So, I just saw on the news a report stating that sales for rap music have been in steady decline for the past three years, as sales for other genres of music occupy more and more of the market segment for total music sales. HOORAY. Sorry, but I hate the gar-bazsche. If people truly want to see an end to that type of sociopathic garbage, then everyone can start by BOYCOTTING and SHUNNING any and all products and artists who are involved with so-called Gangsta Rap and Hip Hop. I really don't care if "not all Hip Hop is like that." The fact remains that a huge percentage of it is horribly and openly racist and misogynistic. It also revels in an "anti-education" attitude, as if aspiring to be educated was somehow being "anti-black." It rabidly promotes race hatred and divisiveness. It promotes crime -- just ask Tupac Shakur's rotted corpse or take a look at Snoop Doggy Dog's rap sheet. It promotes the systematic mistreatment and degrading objectification of not only black women, but women in general. It further promotes what one black commentator termed a "jailhouse mentality" and that mentality has quite literally led to the ruination of thousands of lives -- young black males in particular. If you create a market for *any* of this Rap and Hip Hop garbage, then you'll leave the door wide open for *all* of it to continue to flourish. The only way to send a strong message to this warped industry is to boycott ALL of it... across the board. Vote with your dollars and put these sleazebags out of business -- permanently. If people actually want to fix these problems, then that's the first place to target. Drive those baboons out of business and you'll definitely help to clean up our diseased society. Do it for the ladies out there... do it for the kids... do it to help minorities elevate themselves in our society and lastly -- do it for yourselves. Some of you may remember when Don Imus was kicked off the air way back two years ago for his offhand comments about the Rutger's women's bastketball team. Later on, that team of women came to a mature decision to officially forgive Imus after two hours of meeting with him, and agreed that it was time for everyone to focus their attention on the REAL problem that underlies this mess: the negative imagery that has been injected into our culture by the Rap and Hip Hop industry. I agree with them 100%, and I salute their common sense and decency, as well as their intelligent sense of priorities. Don Imus was just a sacrificial lamb. He was a symptom -- not a cause. Let's follow up on this matter by fixing the disease itself. Stop lining the pockets of parasites like Russel Simmons. Stop feeding the fires of self-appointed, misguided and hypocritical demagogues like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. Stop contributing to the ruination of an entire ethnic group in America. Stop rewarding promoters of hatred and fear. Boycott Rap and Hip Hop. It's purely Neanderthal garbage. You can do better with your dollars... and with your lives. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Nay... rock is FAR more eclectic in its themes. Hip hop promotes racism, violence, and mysogyny. That describes 9 out of 10 rap songs out there. QUESTION: do you live in the USA? Hip hop is an almost uniquely American phenomenon, Challenger. It originated here in the USA, and it is produced and embraced mainly by certain groups in the USA. If you do not live here, then you are not going to be familiar with the very real and very alarming ramifications that rap music has wrought here, as well as the culture it has helped to produce amongst blacks in particular. For that reason, unless you live in the USA and have borne witness to all those things, I suggest you simply stay out of this one.
Its not even real art! Most of it is written by someone else. Almost all the rappers promote a specific product so they can get a payout from fucking nike or some other bullshit. All they sing about is materialistic good like sex, money, clothes etc. It is by far the most shallow and empty form of expression that has ever existed!
I don't have to boycott rap as I have never had any real interest in it, not enough to go out and buy a cd or anything like that.
Well it's never gonna "Die", but it sure is in decline. It really IS all shit now. What's been a loooong time coming is getting rid of fucking baggy pants around the thighs, exposing yo black ass for anal rape. That shit started in Prisons in the 80s and should have expired at least 10 years ago.
Not to mention glorification of drugs (i.e. helping the society crumble) and illegal trade (i.e. helping the economy collapse) apart from the misogyny, racism, and violence.
