[achtung]

I only have a problem with rap when I see white suburban kids "relating" to it.

[Unknown Target]

Theres nothing wrong with Rap.
Popular culture is only a symptom.

The acceptance of ****ty rap is a sign of society breaking down and failing to raise children properly.  Similarly to hippies and rock, the rock and role didn't make them into drug addicted zombies.   Singers become popular because people buy their stuff.

The kids are buying this stuff because they've got money to spend, time to waste, and simply don't know better.

They don't know better? If they did "know better", what music would they buy? The kind you like?

Oh, and I agree with Swantz.

[KappaWing]

Sure, its not music. Sure, it promotes idiocy/violence/promiscuity. Sure, all the people who I know who like it happen to be dumb as a rock, and make themselves look like it too.

But you know what? I go to death metal concerts, wear all black and chains, and bang my brains out while listening to violent, agressive music so I suppose the only difference is that metal is actually music instead of poetry. Altho all my metalhead friends happen to be the smartest people I know but thats most likely because they simply despise the mainstream. Rap is in the mainstream, metal is not. and no, Atreyu, Linkin Park, and Sum 41 are NOT metal.

But the idea is a novel one, well it once was. If you look at very early groups such as NWA you'll notice that they are taking elements of poetry, (at this time usually associated with white upper class) and completely changing the atmosphere and audience from a sheltered introspective one to a more real and gritty one, and adding a beat to better accentuate the meter and rhythm of the poem. Of course all the popular rap (just like all the pop and rock music of today) is just commercialized bull****, but I think some merit can be found in the genre if you just dig in a bit.

I only have a problem with rap when I see white suburban kids "relating" to it.

Yeah, there is no excuse for that. Way too many people in my suburb like that. Rich, kind parents, and they act like theyve actually struggled once in their life. Listen, enjoy, but keep your thoughts of thuggin' and gang bangin' in your head please, because one walk into downtown Detroit where REAL social problems previal will probably change their attitude quite a bit. Sad thing is my suburb is only 4 miles from Detroit...

[karajorma]

I'm actually quite surprised at the sheer number of people on this thread whose opinions have basically amounted to "I don't like it, so it should be banned"

Congratulations on basically being Jack Thompson on an different hobby horse.

[achtung]

Banning any kind of media is one of the worst things imaginable.  Once you take away one Freedom, others follow.

[Mika]

Well I don't personally like rap, but hip-hop and breakbeats will forever hold a special place in my heart. Not all the things that it started are necessarily bad, here's a couple of links to beat boxing. I think no-one can say that would be too easy. The reason I don't like rap is that I think that the current rap artists are not too good.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHg4iZ0rCDM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V8mlSWWZ9zQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLN63bRcY5I&mode=related&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gV_X17iP0AQ (in the end the beat and the chorus at the same time)

Now if only one person could do also the verses...

[Maxwell]

If they did "know better", what music would they buy?

Music that would not make every normal person in earshot feel uncomfortable?
Just because we have freedom of speech does not mean all taboo subjects became good fodder for public display.

Some things are meant to be enjoyed in private by responsible persons. The content of some rap songs is the audible equivalent of porn.
Which, most of us would agree, does not belong in the middle of a street or in a school.

[TrashMan]

I'm actually quite surprised at the sheer number of people on this thread whose opinions have basically amounted to "I don't like it, so it should be banned"

Congratulations on basically being Jack Thompson on an different hobby horse.

LOL...oh that's rich... hating rap = being a nut like Thompson...

Banning any kind of media is one of the worst things imaginable.  Once you take away one Freedom, others follow.

I can immagine worse things...a lot of them. Freedom is a illusion anyway...a overrated one at that.

[NGTM-1R]

Spoken like Jack Thompson would. Bravo.

I smell idoicy. And have a horrible urge to counterpoint each and every one of you who complained rap is the only genre that does this or that. But I'll refrain, because by saying so you've proved you have no contact with popular culture at all and wouldn't know what I'm talking about.

Irredeemable genres are difficult to create. I can even find an occasional country song I like. If you can't find rap you like, then look harder. But more to the point, you are demanding the banning of something for a style that is apparently on its way out. True, the gangsta ain't exactly rushing offstage, but he ain't been looking all that healthy either. Less of the rap I hear normally is oriented in that fashion. Nelly ain't preaching the same thing as Dr. Dre or Eminem was, lest you forgot to notice.

You could make a better factual case for the destruction of metal than you could for rap.

I also find it vaguely interesting that, in certain moods, I find some of gangsta subgenre at it's worst (when it's advocating mayhem and murder on a large scale...sound familar Nuke?) excellent. After some consideration the reason I like D12's Instigator and the totally unrelated Clubbed to Death by Rob Dougan is actually quite similar. I don't scream when I get mad. My anger runs cold. Thus to date I have had no use for metal, which embraces the opposite path. No excuse to identify with it for suburban white kids? Not quite. Granted I'm no longer either suburban or a kid, but then again, when I was I still did. The term your brain is probably trying to reject at this point in time is feel, I just happened to have the willingness to self-analyze and reach deeper than the lyrics for why I identified with it. My reason is hardly the only one; it just happens to be the only one I can explain to you, not being a party to anybody's decisions but my own.

