Battle of the lyricists

[Supernaut]

Does anyone over 40 seriously like rap or hip-hop?

I got into hip-hop in 1983, aged 11. Still love it and listen to it at 47.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Like it or not, it is for millions of others and possibly the most dominant form of music across the globe at the moment.

While I accept your point, it just means for me there's less music out there that I feel tempted to listen to or buy.That's a win,win situation for me.BTW check out Mickey Jupp's Modern Music on this point.

 

[MK Shrimper]

Nor for me either. Part of a long and steady decline from the golden age of popular music when literate melodists and writers like Porter, Rodgers and Hart, the Gershwins etc held sway. The early fifties characterised by inane novelty songs made it easy for the rock 'n' roll revolution mid decade. A few brief interludes of musicality since then such as the bossa nova movement but popular (by now 'pop' music) has gradually shrunk to a minority interest irrelevat tomost people's lives, sadly.

I really don't know how to reply to this post. To me, it's wrong on every level. I guess it's an age thing.

 

[Supernaut]

I really don't know how to reply to this post. To me, it's wrong on every level. I guess it's an age thing.

Completely agree MK - nobody's ever going to convince me that the likes of Stormzy or Skepta aren't an integral part of the lives of their fans at least as much, if not more so, than the pop stars of any previous generation you care to name. And on a more general level, I believe that popular music means as much to kids today as it always has, and thank God it does. My daughter is obsessed with K-Pop - I mean utterly obsessed. To the point that she's taught herself basic Korean. I've always considered my teenage self to be the ultimate music obsessive, but my daughter and her friends are taking it to new levels.

 

[blues exile]

I really don't know how to reply to this post. To me, it's wrong on every level. I guess it's an age thing.

Not just an age thing. It's about musicality and literate, coherent, structured lyrics. And popular music didn't used to be about one generation but every generation. When I was a kid my grandparents knew the same songs as my parents and my siblings, all part of the same cultural heritage.

 

[Supernaut]

Not just an age thing. It's about musicality and literate, coherent, structured lyrics.

Plenty of current artists are creating music that's literate with coherent, structured lyrics. If you can't appreciate that then it's most definitely an age ting mi blud.

 

[Ricky Otto]

Some hip hop is pure poetry! But the lyrics are just the tip of the iceberg, there are some amazing producers that give a rhythm to that poetry that puts it up there with any other genre IMO. Get the lyrics and flow of someone like Q-Tip and the jazz sampling of Ali Shaheed Muhammad and you get the genius of TCQ. Hip hop has unbelievable depth for those willing to scratch the surface.

 

[MK Shrimper]

Not just an age thing. It's about musicality and literate, coherent, structured lyrics. And popular music didn't used to be about one generation but every generation. When I was a kid my grandparents knew the same songs as my parents and my siblings, all part of the same cultural heritage.

My daughter (8) knows the same Beatles songs as her dad (48) and her grandparents (mid 70s & early 80s).

And some of the stuff she listens too is ****e to my ears - and thats how it should be. Every generation should have their own musical heroes not just an almagam of what's gone before or we'd all be listening to Mozart & Greensleeves.

 

[blues exile]

Plenty of current artists are creating music that's literate with coherent, structured lyrics. If you can't appreciate that then it's most definitely an age ting mi blud.

Your last few words definitely are!?

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Some hip hop is pure poetry! But the lyrics are just the tip of the iceberg, there are some amazing producers that give a rhythm to that poetry that puts it up there with any other genre IMO. Get the lyrics and flow of someone like Q-Tip and the jazz sampling of Ali Shaheed Muhammad and you get the genius of TCQ. Hip hop has unbelievable depth for those willing to scratch the surface.

Can't say I've heard of him.But this sort of reminds me when Ron Carter refused to change his acoustic bass for an electric to fit in with Miles Davis's last records.According to MD "after all they're the same notes". Ron Carter wisely resisted.I'll be seeing him again on Sunday.