Oh, for heaven's sake Art is in the eye of the beholder, sir. When the battleground was heavy metal, I always felt at least mildly insulted when some maniacal wannabe censor argued that heavy metal should be banned, boycotted, or whatever, because it made kids too violent and sexual. Um ... yeah. Let's see here, I've listened to King Diamond for years, and I've never killed my grandmother with a hatchet. I adore Twisted Sister, as well, and I've never shot anyone down with a gun. It was Tipper Gore that turned me on to Carnivore, and while I have, in fact, barfed up some serious Jack Daniels and pizza before, I was listening to "Temples of Syrinx" at the time. More realistically, I can't say I ever gone to war, killed the child slaves, raped the women, or ate the brains from my enemy's head. I have a small range of rap artists that I like, and I can't say I've ever played "Amtrak", or even broke left at 23rd and Union in a black Benz limo draggin' its muffler under the weight of five fellas and twenty-two freaks. Listeners will do with the music whatever it is they want to do. Rap is primarily a poetic form packaged as a musical product. One of the most prominent genres of rap is a form of realism in which artists describe and characterize the human institutions and environments around them. Indeed, this is the form nearest the heart of the controversy about rap. I would probably listen to more rap if the product was better. Hell, my favorite rap group is a bunch of white guys from New York, and I have to reach back fifteen years or so before I find another album I listen to with any sense of regularity. It's not that I disagree with the idea of canning Russell Simmons, but ooh, let's boycott rap. I'll borrow a line from Bill Maher and say that someone has to figure out a way for me to boycott music I don't listen to. By focusing on the prominent pop edge of rap, we empower it. Think of it this way: What was the last concert you saw? Well, okay, bad example, since for me it was Phish last weekend with twenty-thousand other potheads. But the big arena shows I go to? Let's see, I think there's a Pearl Jam show coming up later this year. Let's see ... the Black Sabbath reunion, more Pearl Jam, Tool ... oh, hey, there was the Duran Duran show in Everett. Audioslave also played Everett. In other words, I don't actually catch that many arena shows. Oh, and Peter Gabriel right after my daughter was born almost seven years ago. I needed that one. There will always be arena shows I want to see, but mostly I catch club acts. Floater, Mudhoney, Clumsy Lovers, Mastodon, The Melvins ... ever seen Green River live? They've been playing shows lately. It's worth it to see the foundation of both Mudhoney and Pearl Jam. But you're not going to see a set like that with twenty thousand other people. You're going to see it with maybe fifteen hundred other people at most. There is plenty of good music out there. The best way to undermine the evils of pop culture is to pay out for other acts. You don't need a Payola scam to tell you what to hear. I remember one time a friend went on a date to ... I think it was Puddle of Mudd and Jimmy Eat World at Key Arena. I can't figure out why either of those bands were popular at all, but even more puzzling is that their management booked a venue they couldn't fill. The show was terrible, she said. Worse than dinner. And the place wasn't even half full. You don't have to boycott rap in order to make the point about parasites like Russell Simmons. Sure, you'll probably withhold from his account a few dollars you likely wouldn't have spent anyway, but you'll also miss acts like Cancer Rising or Optimus Rhyme. Russell Simmons is not the whole of the rap world. And if you want to actually do something about the artistic qualms you have with rap, then seek out the better acts and support them. Find acts that carry on their own merit, not massive advertising campaigns. Aiming after entire genres is ridiculous. You might as well boycott Steven Brust because Terry Brooks is a prick, or stop reading books altogether because Rupert Murdoch is evil. As a superficial consideration, one might say the same thing about country music and white people. But, more seriously, how is rap contributing to the ruination of an entire ethnic group in America? I think you, like the Tipper Gores and Susan Bakers before you, have the formula backwards. To borrow another phrase, and this from Mark Steel, if music caused violence, the nineteenth century should have been awash in drive-by cannonings. Violence, class and culture conflicts, misogyny, dangerous subcultures—these all existed before rap. Boycotting rap will do nothing to cure the disease. What do you listen to, Will? I'm curious. Are you so morally demanding of your own preferred art forms, or is this just a "rap" thing?
