I don't know much about the Jonas Brothers. My son really likes them, and I probably should spend some time listening to their music. I'm pretty sure I won't like them, but who can really tell? Since I don't know much about the Jonas Brothers, and I don't really listen to the Jonas Brothers, I generally try not to blog about the Jonas Brothers. There is a good reason for not writing about things you don't know. You run the risk of writing something like this:
As for me, I don't care what color you are, if you're a kid who listens to hip-hop, I don't want my kids playing with you. I want my kids to have consciences that find hip-hop's lyrical content and themes repulsive. Which is to say, I want my kids to have a strong and uncompromising sense of character.Rod Dreher has been very complimentary of me in the past. I appreciate this, because we live on two different sides of ideological divide and also because I find his blog to be an interesting read, and generally absent to the sort of sweeping, absolutist, all-encompassing rhetoric that is evident in the above quote. I don't really know how to address the implicit charge that kids who listen to hip-hop don't have a "strong and uncompromising sense of character," since, uhm, I was one of those kids, and presently, my son--and basically every kid he knows--is one of those kids.
You guys know me well. I'm an old-head who has only a tangential connection to what is considered hip-hop today. There is no Akon on my Ipod. I haven't bought a Jay-Z joint since The Black Album. I missed large swaths of Cam'Ron's career. I'm old, and I accept that. I'm also bitter. I believe that hip-hop's once great literary promise basically hit a ceiling circa 1996. Moreover, as art-form, hip-hop's machismo has plagued it from jump, crippling it's ability to deal with the opposite sex with any real sense of maturity. I have no desire to hear about ejaculating on a woman's back. But I was 12 when Ice-T recorded "Girls, Let's Get Butt Naked And Fuck," and I hated that too.
But I don't know what I would be had I never heard The Low End Theory or By All Means Necessary. I came up in the Crack Age--and in those days, the loudest, most relevant, most coherent voices against drugs and violence didn't emanate from Washington, or from the Universities, or from the NAACP, but from the street. When Chuck told us to "build ourselves with intellect," when he went Booker T. Washington, and instructed us "to evolve to self-respect\cause we gotta keep ourselves in check," it changed my life. As a conservative, I'd think Rod would appreciate that critique.
That was twenty years ago. These days hip-hop has so infused itself into American culture, that you would have to go to the moon to not listen to it in some respect. Rod is riffing off of Stanley Crouch column which breaks new ground in Crouch's infinite quest to be completely incomprehensible. The column lays out hope that Obama will lead black people away from the pernicious influence of hip-hop. This despite the fact that Obama listens to hip-hop and had Nas campaigning for him.
I hear the president elect rocks a little Jay-Z, but truthfully, he doesn't even have to go there. These days there are white rappers, black rappers, French rappers, gospel rappers, Republican operative rappers, cowboy rappers, Ivy League intellectual rappers, and even snobbish Jazz trumpet rappers. We've had rappers who sound like John Wayne. And rappers who sound like Barack Obama. We have characters in High School Musical who are in love with breaking and hip-hop. And soon, it seems, even the Jonas Brothers will be doing hip-hop. Which means, Rod wouldn't want his kids playing with Barack Obama's kids.
Fine by me. More time and space, for me to work on that arranged marriage for Samori and Sasha. In the meanwhile, I'm off to cop that A Little Bit Longer joint. Maybe there's something to these Jonas kids...
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
I remember when my dad gave me grief about listening to De La Soul. I'm talking about the early "3 Feet High and Rising" form of De La, not the blatantly insecure reinvented version that occured after "Stakes is High".
I don't really know how to address the implicit charge that kids who listen to hip-hop don't have a "strong and uncompromising sense of character," since, uhm, I was one of those kids, and presently, my son--and basically every kid he knows--is one of those kids.
I can tell you how I'd address it, which is that Dreher doesn't actually know anything about the huge variety that exists inside a very influential genre. The lazy (and somewhat racist) view is that hip-hop is all about bling, misogyny,and drugs. That's the equivalent of saying that country music is all about beer, misogyny and pickup trucks, or that heavy metal is about satanism and misogyny. See what I mean? Anyone can play that lazy game.
But Dreher isn't interested in actually delving into the variety that hip-hop (or any other genre, for that matter) encompasses. He's looking to make a point that conveniently hammers black artists while ignoring the fact that white artists working in different genres are saying much the same thing, if in slightly more socially acceptable ways.
Considering some of the heinous people and actions that Rod Dreher has supported, I'd say you don't want your kids anywhere near his so-called "uncompromising sense of character." His whole world-view is a disgusting compromise.
I've read his stuff, too, and he just can't help writing this sort of thing. Sad, really.
What an unspeakably small-minded and cruel way of approaching fatherhood. I hope his children find a way to experience the world as it is.
In Cape Verde, funana was banned by the Portuguese colonizers at the turn of the twentieth century because it was associated with dirty dancers, free blacks with an attitude, and social protest. Before that, Africans in Cape Verde weren't even allowed to play drums.
