Rempert
500+ Head-Fier
- Joined
- Nov 23, 2003
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Riordan, I want to reply to your points, but I hope I can do so without getting too political. That's just we don't need in this thread, eh?
This probably won't be very coherent either.
Starting with the Last Poets in the 70s, rap has had a few consistent themes: Afrocentrism, and black rebellion against the white system. These themes usually don't play well in America outside of the black community, for obvious reasons. But they had an underlying rebellious attitude to them that seems to be universal. It's often militant, it's in your face and profane (probably specifically because the system discourages profanity, it was put there), and so on. What rap has done is to keep (and exaggerate) the attitude and tune down the political, race-charged message, making it's appeal more universal. Unfortunately, a rebellious attitude without a cause is not very productive. But it does resonate well, especially with certain age groups, because there are always a lot of "rebels without a clue" (kids who just want to be cool) at age 10-20 and "rebels without a cause" (raging against the machine, while declaring independence from their parents) at age 15-30...
I'm about the same age as most of the today's rappers, give or take 10 years. In the song "Yellow Brick Road", Eminem talks about the debut of the X-Clan: "African symbols and medallions represent black power, and we ain't know what it meant". So some black kids give him a hard time at the mall, and he goes home and ponders "how racist, yet dope, the X-Clan's tape was." I guess I am almost Eminem's age, and I can relate to the cluelessness. During that same time period, Big Daddy Kane was doing the Afrocentric (essentially black supremacist, to be honest) "word to the mother(land)", but I didn't know that. What I knew was that Vanilla Ice was cool, and he said "Word to your mother," so that was cool too. But then the question is, did Vanilla Ice even know what it meant?
Public Enemy, same thing. Do you think there was any difference between Public Enemy and NWA to the kids who made them popular? It was all about fresh beats and rebellious attitude and saying words that drive your parents up the wall. NWA just seemed to take it a step further. Public Enemy told you the police were racist, NWA said... well, you know what they said.
Now if the music industry was driven forward by rabid 30-50 year olds who demanded fresh new music they can relate to, perhaps the evolution would go differently. But 30-50 year old already have an attachment to the music they listened to when they were young rebels, and generally don't see the need to spend their money on hot new stuff just because it is new. So, it's the young rebels who drive the industry. There is no point in blaming the industry, because the music they produce is a reflection of our demands.
Starting with the Last Poets in the 70s, rap has had a few consistent themes: Afrocentrism, and black rebellion against the white system. These themes usually don't play well in America outside of the black community, for obvious reasons. But they had an underlying rebellious attitude to them that seems to be universal. It's often militant, it's in your face and profane (probably specifically because the system discourages profanity, it was put there), and so on. What rap has done is to keep (and exaggerate) the attitude and tune down the political, race-charged message, making it's appeal more universal. Unfortunately, a rebellious attitude without a cause is not very productive. But it does resonate well, especially with certain age groups, because there are always a lot of "rebels without a clue" (kids who just want to be cool) at age 10-20 and "rebels without a cause" (raging against the machine, while declaring independence from their parents) at age 15-30...
I'm about the same age as most of the today's rappers, give or take 10 years. In the song "Yellow Brick Road", Eminem talks about the debut of the X-Clan: "African symbols and medallions represent black power, and we ain't know what it meant". So some black kids give him a hard time at the mall, and he goes home and ponders "how racist, yet dope, the X-Clan's tape was." I guess I am almost Eminem's age, and I can relate to the cluelessness. During that same time period, Big Daddy Kane was doing the Afrocentric (essentially black supremacist, to be honest) "word to the mother(land)", but I didn't know that. What I knew was that Vanilla Ice was cool, and he said "Word to your mother," so that was cool too. But then the question is, did Vanilla Ice even know what it meant?
Public Enemy, same thing. Do you think there was any difference between Public Enemy and NWA to the kids who made them popular? It was all about fresh beats and rebellious attitude and saying words that drive your parents up the wall. NWA just seemed to take it a step further. Public Enemy told you the police were racist, NWA said... well, you know what they said.
Now if the music industry was driven forward by rabid 30-50 year olds who demanded fresh new music they can relate to, perhaps the evolution would go differently. But 30-50 year old already have an attachment to the music they listened to when they were young rebels, and generally don't see the need to spend their money on hot new stuff just because it is new. So, it's the young rebels who drive the industry. There is no point in blaming the industry, because the music they produce is a reflection of our demands.