I once read about a personality survey done of fans of different metal genres; it was shown that metal fans, despite the loud, brazen, music they represent, are the more tender, sentimental, calm, and introspective people; hence, they are not that likely to be involved in any criminal activities. Personally, I don't think hip-hop should be banned; it is a reflection of other things, such as african-american society and their struggles, as well; and you can't wipe out an entire form of cultural expression because of one subgenre of it. However, there should be more strict censors for it. And one thing that should definitely stop is allowing sure felons like Snoop Dogg and the likes roam around scotch-free. It sets a bad example and gives the wrong picture to young fans: that its okay to break the law because they do it and they're famous and nothing happens to them. Still, hip-hop shouldn't be banned; after all, what'll Weird Al do if it is?
One does not have to be born in the USA to know of Springsteen and American culture. I thought hip-hop was so diluted with popular music that really, there is no difference ? Is the same not happening with rap ? Anywho, what's the harm in asking ? Also. Nightwish FTW.
You know what.. Then the NRA should love the rap industry. But somehow I don't see a white dude fist bumping a black rapper, unless it's eminem and Dr.Dre. Anywho, while I agree that alot of their expressions are shallow and materialistic, correlation between themes does not mean causation.
A short list Ahem. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Animals, Herman's Hermits, The Troggs, The Kinks, Pink Floyd, David Bowie, Mott the Hoople, Roxy Music, Eric Clapton/Cream/Blind Faith/Derek and the Dominos/The Yardbirds, Elton John, The Who, Led Zeppelin, The Moody Blues, The Hollies, Deep Purple, Traffic, Black Sabbath, Peter Frampton/Humble Pie, Sex Pistols, The Clash, T-Rex, Thin Lizzy, Free/Bad Company/The Firm, Queen, Van Morrison, Yes, Jethro Tull, UFO, Uriah Heep, Electric Light Orchestra, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, King Crimson, Wire, Judas Priest, Motörhead, Dire Straits, Gang of Four, Girlschool, Def Leppard, The Police, Iron Maiden That's just England, a partial list of important bands, and I'm not even into the 1980s. Rock and roll may have originated in the United States, but that's as far as your claim goes. Without the British, it's hard to imagine what rock and roll would sound like. And the idea that, today rock music is so mainly embraced by Americans is difficult, to say the least. Certainly, that form of rock and roll that blurs the line between blues and country is largely ours, but with bands like Radiohead, The Strokes, Blur, Supergrass, Kaiser Chiefs, and even Oasis and Coldplay finding passion and success within the genre, it's a very dubious diminution of British rock you've suggested. After all, there was Elvis Presley, but what followed was a stream of British music that solidified rock and roll's foundation. Between the Beatles, Stones, Floyd, Clapton, Zep, and Sabbath, it really is hard to figure where rock and roll would be today. There is a reason Jimi Hendrix had to go to England to be discovered. Yes, rock and roll is ours, but not exclusively. You're pushing the edge of jingoism on this one, sir.
Although I do not like Rap or Hip Hop they are forms of expression which others do like. To ban them would be only promoting freedom of speech , in a way, so I wouldn't listen or buy them but wouldn't care if others did. It is not up to me to pick and choose what others enjoy as long as they leave my music alone that I enjoy.
Challenger78: Rap is a part of hip-hop music. RATM is alternative metal, rap-metal if you like.. but definitely under the metal, and thus rock category.
Hip Hop is awesome, and much of it is positive. Most rap is harmless as well, just the venting of normal frustration at the lives many Americans are forced to live. I say we ban all banning of any kind of art or music. Do you want to ban the works of Thomas Harris? I mean, Hannibal Lektor is kind of violent! So is the freaking Bible.
Yeah we know you still skeptic Cause we ain't kissin no God damn ass to be accepted And if you're waitin on that to happen sucka You'll be a waitin motherfucker Geto Boys
