"rap and hip-hop"
- Thread starter nomos
- Start date
It's knowledge and overstanding
nomos
Administrator
I think we're all pretty much agreed on the basic rapping-is-an-activity-within-hip-hop notion but my original question was different. I'm talking about instances, usually in mainstream media, in which "rap and hip-hop" are used - apparently - to denote two different types of music, usually in a list of others. E.g. "Tune into WPOP FM to hear the latest pop, dance, r&b, rap and hip-hop." Or you might get something similar in the entertainment press - e.g. "Nelly Furtado's mix of folk rock, r&b, rap and hip-hop."
I'm wondering, in these cases, what differentiation does the author think s/he is making? And what two different sounds does a casual pop listener expect to hear based on that description?
I don't mean to flog a dead horse here. I'd just like to understand what that phrase connotes for people who would be unaware and uninterested in the nuanced relationship that those terms have for someone coming from some degree of immersion in hip-hop culture, but who use the two terms as separate things on the same level (i.e. 2 kinds of music, not an activity within a culture).
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noel emits
a wonderful wooden reason
To attempt an almost serious response I have heard 'rap' used by American's to describe, I infer from context, popular hip-hop and r&b. Big commercial stuff. Hence how Soulja Boy might be called 'rap'.
Before I dropped out of college, I had a class on hip hop history taught by that Canadian rapper Thrust who was on that Northern Touch track. He spent about 30 minutes on Southern shit, taking great precaution to tell us that it could only be considered "rap" and not "hip hop" because it was removed from the culture of hip hop and the "elements".
He really was like a broken record, it felt like getting taught about novelty blues and jazz records by my granddad. It was really sad. I can see why people like Jeezy get pissed off at that.
I remember having a conversation with him where he was trying to tell me how NYC golden-era hip hop was gonna come back and be popular again soon. I asked him "OK, what if it doesn't?", to which he replied "Well... I don't know... it will!"
He really was like a broken record, it felt like getting taught about novelty blues and jazz records by my granddad. It was really sad. I can see why people like Jeezy get pissed off at that.
I remember having a conversation with him where he was trying to tell me how NYC golden-era hip hop was gonna come back and be popular again soon. I asked him "OK, what if it doesn't?", to which he replied "Well... I don't know... it will!"
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Poisonous Dart
Lone Swordsman
Kinda...
It would be used in that context to be called "rap" and not "Hip Hop". I understand what Thrust meant but if there's no "artistic merit" in it then I would hesitate to consider it "Hip Hop" either.
One.
It would be used in that context to be called "rap" and not "Hip Hop". I understand what Thrust meant but if there's no "artistic merit" in it then I would hesitate to consider it "Hip Hop" either.
One.
Gavin
booty bass intellectual
Yeah, this is why "hip hop is dead" -- if people insist on making it this museum artifact, this HIGHLY SPECIFIC moment in time (and if you press people on the actual history, you see that they are being very selective -- upthread, graff being appropriated as an Element is a great example), then of course it's dead, it died a long time ago, and that's a GOOD thing because fuck retro acts. It's the gatekeepers like that "kill" hip hop because of their pedantic border-policing and deaf ear to innovation, not Southern rappers or whatever.
Else, you see hip hop as an innovative aesthetic movement that revolutionized music, visual art, youth culture, marketing, etc... whose reverberations are felt in a million ways in a million places, continuing today. To me this makes hip hop infinitely more interesting, more vital, more important, and more worth talking about, instead of turning it into some DEAD genre that isn't allowed to change and evolve and adapt at all. I listen to a good deal of international hip hop, and the shit that sucks that I get rid of immediately is all the derivative "4-elements" backpacker-type rap that's basically just ripping off vintage DJ Premier in another language. Like a lot of French and Russian hip hop, they totally want to copy everything about the Golden Era, right down to the fashion -- FUCKING BORING. The stuff that is actually interesting is when a hip hop approach hits a local scene and all the weird mutations that take place when the hip hop aesthetic meets local cultural production and local forms of sociality. NOT people holding the torch (with every immaculately copied detail) for a very particular scene that happened 25 years ago in a very particular place. I can understand people wanting to preserve the history of a particular part of music history that was incredibly important and vital, but JESUS CHRIST this gatekeeping crap does it in the most boring way imaginable.
so PD, when my mum and her hippie mates sat down to 'rap' some 30 odd years ago they where hip-hop? (this totally fits into my idea that Rolf Harris is the founding father of Aussie hip-hop btw)
As much as I enjoy your 'grand-old-man' of hip-hop stance, and totally respect the dedication to rigid narrowness, it just doesn't work.
grime mcs are mcs, not even sure what an "emcee" is tbh.
