re: Rolling Stones Co-Founder Reveals Why He Can’t Stand Rap Music

Considering that it's not singing, but "rapping" - I don't think it qualifies as music either.

That being said, if people like it - cool. I'm just not into it.

There’s a thing with hip hop, like folk music, and country where the simplicity of the music allows at its best for story telling and sermonizing from outsiders and weirdos who have been ignored if not forgotten by the mainstream. There are any number of artists in those genres that are creating conceptually interesting music. Unfortunately both country and hip hop have a much easier to find mainstream that sells millions and is created to be easily digested not by necessarily rural whites or urban blacks but by suburban whites, and so you get this crap that is easy to find. If it’s country it’s a bunch of cliches about beer on Friday nights and tailgates and girls in blue jeans and it’s not the actual music of rural America. It’s the way suburbanites like to picture rural life. In hip hop it’s a bunch of bragging about violent crime and sexual conquests which is how suburbanites see black people. The former also gives older suburbanites the warmth of a hallmark card, and the latter gives teenagers the feeling of danger and toughness without actually having to experience danger or a reason to be tough.

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Working on it. I have more than a few songwriting credits to my name. I would like to think I could score a victory in this category, but that’s definitely a high bar.

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I watched one of y'alls shows recently. When you spin the mic around by the cord is that homage to Roger Daltrey or just drunkeness?

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Making anything is easy if you call it art and give no thought to quality.

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You are soooo close to getting there.

Just a few more steps....

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So much of what makes music “music”

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Give me just one example of something that is essential to music that is missing in rap music.

Would love to see you try to make beats.

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Need some more leg kicks

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Working on it

I’ve been trying to get in better shape and improve my flexibility. Also working on guitar flips and spins. Gotta get my jumps and shite looking cool to make up for my songwriting

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They sample real songs to create a hook, and then yell over it.

I've never been a fan of rap, but the "best rap songs" all use music created by someone else.

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It sounds like you may be insinuating that only rap artists use samples.

As that would be a completely idiotic and ignorant thing to say maybe you can be more clear on why you're bringing up sampling.

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It’s not my cup o’ tea but rap is a form of music. My biggest gripe is it’s never really “seen it’s day” and come and gone to make way for something new. And it’s not because it’s such a superior art form. It’s because like lots of other things, creativity has largely disappeared. Everything is controlled by mega-Corporations and they’ll just keep repackaging and recycling what has already sold in the past. Although the changes kind of blended/eventually took over into the next decade (instead of a hard stop), I think most can identify musical eras like the 60s sound, the 70s, the 80s, grunge in the 90s, etc. Seems like in these recent decades there stopped being anything “new” that took over. It’s just the same stuff over and over anymore. There’s still some good songs that come out but there’s no longer that artist or group that ushers in a new era.

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It’s the internet. The internet split music into a million different sub genres and killed anything worth listening to on the radio. It’s easier now than ever to find bands and artists that create music that really speaks directly to you. The price for this is the death of the monoculture. There will never be another event like Nirvana because no one under the age of 50 is regularly listening to the radio and there’s no MTV to promote it to teenagers. Everyone’s now listening to the same bland garbage at 12-14 and then they start discovering music and having tastes develop through their peers which makes them feel special, but it isn’t like the days when your whole high school would be playing lynyrd skynyrd in the parking lot