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Only A Rap 'Artist' Could Be This Thick

Yithian said:
Because people were discussing the intelligence of rappers and he seemed to be an extreme example--there was no big point I was trying to make.
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Alright, just seems odd. The intelligence rebuttals were to the OP who stated all rap artists "have shit for brains."
Seems odd to jump in with a "oh what about this guy then?"
 
Yes, there's a lot of thick rappers out there but I think we can all agree that Dr Dre is anything but thick for one example ... with his multiple business ventures, the last I heard, he's the highest paid musician in the U.S. ..

I stopped listening to Hip Hop when it became 'Rap' because it was just loads of blokes snarling about 'bitches, gold and drugs' both for and against all three in the late 80's .. I started listening to it again in about '95 when some had different more intelligent points of view.
 
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Spudrick68 said:
I recall on an early spoken word performance Henry Rollins calling out Ice cube / Ice T (can't recall which it was). He said along the lines of 'put the gun down and its you and me on the car park. That man is going down'. I think that he may have mellowed a bit now.
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He was still saying the same thing at least 10 years ago. His spoken stuff didn't half go on.
 
M.C. Pitman from Coalville in Leicester is also a good laugh

 
Flat Earthers are not neccessarily stupid.
I do not believe the earth is flat myself, but if they want to keep investigating their claim then who am I to prevent them, as long as no one gets harmed?

Hip Hop has resulted in tracks with captivating intelligent lyrics and intricate rhyming schemes which take amazing verbal dexterity to recite.
Just because some rap is nihilistic and promotes violence/drug sales/misogyny it is not the case that all is such.

But as with all music genres, whether one likes or dislikes them does not mean they posses or lack artistic merit more than or less than any other genre, merely that the listener is drawn to or repulsed from them.

Yithian:

Lil' Wayne has noted substance abuse problems, notably mixing codeine-based cough syrups with soda water to produce "sizzurp." His drowsy appearance in the interview is likely linked to that, rather than any indication of his intelligence level.

Swifty:
The late 80's - early 90's is noted by Hip Hop Historians as "The Golden Era".
It saw a slew of great music, harmonically and lyrically.
I can only recommend going back and checking out the first three A Tribe Called Quest albums, the two 3rd Base albums, the first two Jungle Brothers albums and the first two De La Soul albums from that period, amongst many others.
Perhaps they will now sound dated and you will not like them, but they are classics of their time.
 
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Victory said:
Flat Earthers are not neccessarily stupid.
I do not believe the earth is flat myself, but if they want to keep investigating their claim then who am I to prevent them, as long as no one gets harmed?

Hip Hop has resulted in tracks with captivating intelligent lyrics and intricate rhyming schemes which take amazing verbal dexterity to recite.
Just because some rap is nihilistic and promotes violence/drug sales/misogyny it is not the case that all is such.

But as with all music genres, whether one likes or dislikes them does not mean they posses or lack artistic merit more than or less than any other genre, merely that the listener is drawn to or repulsed from them.

Yithian:

Lil' Wayne has noted substance abuse problems, notably mixing codeine-based cough syrups with soda water to produce "sizzurp." His drowsy appearance in the interview is likely linked to that, rather than any indication of his intelligence level.

Swifty:
The late 80's - early 90's is noted by Hip Hop Historians as "The Golden Era".
It saw a slew of great music, harmonically and lyrically.
I can only recommend going back and checking out the first three A Tribe Called Quest albums, the two 3rd Base albums, the first two Jungle Brothers albums and the first two De La Soul albums from that period, amongst many others.
Perhaps they will now sound dated and you will not like them, but they are classics of their time.
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Yup, and more generally, calling minority groups 'stupid' because other groups disapprove of them is not only crass, it is a standard method of control. It extends to demonising minority groups who might become frighteningly powerful, or who might be finally asserting their human rights.

For example: here in the UK, especially in England, the Irish are traditionally portrayed as unintelligent and irrational. This helped a lot with English morale in the '60s and '70s when Irish Republican terrorists/freedom fighters (according to one's perspective) were bombing the English mainland: you didn't want the Great British Public thinking they were up against an enemy who were shrewd and united. They must be a rabble of thugs.

One of my kids and his friends were into rap music as teenagers in the mid-90s so I was exposed to a range of artists and sub-genres, as parents of a teenager will be. They like it loud! I didn't mind. It's part of growing up.

So I appreciate rap music and have some understanding of the sometimes regrettably violent and misogynistic culture. These artists didn't grow up in leafy suburbs. To call them 'stupid' is to miss the point: they are expressing their culture, as artists do. Why would they not? But they're not stupid.
 