Read Toni Morrison's Jazz, and you get the impression that maybe Duke Ellington or those like him played society subverting music. In the Congo a guy named Wendo Kolosoy, who just died, in the late 1940s put out a song called Marie Jose that got people dancing in a sexy way, and he was put to jail for it, but that song changed forever the way popular music was played in tropical Africa. Among whites, Elvis and Mick Jagger were the devil.
The problems with hip hop are these:
as with techno, it often lacks the timbre of real musical instrumentation; like all popular music it is as often as not boringly predictable, both musically and lyrically; often even when the lyrics are slick, in the sense that they use all sorts of tropes effectively, the meaning is vacant; similarly character is replaced by bluster. The question of whether the illusions of love in earlier popular music or the cold blooded sexuality of hip hop, the idealization or degradation of women, might be worthy of an all female discussion. But God knows if one were to listen to country music only, one would get the impression that every relationship on earth is wildly dysfunctional and tawdry; perhaps some would never ever want to venture there; some kids listening might fear the worst if they heard mama and papa arguing.
Parents just don't understand...
If you hate it, fine. But it seems weird for a self-styled cultural commentor to wall himself off from this enormous, vital area of modern culture.
But then I remind myself that Dreher is a conservative cultural commentor, and I think saying that New Things Stink is the main part of that particular job.
I would like to second what Incertus (Brian) said. I have known a lot of people who criticize all hip-hop for "drugs, misogyny, and violence," and yet love to rock out to Guns' n' Roses' "Appetite for Destruction" (to use but one example).
I wonder what genre of popular music Rod Dreher would find acceptable, using the standards he applies to hip-hop. Rock music would certainly fail the test, since there are many songs in this genre contain lyrics and themes that are repugnant to religious conservatives (that's why God invented Christian rock). However, country & western music would fail this test too, considering how many country & western songs deal with themes such as adultery, and considering how many of today's country & western singers make appeals to sexuality that are as overt as the ones made by many rock and hip-hop performers.
Guess I won't be getting an invite to hang with Dreher any time soon.
These days there are white rappers, black rappers, French rappers, gospel rappers, Republican operative rappers, cowboy rappers, Ivy League intellectual rappers, and even snobbish Jazz trumpet rappers.
Don't forget Afghan rappers. Regardless of what one thinks of the war, the fact that Afghan youth can now publicly listen to and create hip hop has been a sign of progress for a country in which all music was completely banned under the Taliban.
Now they, too, must endure their elders' complaints about their lack of "a strong and uncompromising sense of character" because of their music.
His grandfather wrote the same thing about Charlie Parker.
Dreher's comments are interesting to me, in that as a strong defender of religion, he is usually quite good at rebuffing those who want to portray all religious folk as intolerant bigots... and yet, here he goes being an intolerant bigot when it comes to a subject that he knows, I would wager, relatively little about.
In any case, what more interested me about this post was the claim that you would "have to go to the moon" to not be influenced by Hip-Hop somehow in today's American culture.
I can tell you, that this statement is just not true. I, as a long-time, upstanding, member of goth-industrial alternative college 90's radio grunge white-boy crackerdom... have absolutely no idea about hip hop at all. My last taste of anything resembling it was Eazy-E's "Radio" and that was the extent of my exposure.
As it stands, I don't listen to the radio or watch TV and instead am a member of one of the multitude of various musical subcultures that exist in this country. Perhaps this is the equivalent of "going to the moon".. but in this day and age of easy music distribution over the internent--I think it's quite easy to avoid large swathes of popular culture that don't move you..
ps-I'm definitely not trying to cast any aspersions at hip-hop.. but I can admit that whenever I do hear it (hey, my stepkids seem to like it when they listen to the radio) I can say that it really doesn't do much for me.. It all seems so repetitive without much real musicality behind it.. Perhaps you could enlighten me with richer and more thoughtful hip-hop artist selections, but I do wonder if I'm just too different in my cultural tastes..
And I should stop listening to old-school punk because some asshole skinheads (is there really any other kind other than the asshole variety?) created a sub-genre? Saying an entire genre is degenerate because a few morons hijacked a small section of it is just crap.
"I wonder what genre of popular music Rod Dreher would find acceptable, using the standards he applies to hip-hop."
Well, Jonas Brothers would probably qualify. Wholesome and family-friendly and all that. But other than that, probably just classical music and other stuff with no lyrics at all. (Please, please no blogging about Jonas Brothers here, TNC, have some mercy!).
I think it's a requirement for conservative writers to say something bad about hip hop at least once a year, otherwise they'll lose their conservative cred or something.
I'm a fan of country music, but the amount of lyrics about adultery and your lyin' cheatin' heart is just astounding.
As long as we're talking about music, Radiohead is nominated for the Grammy. And they even have a song about adultery and key party. Go figure.
