Hating the Game

Oh.

I didn't know.


LOL

Sorry, man, couldn't help it. I'm 58. I don't have any music that came out after 1982.

Some of it is, some of it isn't....it all depends on taste! But if samples aren't your thing, the Roots are a hip-hop band; they play their own instruments (bass, guitar, drums, keyboards, etc) and do original music to go along with their rhymes. It is actually quite good. But maybe Thriller was the last album you bought...if so, even that was a good choice!

First is that blaming music or entertainment for what's wrong with culture is putting the cart before the horse. Not that they don't or can't influence culture one way or the other, but to my mind they are moreso methods of cultural expression; i.e. hip-hop is a means by which a particular element of a culture has found to voice itself. If I were to try a medical analogy, music is a symptom, culture is the actual medical condition.

Which brings me to my second point, which is that if music is more a reflection of culture than anything else, I find your discourse on the evolution of hip-hop to be interesting. Perhaps early on it was more a 'black thing' and reflected largely the experience of a segment of black society. While I don't know much about it personally, it doesn't sound like it was any better or worse content-wise than any other pop music from how you describe it.

What I find interesting is how you describe what happened to it once the major labels got involved and the principal consumers become non-black, i.e. the content level in many cases went down the toilet. To continue with the music as a reflection of society theme, perhaps this (the 'bad' content introduced by major labels) is a reflection of how some folks (i.e. assumedly white music executives, non-blacks who first picked up hip-hop after its fall from grace) saw or wanted to see (marketing strategy?) blacks.

Although I'd be curious if there were different patterns of consumption, i.e. do blacks and non-blacks buy different hip-hops? I would expect to find that the 'newer' groups with the potty mouths to be relatively more popular among non-blacks, while the more traditional groups (can we call hip-hop traditional) would be more popular among blacks.

In vinyl, no less.

And yeah, it's a great album.

the Furious Five, LL Cool J, Doug E. Fresh and the Get Fresh Crew, the Juice Crew, and Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Pince ruled the airwaves..."

Don't forget the Fat Boys!

BTW, as I type, Pip and Pop, the otters, are rapping on Bear in the Big Blue House.

Among us hip-hop heads from way back, the stuff that is out now isn't even what we consider hip-hop. Hip-hop has originiality, good lyrical flow, and content that is not straight from the gutter. The newer stuff is all the same...same beats, same content, same lyrical flow. You have some rappers whose every song sounds the same...they have no imagination at all!

And don't get me wrong, it is not just white kids buyong the stuff out there today...plenty of young blacks eat it up as well. It's just that it is being marketed and promoted simply as a corporate product and the record companies have chosen to target the white kids as they presumably have more disposable income. make no mistake, this watered down rap music is just the way that the big companies think they an make money. But us older heads still find out who the hip-hop artists are and manage to support them.

Cynewulf, don't get me started! I remember Chubb Rock, Craig G, T-LaRock, The Skinny Boys, Dana Dane....the list could go on forever! That was when one of the local college radio stations had on a show called "The Full Moon Block Party" with DJ Texas Pete on Friday and Saturday nights in my area. When a new album dropped, he would play the whole thing so that his listeners could dub it to a cassette tape...those were the days!!

Brian, I love the old Mike Jackson too...before he started looking like a deformed white lady! I also have a fondness for Stevie Wonder, the Temptations, the Gap Band, and ZAPP among others. Now that's music, my friend!

Poor ole Mike just really weirded out. Too bad; he made some great music.

BTW

I have a new essay going up on the Island later today.

Controversial topic guaranteed to generate much interesting conversation.

How's that for modesty?

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sounds like one cool hombre!

Well, there are two things about music that are pretty constant. I don't want my parents to like my music and I want to be considered hip.

Hip Hop gave me one of those because, frankly much of it is not music, it is percussion (note this is not an insult, simply a definition. A song without chord changes and notes is a poem or a drum solo, not a song.) And most people who grew up on Simon And Garfunkle or the Beetles don't get it. Now, how do I really offend the fogeys and make myself hip? I have to say naughty things. Anyone remember "Lets spend the night together" or "White Rabbit"? Black Sabbath anyone?

BTW, I have put up a new post in my blog at long last with an explanation of where I have gone. We will see if I can muster the enthusiasm to post again later.