Victory said:
Swifty:
The late 80's - early 90's is noted by Hip Hop Historians as "The Golden Era".
It saw a slew of great music, harmonically and lyrically.
I can only recommend going back and checking out the first three A Tribe Called Quest albums, the two 3rd Base albums, the first two Jungle Brothers albums and the first two De La Soul albums from that period, amongst many others.
Perhaps they will now sound dated and you will not like them, but they are classics of their time.
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Hi Victory and thanks for your response .. the exceptions you've mentioned are good ones although I'd have said that Hip Hop Historians would be looking back more fondly to the 70's and early to mid 80's eras but each to their own and all that, my Dad was playing rap and disco mix tapes in the late 70's and I was breaking in the mid 80's so perhaps that's why I'm more fond of that era, Douge Fresh, Mantronix, Whodini, Roxanne Shante, UTFO, Egyptian Lover and so on .. I was also a fan of Public Enemy and Silver Bullet .. :)

 
I'm a white guy who went to a middle class African American high school (the other white students hovering between 5-8 any given year, with my two brothers being part of that number), and thus rap is a big part of my growing up. I was in the 8th grade when the Message was really hitting big. I was in the marching band, and we used to have members of the drum team who would bring a beatbox to and from games, so most games in that 8th grade I head the Message coming and going from band games (the clean cut version - it wasn't until years later that I found out what people "did" on the station they just didn't care! :) ). For the 5 years I was in the band, I heard a great deal of what Swifty did blasted from the back of the school bus while traveling- Freaks Come Out At Night, Roxanne Roxanne, Doug E Fresh's The Show (my nickname for a few years around this time was Doug E Fresh, as my real first name is Doug).

If you were into rap at this time, I'm sure you heard this blaring out of a car speaker from time to time - the Cars That Go Boom!


I was also really heavily into R&B of the time, with acts like the Gap Band, Chaka Khan (let me rock you let me rock you Chaka Khan), Patrice Rushen, Cameo, George Clinton, Mtume, the Jets, Zapp/Roger, Klymaxx, the Pointer Sisters, Kool & the Gang, and Prince if you consider him only r&b. I consider him Prince music, his own category!

And a quick fortean bit of r&b: I always thought that Midnight Star's Freakazoid was almost a cult initiative, or a movement towards higher consciousness. The part of the song where where they seems to sonicly enter another world and the "Midnight Star" voice came on was particularly cool - and probably sounds dated and silly to modern ears.
 
MrRING said:
I'm a white guy who went to a middle class African American high school (the other white students hovering between 5-8 any given year, with my two brothers being part of that number), and thus rap is a big part of my growing up. I was in the 8th grade when the Message was really hitting big. I was in the marching band, and we used to have members of the drum team who would bring a beatbox to and from games, so most games in that 8th grade I head the Message coming and going from band games (the clean cut version - it wasn't until years later that I found out what people "did" on the station they just didn't care! :) ). For the 5 years I was in the band, I heard a great deal of what Swifty did blasted from the back of the school bus while traveling- Freaks Come Out At Night, Roxanne Roxanne, Doug E Fresh's The Show (my nickname for a few years around this time was Doug E Fresh, as my real first name is Doug).

If you were into rap at this time, I'm sure you heard this blaring out of a car speaker from time to time - the Cars That Go Boom!


I was also really heavily into R&B of the time, with acts like the Gap Band, Chaka Khan (let me rock you let me rock you Chaka Khan), Patrice Rushen, Cameo, George Clinton, Mtume, the Jets, Zapp/Roger, Klymaxx, the Pointer Sisters, Kool & the Gang, and Prince if you consider him only r&b. I consider him Prince music, his own category!

And a quick fortean bit of r&b: I always thought that Midnight Star's Freakazoid was almost a cult initiative, or a movement towards higher consciousness. The part of the song where where they seems to sonicly enter another world and the "Midnight Star" voice came on was particularly cool - and probably sounds dated and silly to modern ears.
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I grew up through the same era MrRing .... my 'tag' was sWoFTy in Birmingham in the early 80's and I still use that from time to time in different situations, the latest one is something that's started where people paint designs on stones and just leave them for people to find with a # so we can all connect .. so if you find a Swofty stone, that's me although I've only done 3 so far ... I've found four others though ... my tag in the early 80's was sW:)ftY with fangs coming out of the bottom of the smile ..

 
I am a white guy in a very small southern town. I barely had any taste of rap music, the local stations only play various ages of country and rock and roll. It all just sounds like noise to me.
Despite the best efforts of some people.

By the way, have y'all heard of this Ska thing? Sounds pretty hip.
 
Shadowsot said:
I am a white guy in a very small southern town. I barely had any taste of rap music, the local stations only play various ages of country and rock and roll. It all just sounds like noise to me.
Despite the best efforts of some people.

By the way, have y'all heard of this Ska thing? Sounds pretty hip.
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When we went to Las Vegas there was music playing everywhere but none was by black artists. True, we're British so might not have known all the tunes and could have missed some, but when you're constantly hearing vintage pop and MOR you'd expect to notice a little Motown. Nope, not a note.

The famous MGM lions' testicles were great though!

And yup, we have ska in Britain.
 
