RE: in defense of rap

[Daniel Wikler <diwikler...>]

As people interested in reviving, nurturing, developing, and extending a
very old ethnically-identified art form that our immigrant ancestors
brought with them from the old country (one that we treasure even though
our neighbors complain that it all sounds the same), it behooves us to
think about rap in temporal perspective. "Signifying," a rhyming,
mocking, challenging, boasting, and jousting verbal tradition, can be
traced back through the history of African-Americans (see with Roger
Abrahams' book of 40 years ago, Deep Down in the Jungle: Negro Narrative
Folklore from the Streets of Philadelphia) and beyond to the Yoruba and
other West African ancestral peoples of many African Americans. The
continuity over time is remarkable, though the level of invention must
be higher now than previously.  What's changed is that whites are
listening to it. 

 

Dan Wikler

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org
[mailto:owner-jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org] On Behalf Of MaxwellSt (at) 
aol(dot)com
Sent: Monday, March 22, 2004 12:54 PM
To: World music from a Jewish slant
Subject: Re: in defense of rap

 

In a message dated 3/22/2004 11:45:44 AM Central Standard Time,
mszeiger (at) hotmail(dot)com writes:

don't dismiss rap as a formidable musical idiom. 

Watching this discussion from the sidelines, I think that it is both
noble and amusing that Jewish musicians, most of whom are playing a
dying idiom that gets little or no airplay, are defending the form of
music that has come to dominate American culture.  I don't think that
rap really needs our defense, nor that its proponents and promoters are
even aware of what it is that we do.  That is not to say it is or isn't
art, but I am personally more interested in the art forms that no one is
even debating about as they vanish off the map of human culture.

Lori