Not happy with modern rap culture.

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TRIGGER ALERT: No racism or xenophobic bias intended, so only post if you agree with me. If you disagree or feel offended by this statement, kindly let me know, I will not dispute you either way and I'll let Alex know if he can possibly pull off this topic. I need to make this point viable because it's necessary.

Among many mainstream genres, not leaving out occasionally relevant urban crossover and pop, RAP MUSIC is not only becoming more about flaunting being rich, sexist and egotistical but is increasingly becoming a bad influence on a lot of younger children while increasingly glorifying gang activity and (occasionally) recreational drug use, which, as a very morally, intellectually and spiritually aware person, concerns me a lot, and makes me question our progress as a nation and may even be only further helping to increase racial and moral tension. I do respect original artists like Kendrick Lamar who can tell a story and occasionally pit his game prowess against other rappers, tell a story, and Kendrick actually did deserve his Grammy recognition and the Pulitzer prize, no arguing that. He is speaking for a lot of older rappers who I'm sure are proud he represented them accurately, but these days mostly every other current rap artist just won't give a damn about their ignorance, and I am pretty upset, mainly about the fact that a lot of rappers, male or female, give or take have a similar rhyme and style approach but the same take on how far they've progressed and it seems like most might somehow seem to hint that they care to take hip hop's reputation in the wrong path.

Just for the record: I do enjoy rap in general and like the whole story behind it, and even find myself listening to a lot of rap - oldschool, alternative and modern - for the beat, clever and often original methods to trend-driven concept tactics to get attention (No sarcasm, The suggestive Hotline Bling by Drake got a lot of people and it worked ) Heck, even occasional urban crossover/R&B artists, especially female, do their thing pretty well and very originally; my favorites are (including those that are now defunct) Rihanna, Kehlani and Alicia Keys, as well as Lauryn Hill and (RIP) Aaliyah.

We need originality and focus on moral empowerment, not ego. As a music connoisseur and spiritually, culturally and intellectually forward person, this matters.

I am quite shameless that I hope everyone knows where I stand, because it'd be nice to know if someone's in agreement and has ideas of what could happen if we found a way to influence others positively through urban music.
Case in point.
Peace and cheers!

Only post if I agree? Hmmm... No. However, I'll limit myself to four words:
DJ Spooky
Lupe Fiasco

I don't like it either. I mean it can be a cool sounding thing, so its not the style I take issue with so much. It is mostly the content of it. Like why would I want to listen to stuff that constantly just refers to women as b*****s and hoes? I mean apparently Kanye is so meaningful to people but half his lyrics are just gross sexism. Like he has a song I looked up the lyrics for where he is kind of comforting some girl in the song...talking of how no one ever wants to listen to her and she want to do something in life. Well in the song Kanyes remedy to this womans problems is basically 'oh suck my big fat dick, she said no one listened to her...I said well suck my dick b***h' was pretty much the lyrical content. So yea regardless of if some of his songs make points about systematic racism or whatever...He's still a f*****g sexist as*hole who only sees women as assets to suck his cock rather than people.

Apparently he wants to inspire people, but I suppose that just specifically refers to males, as for women all they need to do is find a celebrity and suck his cock and they can make a living that way. But for males, yeah go for the oppurtunites and accomplish...if you're a woman just suck my cock and I might even insult you in one of my songs...that is his messege and he's apparently one of the most popular rap artists.

But yeah that is what I take issue with, I think rap can be pretty awesome but the sexism and s**t really makes it unpleasant. I mean part of why I like metal is because you usually don't get s**t like that, you get awesome guitars...maybe some over the top lyrics and ridiculous stuff. But I don't recall hearing that much overtly sexist stuff...LIke do women enjoy being called b*****s and hoes now days? Am I just behind or is it actually sexist. I mean I am never turned on by 'artists' who refer to my entire sex as b*****s and hoes. Like really are there women just lining up to be some guys b***h or hoe...like what the hell?

It is gross, like metal has got some heat for sexism which sure its a problem in this country so you will find people with sexist views in any subculture, but why not this popular rap culture? That litterally in lyrics regularly refers to women in general as b*****s and hoes. So metal is bad and sexist but all that stuff is socially acceptable...I don't get it.

I mean me and my boyfriend got profiled in a store earlier....we both had on metal t-shirts and cut off shorts. First an employee asked if we needed help....we said 'no just browsing' but then they kind of followed us around and asked again if we needed help. we went to a different section of the store and left shortly after...Not sure it made my boyfriend as uncomfortable as me. But like that's not the first time an employee has stuck around me and seemed to excessively ask if I need help. Its like hell if you think I am stealing stuff just say that, freaking hell...don't play the watch me and them pretend not to be when I look your way and then ask if I need 'help' just because I am looking at paint-brushes.

