NYT Op-Ed: How Hip-Hop Music Lost Its Way And Betrayed Its Fans.........

[portisizzle]

Originally posted by Ghost of Nibbs McPimpin

Good point. His Airness, MJ, being simply known as "Jordan."

Portis your point on nicknames was not well-thought out and that's why you're having difficulty.

You thought you had stumbled on some tiny nugget of wisdom and then were revealed to be nothing but a fool clutching pyrite.

It's OK. It happens to all of us. But it would be better to go back to your ill-informed general criticisms of the NBA rather than continue along this path.

I promised you that I would not continue this line of conversation. And I will. But I will say once more. Adults have names not monikers.

[Ghost of]

portis, I know what you said, but you said that posts ago.

Also check the time stamp. My last post to you was two minutes after your "J-Dogg" post. Hardly dredging up the past to belabor the point on my part.

[Johnny Punani2]

I've been listening to hip-hop for over 20 yrs now.

I've witnessed it start out as a positive influence on society by drawing attention to the problems of the inner city and urban youth. Now, most of it is a grossly negative influence on society and glorifies hardcore drug use/dealing, violence, rape, mafia, guns, etc.

I haven't bought a hip-hop album in years because of the crap that is being pushed. I'll just listen to my old school hip-hop until people get their sh*t together and quit talking about how many people they kill, coke they sell, and women they use.

It's doesn't matter anyway because most of the rappers today can't rap their way out of a wet paper bag...

[Spaceman Spiff]

This is a bunch of crap. I'm tired of hip hop music being blamed for perpetuating violent and mysogonistic entertainment. Face it (older) people, this stuff has been in music a lot longer than the mid 80's when rap hit it big.

Johnny Cash has a song about doing cocaine. Here's a little sample:

Early one mornin' while makin' the rounds

I took a shot of cocaine and I shot my woman down.

Nice. Could that be some "rap" lyric? Certainly. Is Johnny Cash an American icon? Yes. Would my parents be pissed if they heard that coming from some angry black mans mouth on my stereo? Probably.

Eric Clapton and the Dead have songs that glorify Cocaine.

Bob Marley and Eric Clapton both sing about shooting the deputy. But Ice-T sings about killing a cop and everyone yells at him.

Jimi Hendrix's song "Hey Joe" talks about shooting his woman because she cheated on him, then running down to Mexico to avoid the cops.

I could go on some more about this, but thats just what came to the top of my head. But face it, it's not just rap music. I'm tired of my generation getting dumped on for having violence and drug content found in songs, like it's a new phenomenon. Why doesn't the generation who started it all pick up some of the responsibility?

[Ghost of]

JP thanks for bringing up your history. Mine is much the same.

People think if you're a critic you're some stiff white dude who's never listened to anything other than Cole Porter.

The fact is, lots of hip hoppers themselves talk about the problems.

I mean, does anyone going overboard in defending it remember "Stakes Is High" by De La Soul?

Spaceman, uh, we're in your generation, we listen to hip hop...so not sure who you're getting mad at here.

As for those other songs, hell, there have been songs about drug addiction for even longer than the baby boomers.

I think the only cultural music form that CELEBRATED these kinds of pathologies are "hip hop culture" and the 60s/70s drug culture. So, if you'd like to point fingers at them too, that's fine.

I don't mind music as cinema, it has its place. But let's not pretend that a song by Johnny Cash was even viewed the same or incorporated into the culture.

[Johnny Punani2]

Originally posted by Spaceman Spiff

This is a bunch of crap. I'm tired of hip hop music being blamed for perpetuating violent and mysogonistic entertainment. Face it (older) people, this stuff has been in music a lot longer than the mid 80's when rap hit it big.

Johnny Cash has a song about doing cocaine. Here's a little sample:

Early one mornin' while makin' the rounds

I took a shot of cocaine and I shot my woman down.

Nice. Could that be some "rap" lyric? Certainly. Is Johnny Cash an American icon? Yes. Would my parents be pissed if they heard that coming from some angry black mans mouth on my stereo? Probably.

Eric Clapton and the Dead have songs that glorify Cocaine.

Bob Marley and Eric Clapton both sing about shooting the deputy. But Ice-T sings about killing a cop and everyone yells at him.

Jimi Hendrix's song "Hey Joe" talks about shooting his woman because she cheated on him, then running down to Mexico to avoid the cops.

I could go on some more about this, but thats just what came to the top of my head. But face it, it's not just rap music. I'm tired of my generation getting dumped on for having violence and drug content found in songs, like it's a new phenomenon. Why doesn't the generation who started it all pick up some of the responsibility?

