The Rap Culture
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BerettaNut92
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I like rap, but the rap culture IMO is filled with idiots. Gun culture has its own charlatans as well....:banghead:
What's wrong with 'checkit'? I say it all the time
Keep it real,
Skunk-Funk
What's wrong with 'checkit'? I say it all the time
Keep it real,
Skunk-Funk
Cocky Italians with ducktails, and zoned out hippies who comtemplated the reality of daisies, are a far cry from a culture that seems to generate gunfights on streetcorners, and breeds teenagers who don't give a crap that their errant bullet just killed a 3 year old kid next door. It's hard for this disco generation/new wave oldster to understand. I don't want to understand it - I just hope it goes away SOON. And to stay on topic- YES I do think it is a real danger to our rights as law abiding gun owners.
Mike Irwin
Member
Music is a reflection of its time and its audience.
It doesn't create the audience, it only is an expression of the audience.
The Gangsta Rap we're hearing on the radio (if you bother to tune it in) is only a reflection of the drugs and high crime rates in those cultures.
It's not the music that's the problem.
It's the crime that's the problem.
It doesn't create the audience, it only is an expression of the audience.
The Gangsta Rap we're hearing on the radio (if you bother to tune it in) is only a reflection of the drugs and high crime rates in those cultures.
It's not the music that's the problem.
It's the crime that's the problem.
natedog
Member
As a freshmen at a highschool located in an almost all white, upper middle class neighnborhood, I know of this first hand. It's ridiculous, seeing my peers going around with their pants on their knees, with a giant chain, a hat to the side, and big watches and saying stuff like, "Fo sho". "Sheeit" "Fo real". I ask them why they talk like that and act like that and I get, " Don't hate the playa hate the game" or "Yo dogs we gotta playa hata ova here". But then they ask me why I listen to 80's punk rock and metal...
Gray Peterson
Member
We got the latter already. As for the harmless activities, with video games, you have these charlatans like David Grossman running around saying video games turn kids into killer. BS! I was playing CounterStrike at 17 years old. It didn't turn me into a murderer, and neither did UT.
Charlatans like Grossman ignore the real cause of school mass murder: forcible school compulsion and mass group bullying.
TheOtherOne
Member
art mimicking life
Don Gwinn
Moderator Emeritus
1. No, just because a kid says he's "keepin' it real" does not mean he'll never change or grow up. You've never heard of a "sellout" before? Kids need to be part of a small, elite crowd that's in the know. They need to believe they know something the rest of us don't. Thus they have to condemn anybody who grows up and moves on. When I was a kid, I had a shaved head, an earring, dressed all in black and combat boots, wore the beaded necklaces, and a few times even did really smart stuff like paint my fingernails black. (The time we met our new, extremely hot blonde student teacher and the first thing she noticed was my black fingernails cured me of that one. )
My little sister dressed about the same way. When I went off to college, I slowly devolved toward low maintenance. Long hair, beard, t-shirts and sweaters, jeans, boots. No jewelry. I started to look more like a farmer or a fisherman than a punk. I was still listening to the same music and reading and writing the same poetry (though I had acquired some new tastes to go along with it) but by my sophomore year my little sister was calling me a sellout. She was still dressing like a punk, but she was never too interested in the music or the poetry.
Nowadays she dresses roughly like most people her age. Getting married, getting a job, and growing up took their toll.
2. This stuff about music and youth culture goes back a lot farther than Elvis. Why was Socrates forced to drink hemlock, again?
And does anyone remember what "decent folk" thought of Beethoven when he was still alive and making music? How about Stravinsky?
3. Yes, there is a big difference between Tupac and Bob Dylan. There's also a big difference between Will Smith and Jim Morrison (the guy who was thrown out of Whiskey A Go-Go for screaming "KILL THE FATHER! **** THE MOTHER!" as he sang "The End," a song that is at least in part about murdering your parents, not to mention Riding the Snake.
4. When Iron Maiden was in the process of recording Number of the Beast, they were involved in a traffic accident one day. They hit a van, but luckily no one was hurt. To their surprise, the van turned out to be full of a priest and a bunch of nuns, who proceeded to kneel in the roadway and pray for the souls of the band. When all that was straightened out and the vehicle had been repaired (coincidentally about the time the song "Number of the Beast" was being finished up) the bill came to 666 pounds.
