re: Do you believe rap/hip hop music has been a net positive or negative for society?

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The debate is the positive/negative affect of rap music.

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Well, the music selection at the biggest "look at me" day in eternity isn't something I would judge as a positive or negative for society

If Rap is your thing, by all means go for it. Its entertainment. It's not something philosophical like some of the 60's or 70's, or introspective like the early 90's.

I really don't care if it's good for society, art in general seems to be in a dead spell though.

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I think blaming a music genre for societal ills is pretty pedantic.

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Than...I mean frick you for making me look that up

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One, rap music takes zero talent these days.

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Neither does a lot of other genres.

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Second, rap music glorifies deviant behavior

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A lot of music does this. Johnny Cash, Pink Floyd, etc.

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Third, it puts a bad influence on urban youth.

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Why just urban youth? Correlation not causation

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Fourth, it dumbs down our youth. Mainly teenagers. They all listen to this crap, that has worthless lyrics and turns their brains into mush.

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Get off my lawn!

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Fifth, it has killed genres like rock music out of the mainstream

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Look at the top 40, still a lot of non rap music. Panic at the Disco, Ava Maxx, Halsey, etc

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Than...I mean frick you for making me look that up

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Sorry

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You are as useless as goose shite on a pump handle.

Part of the downfall of this society (in addition to rap music) is that, collectively, our reading comprehension levels are maxed out at the 3rd grade level, and therefore we do not have the stomach for any length of text over Twitter-length long.

How can there be conversation and discourse and collaboration when pea-sized brain people like you only read 3 sentences worth of text? This is a forum who's existence is based entirely on the concept of reading and typing text. Your meme...how cute...how fresh. It took the same time for you to post it as it took me to read the OP.

But you...you, on the other hand probably liked- and still like- the picture books as opposed to the text'y'ish ones, don't you?

Goose shite. Pump handles. Useless. You. But you didn't make it far enough down to read this, and so I put it first.

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Sorry

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I'm smarter than when I woke up this morning but will never ever use the word

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It's always funny when people throw this dead line out there.

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in this case it couldn't be more accurate

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Now you can become a rapper to troll and make dank memes.

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The rise and fall of tekashi 69 is a marvelous tale.

It’s the bane of civilization. Period.

As an outspoken critic of the current state of mainstream and popular music, I feel like some of the OP's initial points are a bit near-sighted.

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One, rap music takes zero talent these days. In the old rap days like with NWA it took some level of talent especially with the lyrics, but I blame the likes of T Pain and auto tune to making it the musical wasteland it is these days. No talent, just create a generic beat and talk along to it. That's it. Lyrics have gone into the shitter and are not creative.

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A number of posters on this site assert that rap takes zero talent. Fortunately, the OP acknowledges the lyrical talent and production prowess of artists of the past. I do think that underground and avant-garde rap (e.g., conscious, alternative, and experimental hip-hop) does possess a great deal of artistic merit. Unfortunately, the massive underground scene witnessed during the late 1990s and early 2000s has all but disappeared.

I will admit that the lack of thought-provoking lyrics, quality wordplay, and sub-par production have resulted in an overall watered down product. However, artists like Kendrick Lamar at least still have SOMETHING meaningful to offer. Lamar actually seems to be one of the few mainstream acts who is pushing the creative boundaries of the genre and culture.

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Second, rap music glorifies deviant behavior like violence, pimping, prostitution, drug use, and disrespect of women. I find it funny how the Me Too movement has not targeted rap music yet

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Uh...does anyone other than me remember 1980s glam and hair metal? Or are we just going to ignore how outright misogynistic and sexist much of that material was?

Not all rap music indulges in such taboo and devious behavior. Again, look to some of the underground and experimental acts for more socially significant, comical, and poignant writing.

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Third, it puts a bad influence on urban youth. Just look at how many of them are "aspiring rappers" when you read some crime story. So many of them think they can make it as rappers, instead of trying to make it in a profession where they have greater odds of success

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The same thing could be said about those aspiring to become professional athletes...

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Fourth, it dumbs down our youth. Mainly teenagers. They all listen to this crap, that has worthless lyrics and turns their brains into mush.

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Pop music in general, which is predominantly centered around hip-hop these days, does very little to promote intellectual growth. I would contend that the internet and the overall abundant access to digital technology can result in just as much of a negative impact on the youth of today.

I mean, did listening to Aqua's "Barbie Girl" on repeat in the 1990s yield an abundance of brain surgeons? Common art (i.e., pop music and certain blockbuster films) is often shallow in terms of its quality and depth (with the occasional exception).

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Fifth, it has killed genres like rock music out of the mainstream. Listen to any Top 40 radio station these days and its nothing but rap/hip hop. Gone are the days when rock music would be played on these stations. Pop music is basically hip hop these days. 90s Britney Spears and the likes would have no place on Top 40 radio these days. If a song can not be bumped and grinded to in a club, it won't chart. And it seems like every pop artist these days has to have a rapper in it with a rapping verse. I believe this will end up making genres like rock worse in the future since less young kids will want to learn instruments used for that genre.

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Hip-hop elements are most certainly synonymous with most of what is deemed "pop music" these days.

However, hip-hop had little to do with the death, or even presumed death, of rock in the mainstream. What killed rock was the lack of quality rock artists as a whole.

This is the same poor argument that people use to assert that grunge "killed" hair metal. No, untalented, cookie cutter bands killed hair metal. And the same thing occurred with grunge during the mid- to late 1990s when post-grunge and alternative acts began copying Eddie Vedder's yarling vocal approach. *cough* CREED! *cough*...

Also, most of rock has splintered off these days into a number of specific sub-genres that make it almost unrecognizable to the rock of the past. The obvious elephant in the room is Greta Van Fleet has managed to garner commercial, albeit not critical, acclaim by employing a sound that conjures up obvious comparisons to Led Zeppelin.

But as someone who actively supports and follows rock's bastard offspring, metal, I can attest that audience support is as devout as ever.

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Sixth, I feel like rap and hip hop has paved the way for another garbage genre of music, bro country, which I think is worse than rap and hip hop music.

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Again, is this due primarily to hip-hop? Or is this merely a byproduct of talentless "country" artists who are more concerned with selling records than producing art?