I think the issue here is constant negativity being pushed by hip-hop today. Yes, there were songs in the past that portrayed negative themes from different musical genres. However, these types of songs were a novelty and not the common theme of the artist.

In hip-hop today, we have people/groups that push negativity on every song and every album. That is the difference here.

[Kilmer17]

Im also fairly certain that Eric Clapton didnt ACTUALLY shoot the sheriff. The same cant be said for the rappers in question.

[Ghost of]

Kilmer,

That's just like De La (this is 1995, I think):

Yo, it's about love for cars, love for funds

Loving to love mad sex, loving to love guns

Love for opposite, love for fame and wealth

Love for the fact of no longer loving yourself, kid

We living in them days of the man-made ways

Where every aspect is vivid

these brothers no longer talk s__

Hey yo, these niggas live it

I say G's are making figures at a high regard

And niggas dying for it nowadays ain't odd

Investing in fantasies and not God

I think that smiling in public is against the law

'Cause love don't get you through life no more

It's who you know and "How you, son?"

And how you gettin' in, and who the man holding

Hey yo, and how was the scams and how high

Yo what up, huh? I heard you caught a body

Seem like every man and woman shared a life with John Gotti

[Pos]

But they ain't organized!

[Dove]

Mixing crimes with life enzymes

Taking the big scout route

And niggas know doubt better

Than they know their daughters

And their sons

(Oh boy)

[Pos]

Yo, people go through pain and still don't gain

Positive contact just like my main man

Who got others cleaning up his physical influence

His mind got congested

He got the nine and blew it

Neighborhoods are now hoods cause nobody's neighbors

Just animals surviving with that animal behavior

Under I who be rhyming from dark to light sky

Experiments when needles and skin connect

No wonder where we live is called the projects

When them stakes is high you damn sure try to do

Anything to get the piece of the pie

Electrify

Even die for the cash

[Guest Gichin13]

Originally posted by Ghost of Nibbs McPimpin

I've said for years that RnB abandoned talk of love for sex as it melded with hip hop. So it ain't just hip hop.

Good line Ghost.

[Guest Gichin13]

Originally posted by Clutch03

or the guy (whoever he was) that punched Rudy T in the face a broke his nose.

His name is Kermit Washington. The story is a lot more complicated than that -- it was a total melee and Rudy T came screaming into it from behind and Kermit just reversed and swung blind. Kermit was actually a low key key and great player ... and it pretty much cashed out his career.

It also was not a broken nose ... it was a completely crushed face and Rudy T came pretty close to dying. If you are interested in the story, I highly recommend reading "The Punch" by John Feinstein. There is also some interesting backstory in "Breaks of the Game" by David Halberstam (the single best book ever written on the NBA IMHO)

[NoCalMike]

If anything it was the record companies themselves that betrayed music fans. Once Gangsta rap became a commodity, it started to get so over-exposed and homoginized that anyone sporting a bandana and an AK-47 could get a record contract, no matter how UN-authentic they were, where they actually came from growing up and how lame the lyrics were.

Make no mistake, in the early days of what the MEDIA called "Gangsta Rap" Rap featured real people from the ghettos in America, telling stories of everyday life and I am sorry, they had every right to be as angry as they would come off in their music.

[OrangeSkin]

Can we all just agree that rap is simply a crappy form of music? Very little of it actually approaches something that could be called art. Most is just disposable garbage.

I really don't care if they're talking about shooting someone or helping an old lady across the street. It's still trash.

Jessica Simpson has uber-positive themes through her music, but it's still downright rubbish. I don't draw much of a distinction between things of that nature and mainstream rap. It's just a different mutation of crass commercialism.

[Major Harris]

Originally posted by Kilmer17

Im also fairly certain that Eric Clapton didnt ACTUALLY shoot the sheriff.

neither did bob marley.

[Major Harris]

Originally posted by OrangeSkin

Can we all just agree that rap is simply a crappy form of music? Very little of it actually approaches something that could be called art. Most is just disposable garbage.

I really don't care if they're talking about shooting someone or helping an old lady across the street. It's still trash.

Jessica Simpson has uber-positive themes through her music, but it's still downright rubbish. I don't draw much of a distinction between things of that nature and mainstream rap. It's just a different mutation of crass commercialism.

commercial rap, yes.

real hip hop, no.

and jessica simpson ?

[PCS]

Originally posted by OrangeSkin

Can we all just agree that rap is simply a crappy form of music? Very little of it actually approaches something that could be called art. Most is just disposable garbage.

I really don't care if they're talking about shooting someone or helping an old lady across the street. It's still trash.

Jessica Simpson has uber-positive themes through her music, but it's still downright rubbish. I don't draw much of a distinction between things of that nature and mainstream rap. It's just a different mutation of crass commercialism.

In a word. No.