Tric:
"In any case, what more interested me about this post was the claim that you would "have to go to the moon" to not be influenced by Hip-Hop somehow in today's American culture. I can tell you, that this statement is just not true."
That's not exactly what I wrote:
"These days hip-hop has so infused itself into American culture, that you would have to go to the moon to not listen to it in some respect."
You really would have a hard time being a kid today and not listening to any hip-hop--which is what Rod said. I mean, it's in the commercials for McDonalds. It's more than 50 Cent now. For better. And worse.
Dreher's kids are too busy playing with my kids to play with your kids, TNC.
Are we still having this conversation? I'm sure that catholics in the 16th century probably thought that "A mighty fortress is our god" was subversive and didn't want their kids hanging out with anyone who listened to "Protestant Music."
Give over.
Well, Jonas Brothers would probably qualify. Wholesome and family-friendly and all that
Not anymore! As TNC pointed out they are delving into the evil hippity-hoppity genre!
Wow. What an unbelievably ignorant quote from Dreher. Well, freely translated from "Freundeskreis": But hip-hop is something so very positive.
Why would any parents object to lyrics such as these, quoted from Blackalicious' "First in Flight"? I play that stuff to my students to make them feel empowered and stimulate their love for language (so subversive):
"FREE! Like a bird out in the wind in the night
Like a 747 to LA that's in flight
FREE! Like a garden flourishing in the wind
Like a student bout to do it when he's graduatin
FREE! From any of the energy perception
Can never be defined create the definition within
FREE! Just lovin life itself and never pretend to be
Anything other than the man I was meant to be
Travel through time and get a glimpse of the centuries
To come a better day is promised remember
FREE! Like my nephew in a few months about to be out the penitentiary
Meditation [repeated 9X]"
Well said, but re: the PE quotes-- I wouldn't concede too much to the philistinism that confuses musical depth and interest with moral propriety. As a lover of poetry, I think you get this.
Dreher's kids are probably listening to hip-hop as we speak. They probably hide their Ludicris albums in Jonas Brothers cases. Duh. While my parents probably weren't as strict as Dreher, there was stuff they wouldn't allow me to listen to when I was 10 or 11. I still owned 'Ready to Die.' I still owned 'Illmatic.' I still owned '36 Chamber.' Dreher is kidding himself.
Lets be for real for a minute, Dreher put that in his post precisely to attract attention to himself. As Coates pointed out unless his kids never listen to ANY music and never watch ANY TV he will have no way of keeping them from hip hop. Besides the fact that every cool kid group has some rap in it now, even if its a collabo. The Jonas Brothers will have a cameo from lil Wayne soon enough. That goes all the way back to Run DMC and Aerosmith doing "Walk this Way".
But then again Bill O'Reilly thought that if you go to any nice black restaurant people will be yelling out "hey muthaphucka" all night long so maybe Dreher really is just that ignorant of reality.
http://mediamatters.org/items/200709260005
tricstmr,
You may not personally be influenced by it, but I'd be really surprised if the musicians you listen to haven't been in some small way, even if it's only to rebel against it. Musicians often find inspiration in the places their fans would least expect.
'36 Chambers,' that is.
Reading your post reminded me of "Self Destruction" playing over and over again on the Box...
And I recall my young counsciouness beng somewhat shocked the first couple times I listened to doggystyle. I got over it though!
This is the kind of empty-headed labeling that leads to kids listening to the drivel that comes out of the Disney factory.
Yes, the Jonas Brothers, Hannah Montana, and the whole High School Musical gang are non-threatening, age-appropriate, and sing songs that include no sex or violence in them, but there's also no thought in them whatsoever. Do you really want your teenagers listening to shit that will not challenge them in any way, and will not encourage them to think for themselves?
Come warm on Brian’s back
(but congealing),
I left his flat
(that sunken feeling);
the scratch of spattered
blood on my back brought back his bleeding.
You don’t like that?
Here on this battered sphere
every breath
catches you, snatches us
closer to death:
we are always leaving.
So why cry
when I stop you breathing?
Jaya
Don't forget that Hannah Montana aint so innocent any more and the chick from Cheetah Girls has some bucket naked pics on the net. All those holy rollers should always remember that at one point Britney Spears was seen as safe and wholesome.
How is that working out?
Clearly the answer is that everyone needs to listen to Sigur Ros
Well, Patagonia, I don't know if that's the only thing people should listen to. But you're correct, everyone should be listening to Sigur Ros.
Sigur Ros is overrated. There, I've said it. I think I'm pretty safe, none of my Sigur Ros-worshipping friends frequent this blog.
Stacy, patagonia,
I'm sorry, but I'm not allowing my imaginary 7-year old play with your (imaginary?) 7-year old that listens to Sigur Ros. He/she scares me.
People like Crouch make it too easy for people like Dreher, who require a shortcut to think and talk about hip hop. If your first-hand depth of knowledge of a subject is too shallow to cover your ankles, you probably shouldn't be writing about it. As Dreher proves, you will only embarrass yourself.
