Wednesday 9 July 2008

 

The latest culture as recommended by our staff

Liz Anderson

Liz suggests


Bad rap

Tuesday, 13th May 2008

After my last little reference to hip-hop, one regular commenter recommended a link to a clip on YouTube. It turned out to be Grandmaster Flash's "The Message" , which I remember enjoying when it first came out all those decades ago.
 
At the time, I was half-willing to believe it might open the door to a wave of creativity. But I've never been  particularly thrilled by any rap that I've stumbled across since then. Ta-Nehisi Coates' interesting essay on Bill Cosby, celebrity turned social campaigner, takes him to task for condemning rap, and argues that jazz suffered the same opprobrium a couple of generations ago. Well, there's an element of truth in that. Some critics, for instance, thought commercial swing induced sexual mania. (And they may have been right.) But as Ross Douthat points out, it was the milieu, the drugs and the booze that unsettled the puritans most of all.

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THX1138

May 13th, 2008 1:40pm

Clive- Rap is like any other music at it's best it's an exciting vibrant music with a message and quick off the mark politically.

George Bush never really recovered from Katrina & Kanye's brilliant reworking of his own hit gold digger did more than it's fair share to get the message home to the young

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=rTBM0nEhPQA

At it's worst it's just boring misogynist, bling ranting but I'm not sure its that's much worse than 70's rock. As Led Zep sang "I'll give you every inch of my love"

I just love the excitement of the the best of it the experiment with beats & rhyme just like the best African music just listen to this Kanye song where he so successfully samples French Techno master Daft Punk.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=3jzSh_MLNcY

Who would have thought that could work. Pure music production genius.

As Chuck D said "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back" and it still going strong.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ASjH7X-jAY4&feature=related

After all these years this is still one of the most exciting songs ever written.

Alf Tupper

May 13th, 2008 6:22pm

I always struggle when writing the word "rap".

Does it merit a capital "C"?

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