They are (or were at one point) masters of ceremonies in a real and literal sense, either ina rave or on radio, most of them seem to aspire to being 'rappers' now, but thats not fr here.
and does anyone who doesn't work ina trainer shop actually buy the whole 4/5 elements thing anymore? like, really?
its just such an offensive over simplification of actual events (and a pretty obvious marketing ploy). The relationships between these artforms is so much more intricate and interesting.
awesome way to pitch a doco to pbs tho, I'll admit.
As much as I enjoy your 'grand-old-man' of hip-hop stance, and totally respect the dedication to rigid narrowness, it just doesn't work.
grime mcs are mcs, not even sure what an "emcee" is tbh.
They are (or were at one point) masters of ceremonies in a real and literal sense, either ina rave or on radio, most of them seem to aspire to being 'rappers' now, but thats not fr here.
and does anyone who doesn't work ina trainer shop actually buy the whole 4/5 elements thing anymore? like, really?
its just such an offensive over simplification of actual events (and a pretty obvious marketing ploy). The relationships between these artforms is so much more intricate and interesting.
awesome way to pitch a doco to pbs tho, I'll admit.
crackerjack
Well-known member
Since when was genre defined by artistic merit? Hip hop is fantastic, shit and all points in between. What it most definitely is not, is the exclusive preserve of the self-appointed initiated who get to decide who does or doesn't come in.
crackerjack
Well-known member
LOL. Sad, but all too believable (and I rather like Thrust - Lights Camera Action was dope).
No it doesn't work at all. You can't say that quality decides what rapping or MCing is. According to what aesthetic are these judgements made? Who gets to set the criteria? This is really subjective and makes absolutely no sense. It's also not at all useful in the context of the original question.
I'm glad to see that you said exactly what I thought you would about Soulja Boy, though, because it at least means that I understand what you're trying to do. It's just wrong, as far as I can see.
Calling artists like him a "rapper" or his music "rap" as opposed tp "hip-hop" by way of an insult is actually pretty problematic. For a start, they're actually not very good rappers at all! If you think about it sensibly, neither Soulja Boy, Hurricane Chris, D4L, Mike Jones etc blah blah blah, nor Jeezy should righfully fall under that category. What you don't like about them is that they can't rap, so why use the word "rapper" as a derisory category? It doesn't add up.
Using "rap" as a lower-league subdivision of MC-based US black music and "hip-hop" as a term of canonisation and approval is far too complicated for the vast majority of people to grasp, even if the criteria of what places an artist in either category could be agreed upon somehow — which they never will . It's way too personal to work in any realistic way and, if you analyse what you're saying, you'll also have to concede that those people who do know a lot about hip-hop culture and possess a fairly nuanced understanding of it will also find plenty of fault in it.
Let's not get caught up in what is or isn't rap or hip-hop according to purist dogma or personalised value judgements. It's polarising, agenda-driven and not very helpful. Rappers are people who rap, an MC is the same damned thing, hip-hop is hip-hop, some of which some people will like, some of which others won't. Simple.
The truth is that all the people you call "rappers" do rap (regardless how well or badly), also they are absolutely hip-hop. There's no real doubt about that. They're just hip-hop that people like you happen not to like.
Also Dart. your definition of the MC contradicts itself, and quite seriously, too. How can the term MC be used for all that which is good and wholesome and real in US hip-hop and then be used to mean anyone who picks up a mic in grime, baile funk, most reggaeton etc? How can "rap" be used as a perjorative as regards "real hip-hop", but be a protected, almost nationalistic term that can never apply to non-US oral music traditions.
This is confusing and doesn't make sense. Better just to say that rapping and MCing are pretty much interchangeable terms in most cases and that there are differing schools of thought as to the validity of individual artists who rap/MC, otherwise you get yourself and everyone else into a huge, obfuscatory mess.