That said, TNC, I don't see your PE example persuading people like Dreher. Conservative hip hop haters existed well before the art form's decline, and I don't recall many of them making exceptions in their rhetoric for PE, or ATCQ, or The Roots. Nor can I see people like Dreher sitting down with a copy of "It Takes a Nation of Millions" and an open mind. They don't like the music, the sound of it, the aesthetic, any thing about it, and it's too foreign, too apart from anything they've ever experienced to click with them in any way. It's virtually impossible to convince these people that hip hop has value. It's as if it's written in a code they can't even see, and all the evidence they can (or are willing to) see tells them otherwise.
To TNC and Incertus (Brian)..
Thanks for the responses.. Some more thoughts.
1. Specifically to TNC.. Related to the children--I agree--that as a kid today, it would probably be pretty hard to avoid hip-hop.. I probably misunderstood your intent with that statement--I thought you were referring to everyone.. and I bet that most anyone over age 40 can avoid hip-hop entirely through musical choice and tastes.. well, perhaps not entirely, but I'm pretty sure that my Parents (boomers) could not even begin to tell you one thing about hip-hop...
2. To Incertus.. Perhaps you are right.. but I'm not so sure.. I'll give you a list of some of my favorite and most listened to musical artists:
NIN (I know trent is familiar with hip-hop, but his music doesn't show that at all..)
This Morn Omina (Rhythmic-tribal-powernoise from Belgium)
Covenant (Swedish industrial band)
Shiny Toy Guns (pop-alternative)
Melotron (lyrical German EBM)
Neuroticfish (harder German EBM)
I:Scintilla (Chicago style rock-industrial)
Juno Reactor (English tribal-rhythmic--think music from the Matrix movies 2 & 3)
Sensuous Enemy (Dark gothic Electronica)
Goldfrapp (Sexy British Electronica)
Rotersand (Dancy German Electronica/EBM)
Skinny Puppy (Wouldn't even know where to begin to describe them..)
These are all the most recent artists showing up on my own playlists.. and very little about their music seems to have anything to do with hip-hop.. I also listen to older stuff--such as Ministry, Lard, Stabbing Westward, Led Zeppelin, Depeche Mode, and some others.. but they either predate most hip-hop or have nothing in common with it..
More generally.. most of my musical tastes fall into the category of goth/industrial, and I can state, not without some regret, that this is a pretty damn white subculture. I've rarely known or met many African Americans who liked to goth out or come dance to stompy German music... which I find sad.. but such is life..
Perhaps this situation is because I've never really enjoyed most trends in pop culture and always found myself more at home in subcultures.. and I just didn't happen to have much in common with the early hip-hop subculture that grew out of the late 1980's, early 1990's.. I did grow up in Evanston, IL, which seems to have its connections to early "house music".. but it just wasn't my scene...
Now seems like an appropriate time for a bit of wisdom from the great Bill Hicks (RIP):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRkA6zugNMQ
Play from your fucking heart, indeed.
Fair enough, peep. I'd probably be a little creeped out if a 7 year old truly enjoyed Sigur Ros. My kid will listen to nothing but Jackie Wilson until he/she is 8 or 9. And that's just because no one can listen to Jackie Wilson without Jackei Wilson at Sing-Sing, and there would cease to be fights.
@PeterGuillam:
I'm a huge SR fan but I agree that some of the adulation goes a bit too far (they are still great, though). I was referencing them because they were the most innocuous band I could think of at the time.
@peep:
Imaginary, indeed. Otherwise I have quite the surprise heading my way.
Sorry, two sentences in my post got deleted. I was trying to say that Jackie Wilson puts everyone in a good mood, includeing prisoners.
Includeing=Including
I think I need to take the rest of the day off. Got one of those dreaded two day hangovers...
Peter,
Maybe Sigur Ros only seems overrated to you because you have a number of friends that worship them. I think they are pretty accurately rated, although I know these dicussions are nearly impossible to have. But you're right, I do know people that like them a bit more than what's considered healthy...
These days there are white rappers, black rappers, French rappers, gospel rappers, Republican operative rappers, cowboy rappers, Ivy League intellectual rappers, and even snobbish Jazz trumpet rappers.
TNC, your geek-cred is about to be revoked. No mention of the LHC rap?
@ patagonia,
Heh. They belong in that category of "band people love to hate because some people worship them too much". I would put Radiohead in the same category, except, I actually love Radiohead, so, no go.
Sorry to be cutting in so late in the thread...but one thing struck me...Dreher, Crouch, bill what's his face....they all have this weird idea about Obama, that he's some sort of real life incarnation of Carlton from fresh prince in bel-air...well...they expected carlton, and got Will...
Now Obama, hung out with ludacris...he says he's gonna invite artists to the white house....i would just love to have Mos and Nas up in there, with cup of yak in each hand, puffing cubans and giving obama tips on his jump-shot...not that he would need it...but drehers face would fall off!! Not that it would happen, but i'm just saying...what a scene...