The band's manager flatly refused to pay until the bill had been changed to 667.
That has little to do with this topic, but it's a great story.
) My little sister dressed about the same way. When I went off to college, I slowly devolved toward low maintenance. Long hair, beard, t-shirts and sweaters, jeans, boots. No jewelry. I started to look more like a farmer or a fisherman than a punk. I was still listening to the same music and reading and writing the same poetry (though I had acquired some new tastes to go along with it) but by my sophomore year my little sister was calling me a sellout. She was still dressing like a punk, but she was never too interested in the music or the poetry.
Nowadays she dresses roughly like most people her age. Getting married, getting a job, and growing up took their toll.
2. This stuff about music and youth culture goes back a lot farther than Elvis. Why was Socrates forced to drink hemlock, again?
And does anyone remember what "decent folk" thought of Beethoven when he was still alive and making music? How about Stravinsky?
3. Yes, there is a big difference between Tupac and Bob Dylan. There's also a big difference between Will Smith and Jim Morrison (the guy who was thrown out of Whiskey A Go-Go for screaming "KILL THE FATHER! **** THE MOTHER!" as he sang "The End," a song that is at least in part about murdering your parents, not to mention Riding the Snake.
4. When Iron Maiden was in the process of recording Number of the Beast, they were involved in a traffic accident one day. They hit a van, but luckily no one was hurt. To their surprise, the van turned out to be full of a priest and a bunch of nuns, who proceeded to kneel in the roadway and pray for the souls of the band. When all that was straightened out and the vehicle had been repaired (coincidentally about the time the song "Number of the Beast" was being finished up) the bill came to 666 pounds.
The band's manager flatly refused to pay until the bill had been changed to 667.
That has little to do with this topic, but it's a great story.
Don Gwinn
Moderator Emeritus
One other thing to keep in mind is that one of the things that makes an adult look silliest to kids in a music scene is judging the music without understanding it. It may not be great art, but if you haven't really sat down to listen and think about it, it's probably not what you think, either.
Examples:
1. "Suicide Solution" Ozzy song about resisting suicidal thoughts as a permanent solution to a temporary problem, but blue-hairs across the nation thought Ozzy was subliminally ordering their grandkids to commit suicide (rather than telling them not to yield to despair, which is what the song is actually about.)
2. "Don't Close Your Eyes" I remember this one as another anti-suicide song wrongly denounced as leading kids to commit suicide. The lyrics implore a young person not to close his eyes before the singer can reach him--closing his eyes being the final step in succumbing to the pills he's taken.
3. "Number of the Beast" Widely thought to be a song urging America's children to join the Church of Satan and murder their parents in a bizarre ritual, this is actually a song that tells the first-person story of a kid who stumbles across a group of devil-worshippers holding a ritual in the woods and is running for his life to get help before they get him.
Examples:
1. "Suicide Solution" Ozzy song about resisting suicidal thoughts as a permanent solution to a temporary problem, but blue-hairs across the nation thought Ozzy was subliminally ordering their grandkids to commit suicide (rather than telling them not to yield to despair, which is what the song is actually about.)
2. "Don't Close Your Eyes" I remember this one as another anti-suicide song wrongly denounced as leading kids to commit suicide. The lyrics implore a young person not to close his eyes before the singer can reach him--closing his eyes being the final step in succumbing to the pills he's taken.
3. "Number of the Beast" Widely thought to be a song urging America's children to join the Church of Satan and murder their parents in a bizarre ritual, this is actually a song that tells the first-person story of a kid who stumbles across a group of devil-worshippers holding a ritual in the woods and is running for his life to get help before they get him.
Regarding "Mack the Knife".......actually it was written in the 1920's by German composer Kurt Weill for a show called the Three Penny Opera (sorry, couldn't resist going in to music teacher mode ). Not sure how that affects your premise, but there you go
Mike Irwin:
Normally I'd agree with you that art is a reflection of the society in which it is founded. This is true throughout history....Hindemith, Goethe, Heine, Jack Kerrouac, the blues, be-bop....all are outgrowths of the environments in which the artists found themselves. Their total life's experience was a precursor to their artistic work.
