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LadyEllen -> RE: Rap (8/13/2006 12:20:45 PM)
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What concerns me about these musical forms is the misogynistic, anarchistic and violent images it often portrays. If these musical forms are based on the lives of their composers, thats disappointing and something needs to be done to sort out their environments, but its understandable I guess. Whats not OK is if listeners not coming from that environment then base their lives on the themes often portrayed in these musical forms. Apart from being being lame, the white middle class kids who think "spanking up a bitch" (sic), participation in a driveby shooting or hating the law is appropriate behaviour are the ones who worry me.
This isnt particularly to do with rap/hip hop either; we had a band in the UK called the Macc Lads - basically a group of working class northern guys who preached a diet of beer and sex and chips (fries) and gravy, drinking 20 pints a night and going outside for a fight, pathological homophobia, and assuring their girlfriends they loved them because they shaxxed them. It was a reflection of their lifestyle and worldview (and also very funny) - but from them were spawned hundreds of wannabes in the south of the UK who emulated the themes of supposed northern life in the Macc Lads' songs, in order to be "real men". Neither was this harmless, just as emulating rap and hip hop themes isnt harmless.
I guess the problem is the lack of real role models and guidance, and the bland and boring nature of our modern, sanitised suburban life for the young, and especially for young men who want to prove themselves as adult males by emulating those a little senior to them. I dislike rap and hip hop, but I cant help thinking that we've brought it on ourselves with housing and economic policies that have left so many behind without hope.
Incidentally, the off the cuff composition of poetry is an ancient Germanic speciality - the ability to do so in the Viking world was the mark of a real man, so maybe these rappers are onto something!
E
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