@PeterGuillam:
I agree that there are those who don't like it solely because others do, but I also think SR is a harder band to appreciate than most. It's sung in Icelandic falsetto and they don't even come close to your standard verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus musical constructs. It's not for everyone, that's for sure. But if there is some amazing music in there. E.g., I know Hoppipolla is the cliche song to like but I don't think I would ever get tired of that piano.
Ok ill admit it, Ive never heard of Sigur Ros. Ill be over here in my corner of shame.
@sqwhiteinfla:
It's like classical meets Phillip Glass meets Bjork - that's about the best way I can describe it. Their most popular song is probably Hoppipolla but they have songs with harder beats like Me Blonasir and longer classical pieces like Ara Batur (and lots in the middle). You can find many of their songs and official videos on YouTube.
Okay, since this thread has been almost completely hijacked by the Sigur Ros discussion, allow me to chime in and say they have been my second favorite favorite band (Tool is #1) since I purchased "()" on a whim back in late 2002. I still think that's probably the best album I own. Never get tired of it.
I don't know about Dreher, but Dick Cheney's favorite band is Skrewdriver.
My black 13 year old son favors rock, metal, even Frank Sinatra. I am 38 year old woman and tell my kid to put on blast Lil Wayne( the only current hip-hop album I enjoy) on the weekends when I am doing my cleaning:)
"Moreover, as art-form, hip-hop's machismo has plagued it from jump, crippling it's ability to deal with the opposite sex with any real sense of maturity. I have no desire to hear about ejaculating on a woman's back."
But isn't it true that a lot of art forms have been "corrupted" to some degree after their peak in popularity? Everyone tries their bit at it, and industry comes in and provides opportunity in their efforts to those "artists" in an effort to commercialize. So inevitably we end up having to discount that shit and look for the really good stuff. It's the same with other forms of music---rock n roll to country to jazz---as well as other art forms...film, painting, etcetera. There are crude forms of watercolor, bad versions of abstract, cheap forms of jazz. That doesn't translate into watercoloring becoming a lost art, or abstract painting, or jazz---or hip hop--- losing it's appeal. It's just what happens when art forms mature.
It's unfortunate, but hip hop as an art form isn't diminished one bit by bad artists or the industry. The true representation of the art form lives on, it's just harder to find (sad, but it happens with everything).
It's sung in Icelandic falsetto and they don't even come close to your standard verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus musical constructs.
Speaking as a post-rock listener, my ambivalence to Sigur Ros doesn't come down to either song structure or the Fons's voice. I've forgotten what about them turned me off, but I haven't bothered listening to them since ().
@ Leee
Maybe you like them at first but then was turned off because you're surrounded by fans of theirs who are freaking annoying about their undying love for the band?
Hmm. A little bit of projection on my part. Never mind. Moving along.
"I still think that's probably the best album I own. Never get tired of it."
Better than Aenima?
@PeterGuillam
That's actually not a bad guess; someone online referred to "Sveng Englar" (or something, from the naked alien angel album) as the "itchy woo" song, and it virtually ruined SR for me.
It's unfortunate, but hip hop as an art form isn't diminished one bit by bad artists or the industry. The true representation of the art form lives on, it's just harder to find (sad, but it happens with everything).
QFT except that I'd add that only the pompously misguided would try to separate the English from the Dutch, since people are stupid and can't tell good from bad art, ever. Genres don't have a true essence and are defined by their totalities, for good or bad, though the which artists that influence the course of their genres depends more on fortune and circumstance than a simple "good/bad" designation. What's more, genres really aren't static, but constantly evolving and cross-pollinating with other genres. QED: Listeners who try to plump for generic purity are musical creationists.
OMG case of the Mondays: "though which artists influence the course of their genres"
I liked Sigur Ros' first big album, but () sounded too much like Yanni and I've never gone back.
The truth of the matter is that the more you ever expected of hiphop, the more disappointed you are with what it has become. And anybody who has ambitions above middle class, which I take as something of a given for people who would bother to read The Atlantic rather than just Time, you have to seriously discount, as TC suggests, the past 12 years.
As a Conservative who has written and performed doper hiphop lyrics than 99% of the masses who consume anything resembling flow, it is in this nexus and context that the dismissal of suckas is plainly legit. Again as with IceT vs SouljaBoy you have simply GOT to know that the battle against hiphop is also the same as the battle within hiphop - and there are certain sentiments that simply don't flow inside the aegis of the artform. That has everything to do with the direction that artists themselves go - and I'm hard hard hard pressed to recognize any of these pop suckas who are living any sort of large life from which wisdom proceeds. Given the chance they'd all want to still be posing in videos with Ookie.
Which is to say this. Any hiphop joint from Prince, and you know he drops 'em, is 99/100 of the time going to be better than what you get out of a 'hiphop artist'. Same thing with Branford.