***** A side issue here, thanks to whoever said dancehall deejays also rap: no, they don't really. That's why I didn't include them in my list of genres. They toast. It's very different to rapping in all sorts of ways. MCing in patois = toasting.
Toasting is the term used within reggae. As far as I am concerned, it should also be used by anyone discussing dancehall or reggae deejaying. As Jamaican music inspired hip-hop and, along with all manner of other African/African American oral traditions, is right at hip-hop's roots, deejaying shouldn't be filed under "weird Jamaican rapping". It's pretty careless, but in its widest sense this can also be seen as a culturally imperialist, revisionist position, making Jamaica submissive to North American culture, denying reggae's/Jamaica's influence on hip-hop/North America.
Reggae and hip-hop are family, but reggae's innovations came before hip-hop (and disco and the rave continuum, for that matter). In music, where Jamaica goes first, the rest of the world usually follows. Without Jamaican music, hip-hop would not exist in anything like the same way. Bearing this in mind, it's important to recognise and refer to Jamaican music's conventions in the correct way, otherwise you run the risk of privileging hip-hop over musical styles and paradigm shifts in form that have existed for longer and been exteremely influential on hip-hop's own development.
***** This also throws up the question of what grime mcs do. I wasn't thorough enough in my explanation. Grime MCing in most instances can be described as rapping, but not always. Grime's oral culture (also its sonics, but that's not so relevant here) is fundamentally a mish mash of British rave MCing, dancehall and hip-hop, therefore it crosses the boundaries of toasting and rapping in a way that nothing else really does. For example *most* grime MCs rap (e.g. Durrty Goodz) others toast (e.g. Flowdan most of the time), some do a bit of both (e.g. Riko) . In this instance MC is a better term than rapper, because it encompasses more. My preference for this term is not about genre ownership or anything else, though, which I think Dart's is, it's purely functional.
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i dont *mind* saying grime mcs emcee rather than rap just cos they describe themselves as emcees really, not rappers, although you cant really say what theyre doing ISNT rapping either, but then what are we meant to use to describe what baile funk artists do, or baltimore club artists? do they not rap either?
Slothrop
Tight but Polite
What's really fun is when (usually on a forum that's less enlightened than this one) you get an argument between someone who thinks that rap sucks, and it's all just misogynistic chest beating with no artistic merit and someone who tries to enlighten them by explaining that yes, rap is all misogynistic chest beating with no artistic merit, but hip hop which is true to the five elements is exciting and innovative and interesting and great.
Poisonous Dart
Lone Swordsman
Yeah, but...
I understand what you're saying, Stelfox. The thing is I was/am an emcee. I would even be considered pretty nice by "Hip Hop standards" (using the Hip Hop aesthetic) therefore my definition would work. I can't listen to a Grime emcee and say "He sucks" because I'm judging him from a different viewpoint/cultural aesthetic altogether. I can't compare Riko, Flowdan, JME, Skepta, J2K or Earz to Vakill, Elzhi, Jay Electronica, Torae or Joell Ortiz because that wouldn't be fair given that the rules and aesthetics of each discipline/artform is completely different.
I CAN say that Joell Ortiz is clearly "better" than a Hurricane Chris, Flo Rida, Rick Ross, Mike Jones, Soulja Boy, Mike Jones, Paul Wall, etc. Look at when Redman spit on the radio show last year and Paul Wall was in the studio and he flat out refused to spit after Redman tore it down. Why? Because that's not Paul's chamber.
Too Short is a great rapper. He's not a great emcee. He can't freestyle and doesn't care to and he doesn't spit multis, never uses punchlines or metaphor or similes. That doesn't cahnge the fact that a crew of the greatest lyricists on the planet, the Hieroglyphics Crew cite him as a major influence. To them, he can NEVER "suck" regardless of his shortcomings as an emcee. However, to them the cats in D4L are GARBAGE.
Do you think that cats like Pittsburgh Slim and Mickey Avalon consider themselves "emcees" or "rappers"? Uffie and Amanda Blank clearly know that they stay on one side of the fence and not to tread onto the other side.
It goes like this:
emcee (someone who clearly has superior skill and command who makes quality material)>rapper (makes it seem like anyone could just do it i.e. Soulja Boy)
Does it all make sense? No. Do I understand why is that way? Yes.