The trouble with today's so-called art, specifically rap, is that the majority of people involved in that alleged musical scene have no direct experience with the "gangsta" life style, so they invent a persona. From the little bit that I observe, rap is closer to professional wrestling than it is the outpouring of personal life's experience evidenced in the works of Kerrouac, Ginsberg, etc. In an effort to develop "street cred" these bozos actually go out and do the things that they rap about. So, we then have a case of life imitating art.
This even more true in my opinion of TV......the great oracle in the living room spews forth the party line about homosexuality, sex, drug abuse and any other number of deviant behaviors, to which many mush minds intone "I will comply". Couple that with advertisements...."be young again", "be thin", "be successful, use brand XYZ shampoo" and you have a real disconnect with the traditional flow of art imitating life.
We shut off the cable when we moved.....not sure if I'll ever hook it back up again.
Mike.....not flaming you my friend, nor even do I totally disagree with you....just presenting another side of the coin to ponder.
Cheers
). Not sure how that affects your premise, but there you go Mike Irwin:
Normally I'd agree with you that art is a reflection of the society in which it is founded. This is true throughout history....Hindemith, Goethe, Heine, Jack Kerrouac, the blues, be-bop....all are outgrowths of the environments in which the artists found themselves. Their total life's experience was a precursor to their artistic work.
The trouble with today's so-called art, specifically rap, is that the majority of people involved in that alleged musical scene have no direct experience with the "gangsta" life style, so they invent a persona. From the little bit that I observe, rap is closer to professional wrestling than it is the outpouring of personal life's experience evidenced in the works of Kerrouac, Ginsberg, etc. In an effort to develop "street cred" these bozos actually go out and do the things that they rap about. So, we then have a case of life imitating art.
This even more true in my opinion of TV......the great oracle in the living room spews forth the party line about homosexuality, sex, drug abuse and any other number of deviant behaviors, to which many mush minds intone "I will comply". Couple that with advertisements...."be young again", "be thin", "be successful, use brand XYZ shampoo" and you have a real disconnect with the traditional flow of art imitating life.
We shut off the cable when we moved.....not sure if I'll ever hook it back up again.
Mike.....not flaming you my friend, nor even do I totally disagree with you....just presenting another side of the coin to ponder.
Cheers
NIGHTWATCH
Member
When "Elvis" started to shake his hips, it was the begining of good time music, Coool daddyo. The kind of music that we can ALL relate to which in my opinion is the highest calling of music.
I HATE RAP MUSIC if only because like no other music before, the message has worked to divide a nation. Inspire hatred and racism. Ignorance and violence. The only "artistic expression" here is a malignant black racism that has managed to become a cash cow for many of its participants.
The kind of music that we can ALL relate to which in my opinion is the highest calling of music.I HATE RAP MUSIC if only because like no other music before, the message has worked to divide a nation. Inspire hatred and racism. Ignorance and violence.
The only "artistic expression" here is a malignant black racism that has managed to become a cash cow for many of its participants.Mike: I disagree also. When Iowa farm boys and rich suburban white girls are "bustin a cap in wunna dey Crew", or having babies because it's cool, it is not a reflection of their environment. It's a reflection of a lifestyle advertising blitz ...among many other things.
XLMiguel
Member
OKfine. Lok like a gangsta, act like a gangsta, don't be surprised if you get treated like a gangsta. Pop, pop, pop.
I don't recall the Greek guy's name, but he was moaning about how the youth of the day was going to Hell in a handbasket, IIRC he was a contemporary of Socrates. Hopefullly, this too, shall pass.
But I do thnk Rap is particularly poisonous. Dumb hip-hop kids, posers and hosers, can't tell the difference between real life and TV, start acting like they're "living the life", may find the cost of "keepin' it real", real high.
I don't recall the Greek guy's name, but he was moaning about how the youth of the day was going to Hell in a handbasket, IIRC he was a contemporary of Socrates. Hopefullly, this too, shall pass.
But I do thnk Rap is particularly poisonous. Dumb hip-hop kids, posers and hosers, can't tell the difference between real life and TV, start acting like they're "living the life", may find the cost of "keepin' it real", real high.
