1. Of course not! 2. First of all, music is an art. Art is objective and subjective. 3. Different cultures have their own definitions what constitutes music. 4. Most cultures agree that music is organized sound. They also have elements of sound but don't all agree how many to have. 5. So is rap music? Yes, It has roots in African cultures, where the voice is used with few pitches, not really resembling melody, but more like speech in rhythm with accompaning percussion instruments. They were story tellers who used music as a means of communication. If you have heard about "talking drums", those were used to send messages from village to village. 6. So rap has history. 7. Rap is also a sub genre of hip hop, which has more melody than rap. Rap is speech music. 8. You say speech can't be music? Well, the Germans inventing the use of "speech music", called "sprechstimme" in opera in the 1920s. Berg used it in his opera "Wozzeck". It is related the form "recitative". 9. Does poetry need to rhyme? No, but rap rhyme usually does. 10. So does art have to be beautiful and nice? No, not necessarily. Why? It has different purposes.
Rap is a form of chanting by illiterates to listening illiterates. It is thumbed down nonsense which caters to drones incapable of thinking. It is part of a pop culture that has destroyed many minds. It has a propensity to use crude, foul and vulgar language. It is the natural devolution of a culture, country, and world. It reflects society as a whole.
First of all this is NOT even remotely accurate. You heard a few loud songs with crumb bums yelling nonsense and this is your opinion now.
There are many brilliant poets who rap. There is as many ways TO rap as there are ways to make poetry. So, sorry. I can see why you want to put your hands over your ears, but that gives rap a bad rap.
Not bad, but it took too long to get to the song. It would have been better if all that time-wasting waffle at the beginning was cut out. Now, let's have some proper music from the good ol' USA:
This post was edited by Bez at November 7, 2016 4:43 PM MST
It takes a bit of patience getting through the early bits that prepare the ground of understanding - but by the end I challenge anyone to deny that the best rap poets are good poets by any standard. I'm not of the same culture so I find the language tricky, and some of the ideas jolt me, but its good, very good.
Marguerite, the Beloved 