One.
I understand what you're saying, Stelfox. The thing is I was/am an emcee. I would even be considered pretty nice by "Hip Hop standards" (using the Hip Hop aesthetic) therefore my definition would work. I can't listen to a Grime emcee and say "He sucks" because I'm judging him from a different viewpoint/cultural aesthetic altogether. I can't compare Riko, Flowdan, JME, Skepta, J2K or Earz to Vakill, Elzhi, Jay Electronica, Torae or Joell Ortiz because that wouldn't be fair given that the rules and aesthetics of each discipline/artform is completely different.
I CAN say that Joell Ortiz is clearly "better" than a Hurricane Chris, Flo Rida, Rick Ross, Mike Jones, Soulja Boy, Mike Jones, Paul Wall, etc. Look at when Redman spit on the radio show last year and Paul Wall was in the studio and he flat out refused to spit after Redman tore it down. Why? Because that's not Paul's chamber.
Too Short is a great rapper. He's not a great emcee. He can't freestyle and doesn't care to and he doesn't spit multis, never uses punchlines or metaphor or similes. That doesn't cahnge the fact that a crew of the greatest lyricists on the planet, the Hieroglyphics Crew cite him as a major influence. To them, he can NEVER "suck" regardless of his shortcomings as an emcee. However, to them the cats in D4L are GARBAGE.
Do you think that cats like Pittsburgh Slim and Mickey Avalon consider themselves "emcees" or "rappers"? Uffie and Amanda Blank clearly know that they stay on one side of the fence and not to tread onto the other side.
It goes like this:
emcee (someone who clearly has superior skill and command who makes quality material)>rapper (makes it seem like anyone could just do it i.e. Soulja Boy)
Does it all make sense? No. Do I understand why is that way? Yes.
One.
we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one. it's good that i know exactly where you're coming from and that i think you can see my points, too, though. the use of "superiority" as a factor in these evaluations is the problem for me, because it's very, very personal.
i mean, artists like Bun B, Devin or T.I. stand head and shoulders above Rick Ross, Jeezy, Flo Rida etc, but to start to call them something different is more or less pointless. what does it really mean?
would you agree that, according to your criteria, Bun, Devin, T.I. are MCs? i don't know, i can't tell...
according to mine, though, you'd have to agree they're better MCs/rappers than the other guys i mentioned.
i mean, artists like Bun B, Devin or T.I. stand head and shoulders above Rick Ross, Jeezy, Flo Rida etc, but to start to call them something different is more or less pointless. what does it really mean?
would you agree that, according to your criteria, Bun, Devin, T.I. are MCs? i don't know, i can't tell...
according to mine, though, you'd have to agree they're better MCs/rappers than the other guys i mentioned.
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Poisonous Dart
Lone Swordsman
Yes I would.
Bun B, Devin The Dude and T.I. are all HEAD AND SHOULDERS above those other cats and I would consider them as "emcees" as opposed to just "rappers".
Is it all purely subjective? Yes. Is it sort of pointless to divide them all up? Not in my opinion. It's like a podiatrist or dentist versus surgeons and specialists. I just wish so much prejudice and regional/era bias didn't factor into people's debates so much.
One.
Bun B, Devin The Dude and T.I. are all HEAD AND SHOULDERS above those other cats and I would consider them as "emcees" as opposed to just "rappers".
Is it all purely subjective? Yes. Is it sort of pointless to divide them all up? Not in my opinion. It's like a podiatrist or dentist versus surgeons and specialists. I just wish so much prejudice and regional/era bias didn't factor into people's debates so much.
One.
Poisonous Dart
Lone Swordsman
I agree.
I totally agree with you^...but I do think that Hendrix was slightly better than Clapton. Clapton was in AWE of Hendrix. Hendrix ADMIRED Clapton...although I don't think Jimmy really got awed by anyone, he just got inspired.
One.
I totally agree with you^...but I do think that Hendrix was slightly better than Clapton. Clapton was in AWE of Hendrix. Hendrix ADMIRED Clapton...although I don't think Jimmy really got awed by anyone, he just got inspired.
One.
crackerjack
Well-known member
Remind me how many southerners or non-Americans made your top 50 MCs list.