Mike Irwin
Member
"The trouble with today's so-called art, specifically rap, is that the majority of people involved in that alleged musical scene have no direct experience with the "gangsta" life style, so they invent a persona."
And that's different from any other time frame how?
When Arthur Conan Doyle was writing the Sherlock Holmes stories (wildly popular) people came to the conclusion that he was, in fact, a master of detection and deduction. He was a physician, but was very adamant that he wasn't the character he portrayed.
In that situation, he didn't adopt the personna, but people expected it of him, and many times were greatly disappointed when he couldn't do the things that Holmes could do.
The same is true of these rap artists.
How viable do you think they would be to their audiences or their record labels if it came out that one of the biggest Gangsta Rap singers was actually a graduate of Brown with an MBA, happily married to his college sweetheart, with no police record?
He'd tank quicker than an M1.
As I said, the art is the expression the audience, but not necessarily the experience of the artist.
And that's different from any other time frame how?
When Arthur Conan Doyle was writing the Sherlock Holmes stories (wildly popular) people came to the conclusion that he was, in fact, a master of detection and deduction. He was a physician, but was very adamant that he wasn't the character he portrayed.
In that situation, he didn't adopt the personna, but people expected it of him, and many times were greatly disappointed when he couldn't do the things that Holmes could do.
The same is true of these rap artists.
How viable do you think they would be to their audiences or their record labels if it came out that one of the biggest Gangsta Rap singers was actually a graduate of Brown with an MBA, happily married to his college sweetheart, with no police record?
He'd tank quicker than an M1.
As I said, the art is the expression the audience, but not necessarily the experience of the artist.
Ebbtide
Member
Once they figure out they need to get an education and a job to live, they will change. That used to happen at 18 years, but there are a lot of excuses not to grow up these days, or so THEY say.
ehenz
Rap music got it's start in the NY State prison system, specificly Attica. Do some research and you will find that out for your self.
Anytime you have one group that advicates violence and criminal behavior as the thing to do, you will have a BIG problem. I see the results of this at work everyday in prison. And remember that most of the big name rappers at the start of the rap music movement had been in prison for violent crimes.
Anytime you have one group that advicates violence and criminal behavior as the thing to do, you will have a BIG problem. I see the results of this at work everyday in prison. And remember that most of the big name rappers at the start of the rap music movement had been in prison for violent crimes.
Keith
Member
If you waddle like a duck and quack like a duck, I'm going to assume you are a duck.
If you don't want to be taken for a duck, then quit waddling and quackling.
Seems pretty straightforward to me...
Keith
If you don't want to be taken for a duck, then quit waddling and quackling.
Seems pretty straightforward to me...
Keith
Carlos Cabeza
Member
When I was an adolescent, I always liked to blaze my own trail..............maybe thats why I was such a dork who never had a girlfriend. Hopefully the difference between fiction and reality will become apparent to the majority of these kids before its too late.If not, mediocre jobs are plentiful, just that few are willing to work that hard to achieve their goals and dreams.
I always liked to blaze my own trail..............maybe thats why I was such a dork who never had a girlfriend. Hopefully the difference between fiction and reality will become apparent to the majority of these kids before its too late.If not, mediocre jobs are plentiful, just that few are willing to work that hard to achieve their goals and dreams.longeyes
member
"Soccer moms don't go on a 72 hour crime spree, carjacking and shooting people,
and killing a complete stranger for kicks."
Pick your poison: mayhem or slow-burn radiation.
Criminals kill sporadically, by the few. The desperados we shall always
have with us, praise the Lord.
Soccer Moms kill with kindness, or what we now universally call
"compassion." And their victims are legion. Maybe an entire society.
My point, Capt. Happypants, is that the "think of the children" contingent
is the other side of the gangsta movement. One culture, two faces. The
nuclear family is the answer to the gang family.
and killing a complete stranger for kicks."
Pick your poison: mayhem or slow-burn radiation.
Criminals kill sporadically, by the few. The desperados we shall always
have with us, praise the Lord.
Soccer Moms kill with kindness, or what we now universally call
"compassion." And their victims are legion. Maybe an entire society.
