21 July 2003

Thoughts on Rap

Something has happened between yesterday and today that has made me upset. Its weird, I don't know what happened, but I feel bitter, and unhappy, and just.. blah. Its one of those things that I'm sure will go away.

My teacher for this class I'm taking, African American Music History, got distracted on this Rap music thing today.. he has a theory that says the reason we all like popular music is that if you keep feeding people crap, eventually they'll think its a gormet meal.. and the reason why we only really have crap as popular music has everything to do with money.. The fact that rap has almost only to do with basically material things has him worried as well.. he says that we should all start dealing with current things and bettering our way of life now.. he also mentioned something that amazed me.. for all the buying power that african americans have (somewhere in and around 600 billion dollars) five white men combined (bill gates for one..)have more money. Anyways.. Dr. Feelgood(which is what he calls himself) feels that the materialism of the newest rap music will fade away soon. Kind of reminds me of a discussion my father and I had a while back. It sort of goes like this:
name one old standard of rap.
you can't, can you?
Do the same for any other genre of music.
Lots easier, huh? Any genre of music that has some sort of worth has 'standards' songs that are played all the time, and I'm talking older songs, like 'Freebird' by Lynard Skynard, or 'Bridge Over Troubled Water' by Simon and Garfunkle.. There are so many for rock, and yet... the only rap song from ages ago that I still hear on the radio ever is "Summertime" by DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince... Because it still gets played the first day of school every year by WA1A in my hometown.. or at least it was when I was in high school. Consider it. Tell me if you disagree, and if you disagree, why.