Hiphop is not owned by hiphop - the talent and the spirit is all outsourced and it's a part-time occupation of full time musicians. Hiphop in and of itself is degenerate American pop music calibrated not for low end theory but low end consumption by and for people who like to be low low low low low low low.
You know you're in for a doozy when you hear
Anything you hear after that will require a shower. Same with "I know it's not 'politically correct,' but..."; "I'm not a racist, but..." and "As Steve Sailer said..."@Leee
Agreed. I probably should not have said "one bit" (of course the bad shit alters it). I guess I really meant that the bad forms of any art has trends that come and go; the breakthrough artists that really advance the art form are the ones remembered...ultimately.
Stacy - That's a tough call. I know if I had to pick five "Desert Island Discs" both "( )"--which, incidentally, sounds nothing at all like Yanni--and "Aenima" would be among the five.
I don't care what anybody says, hip hop is still putting out classics. Its just that the FOCUS is on bullsh!t right now. But like I said in another post, were the Fat Boys exactly ground breaking compared to say Lupe Fiasco? And yet they ruled the mid 80s. Who didn't want to be the human beat box? Yeah we have some straight commercial "rappers" now who bring down the genre but that is just a small section of hip hop that mostly north east coast cats use to justify why they are criticizing the state of hip hop. For one thing we still have some of the masters of the craft like Brad Jordan. For another thing we have hip hop cats creating whole new genres. Remember Nelly with the sing songy country rappin? Hell look at Gnarls Barkly. That an example of some crossover hip hop that wasnt gangster or misogonystic but still was commercially successful. Look at the Black Eyed Peas. Look at Common. Look at Mos Def. Now me personally I love all kinds of hip hop. There is nothing you are looking for that you can't find in somebody's hip hop song in my opinion. Maybe you won't find it on the radio, and maybe you won't find it on BET but its still there. If anybody ever wants to go artist for artist from old school rap to now I would love to engage that argument and I am pretty sure that the new cats can hold their own.
I'm gonna say it: there is not. There is not something to the Jonas Bros. If their halftime performance on Thanksgiving was any indication, anyway.
@ Katai
Thank you! I was going to say it, but I was thinking that maybe that makes me as close-minded as Dreher here.
"If anybody ever wants to go artist for artist from old school rap to now I would love to engage that argument and I am pretty sure that the new cats can hold their own."
I would love to see someone take you up on that. Maybe TNC will give it a try. I despise all forms of nostalgia. People always think that shit was better back in the day, even though it hardly ever is. We just stop paying as close attention. I definitely fall in that trap at times as well.
I don't care what anybody says, hip hop is still putting out classics.
--sgwhiteinfla
People always think that shit was better back in the day
--Stacy
What they said.
Samori and Sasha Obama Coates. nice!
Hip-hop is scarcely music at all. You can have a classic rap song that has no melody, harmony or development. The motif can be sampled from the work of real musicians, the kind who can actually play instruments, who know what a friggin' key is, who can play by ear over chord changes. This is why TNC compares it to poetry instead of other musical forms. Rap is a twenty-five century regression to Greek chants - with worse wardrobes.
Have I listened to it? Yes, and some of it I've enjoyed. I've also eaten McDonald's recently, too. But I didn't mistake it for Thanksgiving dinner.
You have a very, very narrow definition of hip-hop.
effluvium
That after taste you have in your mouth isn't Mcdonalds, its called HATERADE!
but you are entitled to your opinion
ed writes: "Anything you hear after that will require a shower. Same with "I know it's not 'politically correct,' but..."; "I'm not a racist, but..." and "As Steve Sailer said...""
I'm happy to see that the Atlantic site has now become a Sailer-free zone, now that a certain right-wing Voice has removed the odious Sailer's site from his bloglist. Maybe there's hope for the GOP after all.
sgwhiteinfla - I love Mos Def, but holmes hasn't done a good album in ten years. I saw him twice lsat year, and he was awful live. Common is still rockin it, but he's getting up there too. Kweli is treading water. Kanye's too busy trying to be Mary J. Nas is still ok, Ghostface is still putting out good stuff. I never thought he'd be the WuTanger with legs. The Roots are the house band for Jimmy Fallon (blghghghwfeghg). The thing is, all the people have been around for awhile.
I scarcely listen to hip hop anymore, but when I do it's edgier stuff that gets minimal play, like MF Doom and Madlib. Madlib did some killer production on Badu's last joint. Did a nice album for Kweli too. Cadence Weapon, from Canada, does some interesting stuff. Then again, I rock J Dilla beats on the daily, shit never gets old.
Sadly, lyricism has been lacking since Puff made it monetarily feasible to be shitty rapper. Like TNC said, circa 1996.
70 comments and no one has even thought to bring up nerdcore hip-hop? When you can have guys rapping about subjects ranging from the Lord of the Rings to cryptography to Boba Fette, the genre has become pretty broad. And any statements made about hip-hop as a whole get rather dubious.
@ tricstmr: try listening to Goth Girls by MC Frontalot sometime. You'll probably find it amusing.
