Re: cRAP, Jewish or Otherwise - My Many Opinions!

[Rabbi Alana Suskin <alanamscat...>]

I've been amusedly following the opinions of those who
dislike rap, and are busy confusing their personal
tastes with what art is. I will only note two things:
there are certainly people of "not-so-humble opinions"
who have called classical music names not much less
unflattering than those called here upon rap - an
opinion I happen to agree with, only because it all
sounds like syrup and/or bombast to me, but I don't
pretend that my personal taste has anything to do with
art; second, the opinions offered sound like a very
bad case of old-fogey-itis; it's the exact same sort
of comments that people made about the music these
folks were listening to and loving when they grew up.
Rap and Hip Hop (in particular Hip hop) are art -
they're just not art that you like. Not all of it is
good art - like any other art form, there are people
who are artists, and people who are hangers-on, and
people who couldn't produce anything good if their
lives depended upon it. BUt I suggest that people hang
up their music-was-better-when-I-was-young hats and go
read some articles about rap and hip hop, and then go
and listen the the actual music, rather than accuse
from a distance music which they've probably never
spent any great amount of time listening to and
understanding. Hip hop comes from a very different
culture than the music you like. It has diffferent
purposes than the music you play, and it developed for
different reasons. The hand signals aren't rap, and
the musical instruments used are different than the
ones you're accustomed to because people who don't
have access to expensive musical instruments, do have
access to other kinds of things, that can then serve
as musical instruments- which is, by the way, the way
musical instruments are invented, also - it's just
that the ones being used happen to also embed
technology in a way we're unused to -because it's a
modern phenomenon.

Alana Suskin
--- Farfl's House <farfl (at) idirect(dot)ca> wrote:
> In my sometimes-not-so-humble opinion, "rap Artist"
> and "rap Music" are 
> oxymorons.  I prefer to side with the late bassist
> John Entwhistle who 
> was of the opinion that rap was for those that
> couldn't sing.  I'm also 
> of the opinion
> that drum machines are for demo tapes and should be
> used as a practicing 
> tool only.  They have no place in recorded music
> being released to the 
> public.
> Anyone can learn to program a drum machine and a
> sequencer with a 
> minimum of instruction.  Anyone can buy Adidas gear
> and learn all of the 
> correct and approved  hand gestures from  their
> local 24-hour video 
> channel.   This stagnant cliche "form of expression"
> devolved out of a 
> rather interesting past time that took place in
> basements in 
> economically-depressed areas.  Kids were using
> turntables to play short 
> *snippets* of records to form sound loops.
> Malcolm MacLaren had a hand in exposing it to the
> public,  hoping to 
> make a profit from it.  Unfortunately, he paved the
> way for such things 
> as "Puffed Wheat Daddy" or whatever his name is
> speaking about Godzilla 
> over Led Zeppelin's "Kashmir".  
> -Steven
> 

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