 

[Ricky Otto]

It's like receiving hate mail written with poison pens
Sinking in red letters piling up under the chin
Swimming in British Gas, Council Tax and Thames Water
British Telecom letters backdated from last quarter go
'Dear Mr. O, from our records it shows
Your bills are overdue, so you need to pay what you owe
Please send me the payment, for the full amount
By cash, cheque, direct debit or budget account, now
However, if you've already paid ignore the letter
If you don't pay up in seven days we'll send the debt collectors'
I get, one red letter after one red letter. On the regs, I thought I showed you my queens head. So I reply asking them to give me a bligh, try to buy myself some time before they restrict my supply. Some say crime pays in numerous ways, the temptation is great but I don't want to fall prey.

If they aren't intelligent lyrics I don't know what is

 

[blues exile]

Can't say I've heard of him.But this sort of reminds me when Ron Carter refused to change his acoustic bass for an electric to fit in with Miles Davis's last records.According to MD "after all they're the same notes". Ron Carter wisely resisted.I'll be seeing him again on Sunday.

Now there's a musician.

 

[Napster]

Just adore Charlie 2na's voice.

I know you mean Chali not Charlie.

he's very distinctive, like

I got into hip-hop in 1983, aged 11. Still love it and listen to it at 47.

44 now and still listen to it but not so keen on the trap rap which my eldest likes

 

[Napster]

Some hip hop is pure poetry! But the lyrics are just the tip of the iceberg, there are some amazing producers that give a rhythm to that poetry that puts it up there with any other genre IMO. Get the lyrics and flow of someone like Q-Tip and the jazz sampling of Ali Shaheed Muhammad and you get the genius of TCQ. Hip hop has unbelievable depth for those willing to scratch the surface.

Low End Theory is the best album of the 90s and is still great.,

 

[Firestorm]

Not just an age thing. It's about musicality and literate, coherent, structured lyrics. And popular music didn't used to be about one generation but every generation. When I was a kid my grandparents knew the same songs as my parents and my siblings, all part of the same cultural heritage.

I was thinking about this the other day as I listened to Slade Alive.
That Album is 47 years old, I can't imagine that when that Album was released many were listening to music from 1925 ......

As for the popular songs issue, My Parents , becoming Teenagers towards the end of the war , didn't have access to the breadth of music I had in the 60's , let alone today , They certainly knew the same songs as their parents , and probably not that many more .

Generally the over 20's will know their parents songs as that's all they heard growing , until they were old enough to get record players etc of their own. The Younger generation have access to their own choice at a much earlier age so may not be quite as exposed to dad playing his old stuff.

At my daughters wedding a couple of years ago we did the father and bride dance thing, to Eton Rifles... solely her choice , it reminded her of her childhood and Dad playing it in the car .....

 

[MK Shrimper]

Pop music changed so quickly in the 60s/70s/80s. It's been fairly static since the mid 90s IMHO, like it or loathe it, Britpop was the last and probably final youth movement and that was just the late 60s recycled. I guess everything has been done.

 

[Another Surrey Shrimper]

Ha! Can't say it really interests me apart from some attempted fusions I've heard between blues and rap.After all we're not talking about scat here,so when exactly it kicked off seems rather irrelevant to me.What I'm questioning is whether it's an art form or not?

Here is something you may like, jazz but massively influenced by hip hop.

 

[Ricky Otto]

Pop music changed so quickly in the 60s/70s/80s. It's been fairly static since the mid 90s IMHO, like it or loathe it, Britpop was the last and probably final youth movement and that was just the late 60s recycled. I guess everything has been done.

Not sure I agree. I can't say I'm into it but Trap is a different genre evolved from rap with synthesizer vocals and the kids love it. Plus you had grime. Probably, like me, you don't really have you finger on the pulse but when my step son Dylan wants to listen to Trap stuff in the car it does have it's own "sound" that is distinct and different.

 

[Napster]

Pop music changed so quickly in the 60s/70s/80s. It's been fairly static since the mid 90s IMHO, like it or loathe it, Britpop was the last and probably final youth movement and that was just the late 60s recycled. I guess everything has been done.

You're wrong of course. It's all about trap rap, and mumble rap. That is the youth movement now grandad.

 

[Napster]

Not sure I agree. I can't say I'm into it but Trap is a different genre evolved from rap with synthesizer vocals and the kids love it. Plus you had grime. Probably, like me, you don't really have you finger on the pulse but when my step son Dylan wants to listen to Trap stuff in the car it does have it's own "sound" that is distinct and different.

Good minds and all that. I dont see the appeal but then it's a generational thing,