Why hip-hop is music

I wrote this as a reply to the thread about why rap isn't music, but then I realized that the thread was closed to posting so I will post here instead.

This is in response to the following quote:

IS RAP MUSIC? According to the Random House College Dictionary:

Music - The art of combining and regulating sounds of varying pitch to produce compositions expressive of various ideas and emotions.

Musician - A person who makes music a profession, a person skilled in playing a musical instrument.

In the case rap one or more or all of the following are missing:

- Art

- Sounds of varying pitch (a tune)

- Combining and regulating sounds

- Skilled musician

- Musical instruments ("A mouth rapidly spewing out words is not an instrument")

Apologies for the lengthy response but I felt that since an attempt was made to use a dictionary to define/invalidate the existence of a musical genre or its classification as music, that I should attempt to use similar sources to define/validate the existence of that musical genre and its classification as music. Enjoy!


Art: Art is the process or product of deliberately arranging elements in a way to affect the senses or emotions... (Wikipedia)

Hip-hop is a a product of deliberately arranged elements (words, sounds, samples, etc.) that are combined in an effort to tell a story, share emotions, inspire energetic dancing etc., in other words, affecting the senses or emotions.

Sounds of varying pitch-

Sounds: Sound is a travelling wave which is an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid or gas, composed of frequencies within the range of hearing and of a level sufficiently strong to be heard, or the sensation stimulated in organs of hearing by such vibrations. (Wikipedia)

Well you can clearly hear it or you wouldn't be complaining so I'd say it has sounds. Also, nothing demonstrates an oscillation of pressure transmitted through a solid, liquid or gas like a good subwoofer playing (you guessed it) hip-hop.

Pitch: The property of sound that varies with variation in the frequency of vibration. (Wikipedia)

So if the pitch did not vary (change) the song would be monotone, or have only one note and the only variance would be rhythm. In hip-hop songs there are multiple notes used in the samples, synth lines and other programmed melodies, and also in the voices of the rappers themselves (sometimes to a lesser degree but there nonetheless, more so in artists like Busdriver and also in the vocal harmonies of artists like Bone Thugs or Devin the Dude).

Combining and regulating sounds-

Combine: put or add together; (wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn)

Regulate: fix or adjust the time, amount, degree, or rate of; (wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn)

So, in hip-hop, samples (sounds) are combined with programmed drum and synth lines (other sounds), which are regulated in both dynamics (volume) and timing (rhythm). All of these are combined with vocal lines (more sounds), which also vary in dynamics timing and rate, among other things.

Skilled Musician-

This was technically part of what you would need to constitute a musician (by your given definitions) and not music itself. However, if a person who makes music a profession is a musician, and hip-hop is music (as it appears so far to be), then by your definition a rapper is a musician. And, by the same circular logic your are employing, hip-hop is music.

Musical instruments: A musical instrument is constructed for the purpose of making the sounds of music. In principle, anything that produces sound can serve as a musical instrument. The history of musical instruments dates back to the beginnings of human culture... (Wikipedia)

Again, this was only part of the definition you gave for a musician and not for music but... From the above definition, if a computer recording station is put together for the purpose of producing or performing music (via a midi keyboard, or strictly programming beats) then it is functioning as an instrument. A pair of turntables in the hands of a good DJ create sounds that the original makers of the records never dreamt of so they too serve as instruments. As stated above, "the history of musical instruments dates back to the beginnings of human culture". We have advanced continually through time from whistling and singing to making drums and flutes, lutes and guitars and harpsichords to pianos, electric guitars, synthesizers and drumsets. Why would we stop there, humans will continue to invent new instruments to create music, just as we continue to invent new types of music. Further, many hip-hop bands do in fact record and tour with traditional live instruments.

Even if you don't buy all that, the presence of traditional instruments is not a requirement of music, or a Cappella style music would not be considered music.

Anyway, cheers mate if you read through all that. Would be glad to clarify any points that remain if I am not banned from this group after making this post. Hopefully you will find this more coherent and less confrontational than previous responses to your postulations.

Yeah, Stomp. Haven't seen them live but cool stuff for sure. Definitely related.

It is music(I guess) but it is still a load of ass.

Why listen to rap when you can listen to something better?

JohanJello said:
lostmyyoshi said:
Who gives a shit, this is an Anti-Rap group and if you like rap then get the fuck out. I will never like rap and there is nothing that will convince me that it's good music.
Someone's pissed.

