by Patrick Sills

Created on: May 21, 2010

Let’s get something straight here right away. Rap is not music. At the risk of sounding biased, it’s a colossal waste of airspace. It further baffles the mind how this genre became so popular among the caucasian segment of the population. While it can be said that jazz, blues, and ultimately rock and roll are clearly rooted in African-American culture, there is a big difference. These genres are music. They contain melody and harmony. One must be proficient to perform it well. Put simply, one must possess talent if he or she is expected to produce a work of quality.

Rap, on the other hand, does not have this prerequisite. There is no melody; for the person speaks the lyrics as opposed to singing them. Moreover, many of the “performers, ” particularly in the 1980s and 1990s, didn’t even bother to write any musical accompaniment. Instead, they took samples of material already written and repeated it over and over with tape loops. Two example of this are MC Hammer’s “Can’t Touch This” using Rick James’ “Superfreak” riff and Vanilla Ice using Queen’s and David Bowie’s “Under Pressure:” for “Ice, Ice, Baby.”

What this amounts to is artistic theft; also known as plagiarism. Even if some rapper gets permission to use somebody else’s music, this displays a blatant lack of creativity and/or originality. Now, to be fair, this practice isn’t done very much anymore, but instead, we have Top 40 hits that incorporate rapping with pop music. The question here from this old rock musician is, “Why?”

Why not have background harmonies instead? What is it about the young generations thinking this sounds good? As a Helium author, I rate articles, too. The other day, I was reading an article about Micheal Jackson, and the writer stated that if not for him, the music of black artists would have never entered the mainstream. I disagree wholeheartedly. Many of African descent came way before Micheal Jackson was a thought. Remember Miles Davis? Duke Ellington? Chuck Berry? Little Richard? Nat King Cole?

Even long before the advent of MTV and hence Jackson’s innovative music videos or VH-1, plenty of black performers were very mainstream. Diana Ross, Stevie Wonder, the Temptations, The Four Tops, Smokey Robinson, and Aretha Franklin are just a few who come to mind. Again, the difference is that every one of these artists had talent, and moreover, their

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>