[karajorma]

I'm actually quite surprised at the sheer number of people on this thread whose opinions have basically amounted to "I don't like it, so it should be banned"

Congratulations on basically being Jack Thompson on an different hobby horse.

LOL...oh that's rich... hating rap = being a nut like Thompson...

I would have thought my point was easy enough to understand but if you need a longer explanation.....

You may not like rap. You may hate it with the heat of a thousand suns. But that doesn't mean you have any right to say that it should be banned simply because you don't like it.

And if you want to claim gangster and violent imagery is a reason to get rid of it, try stating that case in an argument that couldn't be used to ban Grand Theft Auto.

See how the people trying to ban it are just like Jack Thompson now?

[Flipside]

You know we're watching X-Files with the light on,
We're Dans le Maison,
I hope the smoking man's in this one....

Rap is a 'first step' in some ways, just like around 90% of Rock'N'Roll music in the 50's was actually pretty generic and poor (Rockin' Robin etc), there were only a few Gems for every hundred or so artists. A lot of Modern Rap is directionless, people have forgotten where it came from and 'Hanging in the Ghetto with my Ho and my Bling' isn't where it came from.

There's still some good quality Rap out there, but like, for example Punk or Britpop, it gets hidden under an enormous pile of 'generic sellers', rappers that don't perform about money and women, but about more personal things. If you want to destroy crap music, it's probably better to look to the distributors and advertising companies than to the artists themselves. It's these companies that make this kind of music, be it Rap, Rock or anything appear to be the only kind out there and give it its' popularity.

[TrashMan]

I'm actually quite surprised at the sheer number of people on this thread whose opinions have basically amounted to "I don't like it, so it should be banned"

Congratulations on basically being Jack Thompson on an different hobby horse.

LOL...oh that's rich... hating rap = being a nut like Thompson...

I would have thought my point was easy enough to understand but if you need a longer explanation.....

You may not like rap. You may hate it with the heat of a thousand suns. But that doesn't mean you have any right to say that it should be banned simply because you don't like it.

And if you want to claim gangster and violent imagery is a reason to get rid of it, try stating that case in an argument that couldn't be used to ban Grand Theft Auto.

See how the people trying to ban it are just like Jack Thompson now?

Did I say it should be banned? Discouraged, maby, but banned? Hell, it makes it easier for me to indentify...shall we say "personas of questionalbe tastes and mental faculty"?

[karajorma]

Did I say it should be banned?

Did I say you said it?

I suggest you read more carefully what I'm saying.

[brozozo]

I feel that anyone who uses "rap" and "crap" in the same sentence is dumber than a bag of hammers. As for the video, they would have gotten their point across better if it was titled OMG BAN BLACK PEOPLE (and wiggers too). I suggest you guys check out Saul Williams (http://www.last.fm/music/Saul+Williams).

[Col. Fishguts]

Yay, let's generalize and declare opinions as facts !

Also, rap is a music/lyric art form (if you like it or not). A lot of you who declare rap to be crap actually seem to refer to a part of the hiphop culture, namely thugz, pimps and white trash suburb wannabe gangbangers. The later has about as much to do with rap as FOX News has to do with journalism.

[StarSlayer]

pfft "mainstream" rap they haven't had an original thought since Biggie and Tupac got shot.  "Mainstream" Rap songs over the past decade are consistently about bling, hoes, rims, and whatever the fanciest car is currently done over a different background music.  Its pretty much just advertisements now a days that's pretty sad actually, considering it use to tell a story back in the day.  Whatever culture relevance it had in the 90s is so long dead by now its a stagnant genre.  Occasionally they come up with a new word that becomes "hip"  until some interior designer n the home and garden channel uses it incorrectly to describe light fixtures

It doesn't need t be banned but it certainly could be renvigorated so that it can again recive a little relvance and prestige

[TrashMan]

Meh...There's crap rap and better rap, that's true. Not all of it is 100% bad....

But at the end of the day ALL of rap is inferior to allmost every other type of music out there..Rock' PwnZ rap 100%. Classical? Pwnz everything.

[Unknown Target]

Trashman, music is objective. Classical happens to put me to sleep, unless it has some stilleto-style violins. I'm sorry, but your argument (and the majority of the anti-rap arguments in this thread) amount to "Their music is inferior, mine is better. If they were enlightened like me they'd stop listening to their music and listen to mine."

Give it a rest folks. There's going to be a lot of things you happen to not like in the world, so just shut up and ignore them if they bother you that much. At the very least, stop calling for the abolishment of things you don't agree with (and yes I agree with the Jack Thomspon sentiment posted earlier by Kara).

[WeatherOp]

I sleep with the fact that there is a 99% chance if you rap, you can't carry a tune. So keep rappin' and I'll keep laughin'.

[Flipside]

Classical Music, on it's own, is like Film Music, if anything I find lyrics can detract from the emotional impact of the music, that's why music with lyrics is written differently to Ambient style music.

Rap itself has several variants, 'Scatman John' comes to mind, that's a version of Rap, you could say stuff like Ian Dury or the Stranglers used a form of 'Rap', maybe not in the quick-fire staccato of modern rap, but it still comes in through the same door.

A lot of modern classical and Ambient I'm not all that fond of, most of them are pretty generic, just like most other genres at the moment, but every so often something special comes along like 5th Element or Aeon Flux soundtracks