What rap have you listened to recently?
Normally, I don't listen to it, because for one, I have never really been a fan of it, two, most of the stuff that ends up here is mainstream (as you would say) and we really don't have much of anything to do with rap "culture" because Wyoming has such a low black population (the Mexican and other Hispanic descent people here listen to more country or rock then anything, and the white people here either listen to mainstream or not at all) that there really isn't any underground rap (country bands and rock bands are something else though). I may have listened to some underground stuff, but I end up listening to the mainstream stuff.
Rhythm is what hip-hop is about. I spend hours at a time cutting, chopping, editing and re-arranging drum breaks to create the best possible rhythmical patterns, the most flowing grooves, the best rhythms to fit the mood I'm trying to create in a beat.
I never said Hip-Hop did not have rhythm, and I thought we were talking about rap? Not the mixed between it and pop (that's what it is).
Melody? Why does it not have melody? The roots of hip-hop are in sampling funk and soul melodies, re-arranging, creating new ones, and people progress to create their own too. I strongly doubt you'd couldn't get hooked on some of the melodies the Roots create in their jamming sessions. Harmony, again, is just as present, both in samples and in original musicianship. Colour? Just the same.
Once again, Hip Hop is a mix of pop and rap. It does have melody, but I have never been a fan of it.
If you listen to 'Candy Shop' by 50 Cent you aren't gonna find a shining example of a well-crafted melody, but that's only a tiny element of 'hip-hop' as a musical art form. I don't decry metal as lacking in melody because I've listened to, for example, a few Slipknot songs and heard only intense roaring. I've also listened to metal bands who create brilliant melodic pieces with intense emotion and style. Same with Hip-Hop. Rap is not just 50 cent and Solja Boi. it is a musical art-form.
As I have said before, I tend to stay away from rap as much as possible, knowing only a few pieces, like "I'm the Real Slim Shady," theme song for 8 Mile, Riding Dirty, and Can't Touch This (and that's about it) because these are the only ones that I can actually stand. And don't you DARE ever say that I listen to 50 cent and others like that. I never have, and I never will. I also do not listen to Slipknot, to make such comments, you obviously think that I base everything that I "think" I know about rap and music with other people. Well, hate to break it to you, but I don't fit into those categories, never have either. But quite frankly, I thought you knew this already, I was posting my opinion, through my own expieriences with music (9 years of choir, 3 years of saxophone, 2 of piano, 1 of viola, and 1 of cello) and basing off of those, even crappy metal songs are still music, but talking into a mic with a beat in the background just doesn't cut it in my book.