I guess Rod's kids will have to skip Mozart too, what with all that ass-licking.
I wonder if conservatives realize how many black and young people they lose when they write stuff like this? Not not just criticism of rap--everyone from Immortal Technique to Ice T to Nas is in on that these days. If he'da just stuck to ripping on MTV vids he'd be fine. But Rod's entire short-sighted, ignorant stereotyping; its obvious Rod hasn't done the research on hip-hop, otherwise he'd be addressing the complexities of the genre (mainstream vs underground, lyrical and instrumental music, American as opposed to international, the party people juxtaposed to the social activists, etc.). Instead he's just lumping in ALL those people, sub genres, agendas, backgrounds, and calling it crap. Tsk. We KNOW when we're being stereotyped by old crotchety borderline racists, thanks muchly.
Andrew Fly
Sorry but I can roll with any of these cats at any time and the all spit hot fiya!
Jadakiss
Andre 3000
Ceelo Green
Beanie Siegel
Ghostface
Jay Z
Luda
TI
Lupe Fiasco
Kanye
Eminem
Game
Talib Kweli
Bun B
Nas
Juelz Santana
Common
Xzibit
Chamillionaire
Busta Rhymes
Fabolous
Pitbull
Rick Ross
Sheek Louch
Thanks all for the exhaustive list of hip-hop's diversity. I'm a 30 year old woman who grew up on hiphop and like T-NC am still partial to that mid-90's flair... but it takes effort to keep ourselves young. The teenagers are gonna keep re-inventing music and we ignore it at our own peril. I'm reminded of my mom who almost screamed when I put the Tribe cassette in her Honda CRX back in the day. Now she likes it. She recently said, "You know why Ralph Nader doesn't get Obama? He don't have kids. He's not forced to listen to the next generation's music."
Some so-called hiphop still makes me gag and then I listen to opera or Okinawan music for a week, like a purge. Went to a free N.E.R.D. show last week and wished I had a tomato to throw at Pharrell, he was so wack. But somehow I keep coming back. Probably all of us women have a dysfunctional, abusive relationship to hiphop. But we still grew up on it. And are infinitely richer than this Dreher dude, as a result.
@tricstmr - Actually a lot of those artists are influenced by hip-hip in ways you probably don't realize. Aside from Trent actually recording a hip-hop album with Saul Williams, something like Shiny Toy Guns' hit "Le Disko" seems not too far from the poppier side of hi-hip to me.
I'm into a lot of that kind of music too, and as a kid I never listened to hip-hop or rap myself, except in the background, because I was a short gawky white kid from the West Palm suburbs and initially experienced it almost exclusively as the music of the people who beat me up or of d-bags on MTV.But then I grew up and started discovering things I liked, learned about the history of it, and the underground, the common influences with things I did like.
Oh and @ Jordan. I love me some nerdcore. I'm actually friends with an awesome band called Zombies!Organize!! that just put out their first album.
76 posts and no DJ krush or Japanese rappers? Seriously.
"I'm sure that catholics in the 16th century probably thought that "A mighty fortress is our god" was subversive and didn't want their kids hanging out with anyone who listened to "Protestant Music."
TR: Ahh for the good old days.
More seriously I'd agree it's likely laziness. I don't like most hip-hop to be honest, but I don't think it's all bad or inherently bad. To be honest though it could also be laziness in phrasing. I think for some people "hip hop" or "rap" is shorthand for "that hip-hop or rap stuff that is misogynist or pro-violence." It's like how in some circles "science fiction" does not include say Gene Wolfe or Ursula K. Le Guin, it means monster movies or teenage boy fantasies. If it's good they call it something other than science fiction. So if it's good hip-hop he wouldn't be calling it hip-hop it'd be, well I'm not sure just something else. (Contemporary Urban music maybe?)
Again though I listen to almost no hip-hop. When I was younger my brother did, and I liked some of it, but apart of me felt it was too "outside my world." Even much of the ones I liked felt really angry and I'm just not that angry that often. I didn't like "Heavy Metal" either, for the same reason, and was always baffled by people who'd trash rap yet like HM.
Nina-- what about Okinawan hip-hop? I bet there's some out there. There's certainly a lot of Japanese hip-hop acts. And Korean hip-hop is a juggernaut-- remember Stephen Colbert's 'feud' with Rain?
What about country/western singers? Would Rod let them fly an airplane in full gear? (I'm also reminded of one of the worst evenings of my life-- my father was so ill they'd called in one of the surgeons and he stood there, in jeans, telling us they were going to do surgery right the fuck now. The shock was great enough my mind immediately went to the 'important' stuff-- that my dad was going to be cut open by a man wearing jeans. Fortunately, I didn't say anything, the surgeon saved my dad's life, and all was well. I'm all for standards of dress, but they aren't everything.)
On Sigur Ros:
It's sung in Icelandic falsetto
Actually, aren't most of their songs sung in the non-language of "Hopelandic," which is just whatever syllables the singer felt sounded appropriate for the music and feeling he was going for?
