Some people say the "c" is silent in rap.

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My dad used to say a similar joke. He only listens to blues & jazz which I hate so I've said some bad things about his music too. I do like some rap but I'm not majorly into it. I'm much more into pop & there's a bit of crossover between pop & rap. As for rap music being associated with misogyny, it seems like every music genre/type can be associated with some kinda negative stereotype.

Blues and jazz was considered the devils music before it was culturally appropriated and made acceptable to....well you know the rest of the story...


Rap music has also been appropriated starting with Blondie who popularised it in her single "Rapture" and then of course Vanilla Ice and Eminem etc....rap/hiphop has also been absorbed in metal music as well.....

Conservative/establishment considered abstract art as "degenerative" but of course today it's the intellectual property of the upper bourgeoisie.

I'm not sure Eminem counts as appropriation, among things he's just one of many of his peers who grew up poor in Detroit listening to hip-hop, and the three most prominent hip-hop based acts from Detroit in that era are all white (ICP and Eminem are still hip-hop even if Kid Rock has become basically a dumber imitation of Ted Nugent who can't play guitar).

Metal (and hardcore) and hip-hop have a long and complicated relationship, but there's always been a portion of musicians within each who appreciate the other, as well as overlapping fanbases. Specifically in cities like NYC, hip-hop's cultural impact also played out into these genre, east coast hardcore has a lot of crews/sets that one might assume were more likely to be affiliated with hip-hop in terms of image, fashion and all. It's almost like angry young men recognize their peers.

I'm sure the "cross-over" of musicians to rap/hip hop has an element of cultural appreciation (not unlike the early era of rock in the 1950s) but that there was a strong motivating factor to incorporate black music into the portfolio of white singers/musicians to tap into a market of millions of younger white fans who felt embarrassed or cringed at publicly admitting they liked black music.

In the case of Eminem and more recently white rappers like Machine Gun Kelly and Post Malone they attract a large white female audience who in addition to feeling socially "safe" listening to their music don't have to compromise their identity (which lets face it is the elephant in the room) by admitting they like Jay Z or Tupac for whom they don't want to explain to their racist parents.

Would have to agree with that for the most part!

Posty seems to have a lot more black fans than one might expect, at least possibly because he doesn't come off as someone who's just cartoonishly parodying hip-hop. A lot of white rappers seem to immediately trigger a degree of suspicion if they talk about 'street s**t', ironically this seems to be the case even when it's mostly true and even with fans who are generally tolerant of artists they don't deem real.

Of peers who I've discussed music with, most of the white hip-hop heads I've mentioned him to haven't checked him out (although he seems to have won plenty over with his Nirvana tribute, including myself) whereas a lot of black hip-hop heads I work with mention him as 'oh, have you checked him out yet, you gotta, he's good'.

You might be right about a portion of his fanbase, but not all of it.

From what I recall when I was high school aged, your observation seems to be more fair of a portion of Eminem's white fanbase when he was getting big. I had loads of friends who were big on Eminem and maybe willing to f**k with a few affiliated acts but who still basically dismissed hip-hop as racial slur-shit. They mostly were male though and less worried about their parents than their peers.

I think (with the possible exception of Eminem) there is a tendency for black Americans to consider white/Asian rappers and hip hop artists lack street credibility. As an artform I totally get it...you can't express the blues if you were born with a silver spoon and you can't really express an artform like hip/hop or rap without experiencing the hardship of living on the streets. Postmalone certainly knows his background of growing up around middle class white kids listening to metal is a little disingenuous to the craft and in interviews he has been defensive.

Then of course there's clear cut appropriation like Vanilla Ice or Bruno Mars but that's another story.

I do hold some respect for British born rap/hip hop where some groups are connected to the streets of Belfast or Dublin and have an appreciation for the grittiness of the streets born of similar struggles.

I'd saying you're maybe showing your unfamiliarity, Eminem would lack credibility if he claimed to be poor or have things hard these days but he undeniably had it rough growing up, he also earned credibility by battling for years, which at one point was vital for credibility. Cyphers are part of the culture, rappers who don't participate in them can be technically skilled but they won't have credibility as hip-hop performers in some circles if they don't participate in the culture, old heads talk about this a lot and stress it - part of the split between older hip-hop and newer hip-hop is that a lot of trap emcees don't really participate in cyphers so even if they're credible as gangsters they're not credible as hip-hop emcees in those guys eyes because they record in their bedroom or in a trap house. It also plays into how newer started to emerge, back in the day you had to speak up over a loud environment so a booming, annunciation delivery was typical, when you record in a quiet environment you have a different range; the new era is almost analogous to crooning.

Also, plenty of white emcees have as much or more credibility than Eminem did at any point. New York/upper East Coast underground hip-hop has always had white and white-ish guys as legitimate and significant participants. R.A. the Rugged Man, Pete Nice and Vinnie Paz to name three off the top of my head. Not every black emcee, even in the early days was about that life and they would still have credibility and plenty of white and east Asian emcees do have backgrounds that involve that life. There's always been a weird thing about gangsters who wanna be rappers (to escape it) and rappers who wanna be gangsters to gain credibility, but there's also guys who have never lived it who still had it close enough to their lives to have credibility talking about it (of all racial backgrounds). MF DOOM might have really been a drug dealer but he wasn't one on tracks. Nas never was a crack dealer, but he lived in a building in a community that was a warren of trap houses his entire life up until that point. Some of the white guys sometimes were pimps or crack dealers for real just like the said they were; Necro and Ill Bill really did get involved with dealing because of their uncle's addiction and they really did live in the projects just like they claimed.

Further, a lot of those underground emcees are horrorcore performers who tend to talk about mental issues, drug use, etc which doesn't require being involved in that life to have credibility. Someone like Cage or R.A. or Eminem didn't need to live that life to be menacing.

The thing that's emerged in this era is middle class rappers who are open to discussing their background, most of them are white or Jewish or east Asian, but not all.

Eminem has said he grew up with that genre of music and so bought into the culture/art but I think Snoop dog referred to him as a "White rapper" which is how the black community see him. One only has to look at his daughter who comes across as a Becky/Valley girl which means the pull of his influence can't have been that strong.

The female manager for Wu Tang Clan (one of the most authentic rap groups in history) was totally immersed in the culture of rap and hip-hop despite being Asian but again her kids are like cookie cutter Asians (her daughter is an academic type/architect and dislikes rap/hip hop). Again the pull of the culture can't have been too strong if it doesn't influence her kids.

I think the black community see their culture being appropriated by those who buy into the commercial side but don't actually buy into the lifestyle, (talk the talk but don't walk the walk in terms of being part of a sub-culture) just how they see it (perception)

Shouldn't they be saying that the "c" is pronounced in "rap"? That is, that it is "crap".

As for me, I don't hate entire genres of music. There are some songs I don't care for though.

You're overthinking an inherently stupid joke.

That would make a great rap song.

Theyre saying that folks dont call it what it IS (which is 'crap').

Its not rocket science.

But its not offensive either.

A genre that presses the limits of free speech can withstand free speech thrown back at it.

If it lacks metre and rhyme, it is not poetry.

If it lacks melody and harmony, it is not music.

If it lacks intent and originality, it is not art.

If it is not poetry, not music, and not art, it is artifice.

Instead of repeating clichés that aren't even applicable criticisms, why not listen to what a music theorist has to say?