The Legacy of Rap "Music"
Other than promoting violence, misogyny, materialism, braggadocio, ostentatious displays of wealth, and promiscuous sexuality—basically everything that disadvantaged inner-city youth could do without—rap music is also destroying a generation of potentially talented black musicians. I have no empirical data to back this up, but I do have what I think is a logical argument. Here it goes:
Before rap became wildly popular, most African-Americans listened to, well, music. The African-Americans who created some of America's most popular music naturally had to master musical instruments in order to create it. Indeed, without the musical influence of African-Americans there would be no rock-n-roll, no blues, jazz, et cetera. Were it not for their influence, American music would be about as innovative and cool as French or Dutch music.
Before the early 1980’s, African-American kids would turn on the radio to listen to their favorite bands or artists and they invariably heard a medley of musical instruments working together to weave often-times complex songs. Inspired to emulate their musical idols, young blacks picked up musical instruments and, either by innate talent, music lessons or a mixture of the two, learned how to play musical instruments, thus creating some of the best music in any genre you can imagine.
It’s been known for a long time that there is a link between learning a musical instrument, listening to complex music, and increased intelligence. Unfortunately, because of the massive popularity of rap music—which mostly does not require musical instruments to create, and thus little musical talent—thousands of young African-Americans will never pick up a musical instrument or listen to any other type of music. I think that is a shame.
Before rap became wildly popular, most African-Americans listened to, well, music. The African-Americans who created some of America's most popular music naturally had to master musical instruments in order to create it. Indeed, without the musical influence of African-Americans there would be no rock-n-roll, no blues, jazz, et cetera. Were it not for their influence, American music would be about as innovative and cool as French or Dutch music.
Before the early 1980’s, African-American kids would turn on the radio to listen to their favorite bands or artists and they invariably heard a medley of musical instruments working together to weave often-times complex songs. Inspired to emulate their musical idols, young blacks picked up musical instruments and, either by innate talent, music lessons or a mixture of the two, learned how to play musical instruments, thus creating some of the best music in any genre you can imagine.
It’s been known for a long time that there is a link between learning a musical instrument, listening to complex music, and increased intelligence. Unfortunately, because of the massive popularity of rap music—which mostly does not require musical instruments to create, and thus little musical talent—thousands of young African-Americans will never pick up a musical instrument or listen to any other type of music. I think that is a shame.
posted by semite1973 at 9:54 AM
2 Comments:
Pretty much the same thing for black and white kids who want to be DJs rather than actual musicians. The cult of the DJ and MC as opposed to actual making of music.
Ryan
Yeah, I agree. It's one of the reason why I can't stand DJ's or MC's. I'm not sure I understand the desire of some women to want to sleep with even an ugly musician, but at least they have a talent, be it playing excellent guitar, bass, drums or sang. What I really don't understand are the female "DJ groupies" who wanna sleep with some twat just because he "spins." It doesn't make sense, but there are people out there like that. "oh, he played a song I like. I'm gonna fuck him."
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