Is Rap really Music??

[Erik Rupp]

So this debate comes up every so often, and my position on it has remained the same for the last 20 years or more.

Rap is not music.

Well, sort of.

Rap/Hip Hop does not involve the artists in question playing any musical instruments. It does not involve singing melodies. It does involve outright theft (sampling beats, guitar riffs, bass lines, etc), but not the writing of original music on musical instruments. (There are exceptions - yes, I know that - but those exceptions are a tiny minority.)

When you have real musicians you can have instrumentals - songs without singing. In Rap/Hip Hop that is flat out impossible because, for the most part, Rap artists are not musicians and do not play musical instruments.

Rap is, essentially, street poetry to a beat - which is fine as a form of entertainment, but not as, "Music."

Agree? Disagree?

[sdfootballfan]

I have to respectfully disagree. Any sound you make for any amount of time is "music" weither it was sampled, played via instruments, or with your hands. Using a sample might be outright theft but there are still sounds being played so you have to consider it music weither you like it or not.

[aztec619]

Sorry it took a while to get in on this discussion Erik. Just kept forgetting to check out your website (pretty cool by the way).

I think someone on aztecmesa on that Brian Carlwell rap song thread mentioned to you about The Roots. They are a band that play their own instuments and are now on the Jimmy Fallon late night talk show as his every night band. This song I'm gonna post up "The next movement" is an older track that really got me into their music.



As you can see they are all playing some type of instrument. Note, I'm not a musician so I don't know the correct names of the instuments.

I don't claim to be a hip hop historian (I believe there are 4 elements to hip hop). I love the music (mostly old skool stuff though) and enjoy the beats, rhythm, and of course lyrics. I do agree with you that a lot of artists sample beats/sounds from other artists and remix it to their own. I see it as it is "borrowing" the music for the next generation to hear. For example, I never did hear of Blondie's "Rapture" until KRS-1 sampled it and made another track titled "Rapture". By him bringing back the melody of Blondie's rapture, it made me learn about her music and appreciate it that much more (which I do). And if you listen to her "Rapture" she is even rapping in it too.

Here is Blondie "Rapture"



Here is KRS-1's "Rapture"



This has been done plenty of times by many artists (2pac, Biggie, Method man, etc). When reading the breakdown of each song on their albums, I look to see what tracks they have sampled and try to listen and learn about the artists/songs. I have heard songs on 96.5 fm that when I heard them I said to myself, "Hey I've heard that tune or melody before". Then it would make me ask who that artist was and learn about them.

Sorry for the long reply. I'll let you get your thoughts in on this and reply back again. Great topic though! ;D

[Erik Rupp]

I guess for me the inability for 99% of the Rap artists to play any musical instruments has always made it hard for me to take the genre seriously.

I mean, they can't do this...



Or this...



Or this...




If you can't play an instrumental because you can't play musical instruments then you aren't much of a, "Musician."

That's just how I see it.

[wellll]

Well just because certain rappers can't play an instrument doesn't mean they aren't a musical artist or that rap isn't music. Music is a way of creative expression. Rappers are expressing their selves creatively, just like any other artist would. Music means different things to different people. Music essentially is a channel in which people express their emotion verbally. Music is a language in its self where people express their unique emotions. Everyone speaks a different musical language because not everyone shares the same emotion, and not every genre of music talks about the same problems and triumphs, so of course not everyone will enjoy the same music. Not only does rap have the same structural and technical build, as described in the definition of music, it also most importantly holds the essence of music inside of it, which is creative expression. :)

[Erik Rupp]

Nov 6, 2011 14:16:34 GMT -5 @wellll said:

Well just because certain rappers can't play an instrument doesn't mean they aren't a musical artist or that rap isn't music. Music is a way of creative expression. Rappers are expressing their selves creatively, just like any other artist would. Music means different things to different people. Music essentially is a channel in which people express their emotion verbally. Music is a language in its self where people express their unique emotions. Everyone speaks a different musical language because not everyone shares the same emotion, and not every genre of music talks about the same problems and triumphs, so of course not everyone will enjoy the same music. Not only does rap have the same structural and technical build, as described in the definition of music, it also most importantly holds the essence of music inside of it, which is creative expression. :)

Well, by your definition painting is music because it is creative expression.

Music is about NOTES. Musical notes. The value of those notes is reduced to ridiculously low levels in Rap. The lyrics are not sung (in musical notes) they are instead spoken. The music (probably 98% of the time) is just sampled from real musicians' recorded work, and even then just a small sample is taken and repeated over and over again simplifying it from the original to the point where it is almost non-musical.

Music is more than creative expression. It is about musical notes, and the patterns created with those notes. Rap is not about that. It is about attitude, beat, and feeling.

Rap may have a value all it's own, but that value is not strictly musical.