Re: Jewisn rap?

[Alex J. Lubet <lubet001...>]

I tend to think that rap, like any other idiom, is capable of worthy and unworthy outpourings.  Like rock music, it's certainly outlasted its critics predictions of demise.  In the case of rock, I teach a course in its early history (a younger collegue picks up where I leave off) and many undergrads who have no nostalgic reason to embrace this music care for it deeply.  By my reckoning, it has stood a test of time.  By contrast, a lot of the contemporary classical music that dominated my training in the 70's hasn't. 

Rap has been around since the late 70's or early 80's.  That I'm not sure which indicates that it personally doesn't interest me all that much.  I can recognize that there is a craft there, at least in some cases, but there's no emotional connect for me.  That's also been true of most rock for a long time.  Nonetheless, I would submit that the test of time standard is being tested when several generations embrace a style for its inherent qualities rather than nostalgia.

I get concerned when folks deem what they like 'art' and what they don't 'not art,' as subs for their personal standards of 'good' and 'bad.'  Art is a noun, not an adjective.  Can't there be good and bad art?  Can't one acknowledge cultural work that 'works' for others but not for oneself?  If not, democratic pluralism is a wee bith troubled.  I apologize if that seems a little harsh, but I've been having this conversation at work for decades.  I'm coming around to the position that pop culture in general did better in the previous century than 'high' culture and that I need make no apologies for making my living (mostly) teaching it in a research university.



music (at) sterlingmp(dot)org wrote:

You might want to listen to the Israeli Rapper 'Subliminal'for an
example. Some of his songs (text wise) are disgusting; however, some
are very interesting both in message and music. I gave a whole series
of classes about Jewish and Israeli Rap music and yes some are good and
some are bad. The old question is naturally what makes it 'Jewish'? Is
the fact that the artist is Jewish enough to'Kasher' it? Is the fact
that the language used is Hebrew enough to 'Kasher' it? Without getting
into these questions since there are many opinions regarding this
matter, the fact is that Jewish Rap exists, alive and kicking. It is a
form of art and _expression_. 
    

Cantor Arik aptly raises the Is It Jewish? question (and, also perfectly
legitimately, declines to answer it), and he observes, absolutely inargu-
ably, that rap is a (contemporary) form of _expression_; it obviously is.
Arik begs the question, however, whether rap is, in fact, art -- under
which, I guess, I would subsume my disgruntled-baby-boomer question
of whether it counts as music.  Arik just states that it *is* --this is, appar-
ently, the "fact" that Arik thinks we should accept -- but is *all* _expression_, 
or self-_expression_, ipso facto a form of art?  All honking of a car horn?  
All screaming?  All graffiti?

Those examples don't prove that rap *isn't* art; but they suffice to estab-
lish that, just as obviously as that rap is, for better or (I think) for worse, 
a form of _expression_, so, equally obviously, that doesn't in and of itself 
make it art, or music.  And I, for one, am still not persuaded that it is.

-- Robert Cohen, unapologetic baby boomer, who, *if* I didn't assume, as I
most emphatically do, that Cantor Arik is of the highest character and
reputation, would assume that teaching "a whole series of classes" 
about rap was the community-service component of a (criminal) sentence

P.S.  Hey, think of this:  If rap *isn't* music but just verbal self-_expression_,
then, even by the frummiest standards, kol isha wouldn't apply to it!!  See
how much rests on this whiny question?

---------------------- jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org ---------------------+

-- 
Alex Lubet, Ph. D.
Morse Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor of Music and Jewish Studies
Adjunct Professor of American Studies
University of Minnesota
2106 4th St. S
Minneapolis, MN 55455
612 624-7840 612 624-8001 (fax)

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