No Exit; Will.i.am, Boys & Girls; Optimus Rhyme, Coded & United; PSY, DADDY; Das Racist, Middle of the Cake; The Cool Kids, Mikey Rocks; God Des and She, I’m a Bitch; Professor Elemental, I’m British; Soup or Villainz, Gamertag; Atmosphere, Vampires; and Nicki Minaj, Black Barbies.
EDIT: Probably should mention I listed this sufficient because I saw someone saying they’re trying to get into rap with all the big albums and that’s like
Nah
Rap has more variety than that.
@ Troubelle;
Hmmm… I got a bunch of Mammoth posts…. Did ya use the quotation marks? Actually, if David has a utility it will be much more efficient. Hope so, your stuff is realy good, IMO!
ETA: what Betaboy said!!
I meant “stuff” not “sufficient” but that’s what I get for trying to beat an editing window while on a device with autocorrect.
@Troubelle
I keep forgetting that you live in one of those nasty no-cat zones.
@Ikeke35
I hadn’t seen your Solaar link at first D:
That’s my childhood right there.
More stuff:
Flow like Poe, MC Lars; My Dub Flow, Soup or Villainz; Club Villain, My Favorite Martin; All in Together, Professor Elemental; MF Bawse, Raja Kumari; Gay Bash, Mélange Lavonne; Important, Mz 007; Blowin’ Swishers Pt. 2, Kid Ink.
A Kele Nta, MHD; Ja Da, God Des and She; Drunken Sailor, Captain Dan & The Survey Crew; Best Cock on the Block, Bitch and Animal; Geekquilibrium, Dr. Awkward; Werkin’ Girls, Angel Haze; Something Different, Katatrophe; I’m a Fucking Wizard, MC Chris; Anxiety, Optimus Rhyme.
My deep ignorance about music is a good prophylactic against any tendency to intellectual arrogance. I remember my teenage son trying to explain the difference between dubstep and drum ‘n’ bass – or even convey what either of them were.
I suspect VD’s petulance is an example of the rage of Caliban at not seeing his face in a mirror.
Music and speech–not just idle chatter:
A great multicultural dance mashup:
And since I’m now in the mood for bhangra:
This guy thinks rap is pro – “SJW”?! Has he even HEARD the way lots of rap songs refer to women? I’m not a fan of rap music, hell, I even hate a lot of it. Does that mean it’s not music?…….well, no, and since when did sad old racists get to define what is music and what isn’t? I could knock a few spoons together and add a bassline, it would still be music. Not good music, but music.
Award goes to me for the most uses of the word “music” in a paragraph, I guess.
@Robert
For what it’s worth, I’m only a decade older than your son, have spent all my life absolutely drowned in music, personally know quite a few dubstep and drum ‘n’ bass musicians, and I still don’t get it either.
Maybe we’re uncool.
Yeah, rap isn’t really an album thing anymore. It’s barely even a mixtape thing. Most of the actually good stuff is word to mouth, unsigned, street level, etc. Not saying that in order to be overly anti-mainstream or anything, but it’s the truth. The 90’s and 00’s rap scene is gone. The new scene is more diverse, more interesting, more dynamic, but also less visible and more difficult to get into without heavy guidance.
Caliban has right on his side, though, unlike Beale/Day! (I mean, in that in the play it really was his native land that got invaded. VD is just a sort of parasitical witterer who doesn’t want to recognise that other people also live in the same land he lives in, so he complains and rants and witters on and on and on … and he only wants to see his own face reflected and glorified in every mirror, of course!)
guest: awesome — that snow shoveling bhangra group is in Halifax i assume (based on the license plate)?
Arctic Ape’s video reminds me of the rapping kids I saw at the community show at New Years in Iqaluit. Angsty teens on stage in the high school rapping. Just normal life stuff. In a couple years they’ll have the skills to make a video like that.
They were followed up by a folk rock group that includes throat singing with their drums and guitars.
I bet VD would have run away screaming from all this non-music.
In other Beale related fails, his efforts to game the Hugos this year by reacting exactly as people hoped he would react to the new voting system means that the Rabid Puppies have failed to seize control of a single category this time, leaving broad selections in all categories, even if there is some Puppyfail spread about.
He’s seriously still at it!
HAHAHAHAHA
Ted Beale consistently reacts to failure by declaring victory. Since he never admits to losing, it is thus impossible to get him to give anything up. Every time the Rabid Puppies go crashing to defeat at the Hugos is another glorious triumph for the Dark Lord Gossage-Vardebedian.
Re Hugos–have to admit I’m pleased with the choices this year, and surprised that I’m actually familiar with almost all of them. I wonder if the puppy thing has had the positive unintended consequence of raising interest in sf in general and the Hugos in particular among people who have been marginal/fringe fans for years. I’m not sure what I think of seeing Chuck Tingle in the ‘fan’ category–I’m pleased that he got some recognition, given his yeoman service last year, but he’s got his own oeuvre.
Rap is indeed not music, because it’s actually a variant of lyrical poetry. It so obvious to anyone with common sense (Which is ironically uncommon).It’s only called called “rap” because the African Americans who “invented” it had no idea there was already a term for what they “invented” (apparently they lacked a classical education in literary theory)and the rest of the world apparently got fooled into playing along.
@Humbug:
Of course, the fact that you’re clearly wrong isn’t going to stop you from continuing to lie.
Oh, boy, he’s smarming this thread up now! Hey, Humbug:
About 75 percent of all women never reach orgasm from intercourse alone — that is without the extra help of sex toys, hands or tongue. And 10 to 15 percent never climax under any circumstances.
Fact: Women are more multi-orgasmic than men because they don’t have to go through as long a refractory period as men. And when they do orgasm they remain on a plateau stage, which means they stay aroused even after an orgasm. Once a woman experiences an orgasm, she is likely to be able to achieve another
@Humbug
Lyrical poetry, a format that originally relies on the spoken word only, to rap, that incorporates a musical beat, thereby satisfying the definition of a song. And if using pedantry can’t work why not use casual elitist racism and moral snootiness by implying rappers and rap as a medium could only be considered worthwhile through deception.
Bravo, bravo to the man who said he’d get the last laugh, only to post against 5 minutes later.
Oh, man, no one tell Humbug about talking blues.
Rock is also not music, since it’s really just song and other sounds mixed together. Singing is really just a form of speaking, so it had already been invented. Sound waves are a natural phenomenon and were NOT invented by “musicians”.
Would it make any difference if we did? That is some ironclad ignorance on display. Mere facts can’t pierce that sort of armor.
Huh, “music” eh? Does rap use musical sheets with notes? Had there ever been a rap orchestra with different sections and a conductor? Can you even play a rap “song” on any instrument known to man? Why, I have never seen nor heard of such things!
I can actually appreciate — and have actually appreciated — this specific art form upon occassion, but I do not delude myself that it is music, not by the traditional definition anyway. Indeed, the word “music” had been much too overused!