If anything its like the second time this week, last time I was taking a bus and so I had a back pack to carry my stuff. And was trying to get a snack at 7-11 and an employee was 'sneakily' but very obviously keeping an eye on me, like what the hell...certainly caused me to leave the store sooner because it creeped me out. Like what the hell if I was trying to steal stuff do you really think I would clearly walk through the front of the store to show I am in there and clearly just be looking at stuff to decide what to buy. I can just imagine it can be worse for people of obvious minorities for me its probably because of my metal t-shirt and wearing black....but for others they get profiled like that simply for their skin color. I mean seemed in that situation it was more of a classist thing, me and my boyfriend were a bit out of our area in a 'nicer' area maybe those people never saw cut off shorts or shirts with a hole or two before.

I mean s**t even in most metal if there is a bit about sex its like a verse or two not repeated lines of musical porn like kanye. "oh b***h get on my cock, my cock, my cock, my dick, my dick is the hottest thing in town, jump on my dick, my dick OMG my dick' like yo kanye how about get over your damn dick already. Even the most conroversial metal and rock musicians have done less bragging about their dick.

I mean if your cock is so special go become a porn artist, instead of posing as a musician.

Do your research. Yes the absolutely mainstream may write sexist songs, but that is a small sample size. Go on bandcamp and you will find thousands of hip hop tracks about topics that aren't sexist.

Rap Culture?

Great idea!

When are they going to have some?

Rock had a lot of misogynist elements long before rap.

When I was in grade school I hated it, mainly because of how many white suburban kids I knew were trying to act like hoodlums. For the most part it took hearing it laced into dark dnb (in my late teens/early 20's) to really start warming up to it properly and I went back for a lot of the classics - ie. Wu and related, Mobb Deep, Nas, Xzibit, A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, and it started to catch on with me.

I think the trouble you'll find with most of it - from your perspective - is that it's secular music, talking about secular life and aspirations quite often. A lot of it is talking about fierce competition from others, people backstabbing and faking for status, and having a better understanding of how pervasive dog eats dog is in the world I see where their rapping/singing about it resonates with people who deal with it day in day out in their lives anyway.

As far as spirituality in it - I'm not sure how that would work. Part of the problem is it needs to sell itself as a product, and to do so people need to be able to relate to it. If someone wanted to make properly new age inspirational hip hop and have it work the closest they could likely get is with working in some concepts in the background or hinting at it without going full blast. Wu is already loaded with Five Percenter jargon and I noticed it got to be super-common for NYC rappers to refer to each other as 'god'. There was a guy I knew actually, he's still making albums, who got quite curious about Manly P Hall, Rudolph Steiner, etc. and was listening to audiobooks on his break from work. His stuff is good but, in most ways its still pretty standard hip hop.

While it's likely true that politics is downstream from culture I don't know what spirituality is downstream from except for dire need, and our whole culture would probably need to be hit with it for inspirational music in general to get big. It sort of rhymes with what kinds of people I tend to see at tarot clubs or in various esoteric orders - not all of them but quite a few have had difficult lives and were brought to it by trial. When things are going well enough people tend to run as fast as they can in the conformity game and they rarely break free due to the immediate cost/benefit math.

What I could maybe see is something like reggae or some type of jam band concept working, ie. those genres are already open in the psychedelic sense and I'd think it's closer to that direction already with less prying the basis of the artform.

Naturally, Xian rap also exists. It gets almost no radio play, though. Unscrupulous secular rappers can basically steal their rhymes with no risk of confrontation.

There are a few like Lecrae who actually make Xian rap sound good, but yeah - it's not the most common thing most people would look for.

I also think Christian rap has improved a lot as guys who grew up on hip hop, went through the culture hook, line, and sinker came out the other side - praising Jesus - and there's nothing in that formula that would cause them to forget what good hip hop sounds like.

DISAGREE

when you say "modern rap culture" you are obviously referring to american top 20 artists (and even among them there are some deserving of praise - e.g. Childish Gambino and Kendrick Lamar)

HOWEVER,

you are forgetting that there are a number of interesting, lesser known rap artists from underground and other cultures.

two good examples are rappers such as Kenny Arkana or Caparezza, who unfortunately raps in Italian so his genius is not translated to the wider audience. I've also heard amazing japanese rappers but can't remember their names atm... when I do I shall link away.

Rap is rap is rap ... largely monolithic and homogenous in most respects. Some of it may be good; but I may never know, mainly for two reasons: (1) I have stopped actively seeking out rap, and (2) My preference is in the interplay of melody and harmony, above a solid bass line and backed by simple percussion (i.e., "Irish Traditional", "Motown", "Blues" and other real musical forms).

If a rap piece comes on the radio, I'll give it a chance; but if it's just more of the same old crap, then I'll turn down the volume or find another station.

IMHO, the term "Rap Music" is an oxymoron.