Haha. Rap pisses me off so that's why I was pissed when I typed that.

redcoal said: sure man(owar1), will do. In the meantime here's another thought. I think sometimes the reason people listen to hip-hop and think it's just dumb words is because they don't have the cultural references to understand the clever word play. I could be wrong here but let's have a test if you would care to play along. Lil Wayne says in a song that "all his kicks fly like Liu Kang". Can you tell me why this is humorous or clever (or might be considered so even if you do not find it to be yourself)?
As you say, we, members of this Anti-Rap group "don't have the cultural references to understand the clever word play". However, rap fans also "don't have the cultural references to understand" country, classical or doom metal (just check their charts). So why should we embrace rap, while the majority of rap fans hate other music genres?
I find your sample lyrics "all his kicks fly like Liu Kang" neither humorous, nor clever. That statement does not make sense to me. Based in my limited English knowledge, it should be ending with "... Kang's kicks".
Will comment on Z-ro next time.

redcoal said:
As a preface, it was mainly the thematic elements of these songs that I wanted to bring to your attention, but I believe their other musical elements would stand up to debate as well. If you would like to provide a sourced definition of music or art that you find acceptable for the purpose of this discussion, I think that would be awesome. Here is a list of three tracks that I believe would be good subjects for debate:

City Streets
No More Pain
T.H.U.G.
Thanks for the links. I listened to the 3 Z-ro tracks. I found the 3rd one on youtube. Yes, he sounds more or less different other rappers. Still, the problems:
- There is music in the background, I even heard a guitar, but the background music has absolutely no correlation with the rapping. At the times when he sings with the music, he is no longer rapping.
- You seem to put importance on the lyrics. Most of the time Z-ro raps so fast, I cannot understand everything he says. So his "clever word play" becomes useless.
I do not really care about Death or Black Metal lyrics either, I just like to listen to the music. In Rap the vocals are so overwhelming, so forget it.
So for me Z-ro is still thumbs down.
Even if you add rap to metal and call it Nu-metal, it is as bad as Hiphop. To me the rapping kills ever genre of music.

PS If you like Black Metal, check out Woodtemple

The main problem I have with rap music is the lack of variety in the subject matter of their songs.
It's like they only know about three things: Money, Drugs/Alcohol, or Women's asses.

And When one of them actually does come out with something new like the last few years these stupid made up dance songs (Lean with it, Rock with it just to name one) have become popular, but once the first one to do it gets noticed and popular Every single fucking rapper known to man tries to copy it and make their own shitty version of an already shitty song,....I just find this to be the most annoying thing ever,..

This little girl has more musical talent than all rappers combined:
http://www.flixxy.com/little-north-korean-girl-playing-guitar.htm

I don't see why people call rap talent..I mean what's so talented about putting down women (even though i think some women like to be called a bitch and a hoe that's why they listen to this kind of garbage) and using vulgar language all the time and yes when i mean vulgar i mean saying "nigga" as well which is very vulgar..Most music is supposed to be full of talent but NOT most rap..And i think todays youth are wasted listening to this garbage..Also it's pathedic how some of the kids talk today and as a concerned parent i am very concerned about it..But THANK GOD my kid doesn't listen to (c) rap...

redcoal said:
I don't see why people judge an entire genre of music based on the characteristics of some of the artists that fall into that category.
Of course you can judge an entire genre of music, where is it "written" that you can't?
That is the purpose of having genres. Music classified into genres make your music selection much easier. You can weed out the crap without wasting your time listening to it.
Btw, how come you do not scrobble Epic Doom Metal?

redcoal said:
I don't see why people judge an entire genre of music based on the characteristics of some of the artists that fall into that category.

Also, if you are going to criticize the way today's youth talk, you might consider using correct spelling (pathedic [sic]) and punctuation (todays [sic] youth). At least the spelling part, come on, there's a built in spell checker on the web page (right click on the wavy red line for suggestions.)

There's a lot of value to be found in rap lyrics, and if you don't care to look past the surface to see that then that's fine. But as an example to your child you might not stoop to denigrating other cultures and art forms, and instead have an intelligent discussion about their elements that you find controversial or inappropriate.

Sincerely,
A Concerned Youth
i'm not sure about other people here, but i don't hate an entire single genre, after all, even if the chances are infinitesimal, non-generic rap might exist, my argument is mostly based on the effects rather than the characteristics of rap
this page summarizes it all:http://musicthatmakesyoudumb.virgil.gr/
i have the same argument for pop and other generic music, you can check out my rationales on my profile