My point, Capt. Happypants, is that the "think of the children" contingent
is the other side of the gangsta movement. One culture, two faces. The
nuclear family is the answer to the gang family.
greyhound
Member
I also have to wonder sometimes about these "artists"
and how they are "true to the hood".
How many of these supposedly "thug life 4eva" devotees jump real quick into acting? (And if you don't think 50 Cent isn't looking at scripts right now, I've got a bridge to sell ya. For some reason that clown really makes my blood boil).
Ice T
Ice Cube
DMX
Snoop Dog
Busta Ryhmes
Jay Z
Method Man
Eminem
are just a few off the top of my head.
"Keepin it real" my left foot......
and how they are "true to the hood".How many of these supposedly "thug life 4eva" devotees jump real quick into acting? (And if you don't think 50 Cent isn't looking at scripts right now, I've got a bridge to sell ya. For some reason that clown really makes my blood boil).
Ice T
Ice Cube
DMX
Snoop Dog
Busta Ryhmes
Jay Z
Method Man
Eminem
are just a few off the top of my head.
"Keepin it real" my left foot......
Mikul
Member
It's not the music. There actually is some decent rap, but it's difficult to find it considering the crowd that it hangs out with.
Easily 95% of rap is narcissistic to the extreme. If it isn't about violence, it's about how great the rapper thinks he is. I've heard entire albums where 9 of the 10 songs are 3 minute dissertations about the rapper's greatness and the sorry state he views all of his peers.
The glorification of violence makes up perhaps 35% of rap, but it is pervasive.
Want to hear rap lyrics translated? This site is hysterical:
http://www.bizbag.com/Misc articles/Rap Lyrics Translated.htm
Easily 95% of rap is narcissistic to the extreme. If it isn't about violence, it's about how great the rapper thinks he is. I've heard entire albums where 9 of the 10 songs are 3 minute dissertations about the rapper's greatness and the sorry state he views all of his peers.
The glorification of violence makes up perhaps 35% of rap, but it is pervasive.
Want to hear rap lyrics translated? This site is hysterical:
http://www.bizbag.com/Misc articles/Rap Lyrics Translated.htm
Dorrin79
Member
I like a lot of rap music. (I also really dislike some of it)
It's a) funny, b) provocative, and c) something different.
I'm a clean-cut white office worker who lives in a nice house in the suburbs, is happily married, and likes guns.
don't assume too much, simply based on someone's choice of music.
I don't assume that all listeners of country music are wife-beating drunken rednecks.
It's a) funny, b) provocative, and c) something different.
I'm a clean-cut white office worker who lives in a nice house in the suburbs, is happily married, and likes guns.
don't assume too much, simply based on someone's choice of music.
I don't assume that all listeners of country music are wife-beating drunken rednecks.
spacemanspiff
Senior Member
what was the line by Mr Longbaugh in 'way of the gun'?
paraphrased: these guys today, they want to be criminals more than they want to commit crimes.
look at todays role models. kobe bryant, an adulterer. 50 cent, a thug. p diddy puffly daddy, a bling-bling thug. eminem, angry white man who pistol whips guys he thinks made moves on his wife. allen iverson, beats and rapes women. countless others on drugs.
thats what kids today look up to. a mere 15 yrs ago, it was magic johnson, michael jordon, kareem. but it was also axl rose, another wife beater and drug addict. james hetfield, an alcoholic. eazy e, a thug.
theres always bad examples, in every generation. this current generation however, does seem to have sunk to a new low.
paraphrased: these guys today, they want to be criminals more than they want to commit crimes.
look at todays role models. kobe bryant, an adulterer. 50 cent, a thug. p diddy puffly daddy, a bling-bling thug. eminem, angry white man who pistol whips guys he thinks made moves on his wife. allen iverson, beats and rapes women. countless others on drugs.
thats what kids today look up to. a mere 15 yrs ago, it was magic johnson, michael jordon, kareem. but it was also axl rose, another wife beater and drug addict. james hetfield, an alcoholic. eazy e, a thug.
theres always bad examples, in every generation. this current generation however, does seem to have sunk to a new low.
Keith
Member
Rap culture has even invaded kids games!
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