Persia:
See Shing02 for Japanese hip-hop (www.myspace.com/shing02) and Kakumakushaka for Okinawan hip-hop (kakumakushaka.com). Thanks for reminding me. =)
Besides putting out fresh music, they're both also involved in the Stop Rokkasho movement (a proposed nuclear reprocessing plant in northern Japan), and getting US military bases out of Okinawa. That's what hip-hop is about (or used to be).
Alexander,
Conservatism is for grownups, because the essence of it is that history preserves what works and without any perspective on history, you're just experimenting. So the idea that conservatives are losing bodies, votes and dollars to the pagan gods of hiphop doesn't lose us any sleep. But it sure as hell irks us that the very intellectual discrimination it took me ten seconds to describe is always and everywhere called racist. Which only gives us another reason to discredit your 'art' and 'reason'.
BTW, you tell me who is the hiphop Secretary of Defense. Or better yet, tell me which of the umpty dozen 'paint the whitehouse black' hiphop lyrics will give us any inkling whatsoever about the Obama Administration. You have four years to write your essay - I will be here.
Cobb
Conservatism is for people with NO respect for history. If you actually respected history you would notice that the tenets of conservatism do not work and put our country further in debt and leave more and more citizens without the basic needs that should be afforded the richest country in the world. Conservatism is about convincing the little guy to only think of himself when in reality he is getting screwed while the rich guy is reaping the benefits. Its sloganism at its best and its worst. And thats why its about to come to it predictable and long over due end.
Its funny how "conservatives" never worry about pop singers who do drugs and have kids out of wedlock, instead they spend their time trying to rail against a kind of music that they have no perspective on. But its part and parcel of how they are stuck in the past and believe their own bullsh!t. In 8 years there will be more "grownups" who are or were rap fans than there will be those that have never been. But you "grown-ups" just keep alienating yourself from the younger generation. Lets see where that gets you and your "movement"
@adam:
Yes, but I didn't want to scare anyone else away who might have been interested in listening to them.
@tricstmr...
The funny thing is that most of the bands you reference are from styles of music that are heavily based in production techniques pioneered by hip-hop-- sampling, looping, drum programming, etc. Industrial and hip-hop are very similar in the ways that they draw heavily on the kind of bricolage assembly made possible by modern production methods. I was listening to bands like skinny puppy and severed heads, and to public enemy, nwa, etc in high school, and the commonalities of production were there. The link was totally clear in bands like Consolidated, which combined hip-hop, industrial, and other styles. Whether or not you think that industrial (and electronica, EBM, etc) was stylistically similar to hip-hop early on, there were technical similarities- and I think the constant cross-pollination that is a fact of life in music, more than ever in the internet age, has resulted in sharing of a lot of stylistic elements too.
Conservatism isn't a monolith. I think an argument could be made that the Reagan to Bush era "don't tax yet spend" and "be reckless" philosophy is not necessarily conservative at all. Conservatism does not inevitably mean supply-side economics and it traditionally does not mean "we must expand democracy at the barrel of a gun." I won't deny I've been caught up in those things at times, but when I was I knew they were not actually conservative.
Conservatism is a valuing of tradition and prudence. Conservatism is against utopianism. Conservatism favors individual responsibility. Conservatism is what kept FDR from packing the Supreme Court. Conservatism has helped make the US the most productive societies on Earth.
However conservatism on its own can lead to stagnation or injustice. Liberalism, even Leftism, has its place and purpose. I am concerned that for the next four years conservatism will be nowhere and will end up in the kind of harmful experimentalism of the 1960s.
Man, I also hope he does not send his kid to an Ivy. He will run into teachers like me who like to use Hip Hop lines to teach students about brevity in their writing. I could go off on a tangent or I could just put on some Pac. You see nothing captures the sentiment 'show don't tell' like a little hip hop. Every last one of them listens to it. Hope his kid has fun at BYU.
"Conservatism is for grownups.... "
I'm sorry, this just cracks me up. It's that old trope that people used to bring out - everyone becomes a conservative as they get older, once they realize how the world really work, once they have children, once they've been a victim of crime etc etc.
By this logic, the Democratic party should consists of only people below 30 or something, right? By the time we "grow up", we will all presumably realiza how utopian and unreliable the idea of liberalism is or something.
When I was 12, about 11 years back, my junior high basketball team had an away game and a few players, myself included, grabbed a ride from one of the kids' fathers.
We all listened to hip-hop (and I'm a painfully white dude from Canada) and put some music on the radio. DMX was big at the time and one of his joints played on a Toronto-based hip-hop station.
The father said "If their was a petition to stop rap music, let me know where to sign it."
I knew he didn't know what he was talking about then, and I still do. Fast-forward more than a decade and I'm shocked that any anti-rap supporters have a venue for their opinions.
He needs to come to Northern California... the home of conscious hip-hop.