A couple of years ago, we toured the East & West coasts of America. No one warned us that when we were dropped off on Hollywood Boulevard we would be surrounded and hounded by a lot of very tall black gentlemen trying to sell us CD's of their artists. Being an umpa lumpa it was like an intimidating version of Blackpool's golden mile. Being British and rather reserved I was unprepared for the doggedness with which they would pursue us.
 
Shadowsot said:
I am a white guy in a very small southern town. I barely had any taste of rap music, the local stations only play various ages of country and rock and roll. It all just sounds like noise to me.
Despite the best efforts of some people.

By the way, have y'all heard of this Ska thing? Sounds pretty hip.
Click to expand...
We sure have and unless you consider the acts that influenced Ska, it was born in the UK, The Skinhead Moon Stompers are worth a listen but they were nothing like the US Ska pop punk sounds are now (although I like modern US Ska) .. in fact, Ska was going through a revival in the UK three decades ago.



.. and some more UK Ska from 1969

 
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MrRING said:
I'm a white guy who went to a middle class African American high school (the other white students hovering between 5-8 any given year, with my two brothers being part of that number), and thus rap is a big part of my growing up. I was in the 8th grade when the Message was really hitting big. I was in the marching band, and we used to have members of the drum team who would bring a beatbox to and from games, so most games in that 8th grade I head the Message coming and going from band games (the clean cut version - it wasn't until years later that I found out what people "did" on the station they just didn't care! :) ). For the 5 years I was in the band, I heard a great deal of what Swifty did blasted from the back of the school bus while traveling- Freaks Come Out At Night, Roxanne Roxanne, Doug E Fresh's The Show (my nickname for a few years around this time was Doug E Fresh, as my real first name is Doug).

If you were into rap at this time, I'm sure you heard this blaring out of a car speaker from time to time - the Cars That Go Boom!


I was also really heavily into R&B of the time, with acts like the Gap Band, Chaka Khan (let me rock you let me rock you Chaka Khan), Patrice Rushen, Cameo, George Clinton, Mtume, the Jets, Zapp/Roger, Klymaxx, the Pointer Sisters, Kool & the Gang, and Prince if you consider him only r&b. I consider him Prince music, his own category!

And a quick fortean bit of r&b: I always thought that Midnight Star's Freakazoid was almost a cult initiative, or a movement towards higher consciousness. The part of the song where where they seems to sonicly enter another world and the "Midnight Star" voice came on was particularly cool - and probably sounds dated and silly to modern ears.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the blast from the past. :D

I used to hear these when we went over to the next town. In the way of small towns, we all had our own thing. My own town was more about alternative rock, in the town to the East, you'd hear L'Trimm, in the town to the South you'd hear Eazy-E. In the town to the West, it was all metal, all the time.

Fortunately, no one in any direction was into ska. :p
 
Going to stick my oar in.

1) Rappers aren't necessarily stupid, at all. Rapping is a hell of a skill and when people say something like 'it's just talking, anyone can do it', all I can think is 'I'd like to see you try'. I certainly can't rap, and I can play many musical instruments etc etc.

2) Not only rappers believe stupid things. I doubt that the majority of flat-earthers are also rappers.

3)
escargot1 said:
calling minority groups 'stupid' because other groups disapprove of them is not only crass, it is a standard method of control. It extends to demonising minority groups who might become frighteningly powerful, or who might be finally asserting their human rights.
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Nail on head.
 
escargot1 said:
For example: here in the UK, especially in England, the Irish are traditionally portrayed as unintelligent and irrational. This helped a lot with English morale in the '60s and '70s when Irish Republican terrorists/freedom fighters (according to one's perspective) were bombing the English mainland: you didn't want the Great British Public thinking they were up against an enemy who were shrewd and united. They must be a rabble of thugs.
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I don't think the cliche of the thick Irishman has much to do with the IRA terror of the 60s and 70s. I think you're overthinking it. It's roughly equal parts:
  • Irish immigration in the 19th/20th centuries being primarily unskilled and uneducated labourers;
  • Anti- Catholic prejudice dating back even further;
  • Inhabitants of the bigger country making fun of the inhabitants of a smaller neighbour. Similar jokes are found in the West Indies (Jamaicans laughing at people from smaller islands) and Australia (where Kiwis are called dumb and unsophisticated). Most of it is all good fun, even if it cab become unpleasant when taken to extremess

James_H said:
Going to stick my oar in.

1) Rappers aren't necessarily stupid, at all. Rapping is a hell of a skill and when people say something like 'it's just talking, anyone can do it', all I can think is 'I'd like to see you try'. I certainly can't rap, and I can play many musical instruments etc etc.
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I think the perception of rappers as stupid is more to do with the content of their lyrics: guns, drugs, money, bitches and hos.

There was some more thoughtful and political hip hop back in the 80s and early 90s but if it is till happening it is rather drowned out by the violent and homophobic misogyny that makes up much of the current output.
 
Quake42 said:
There was some more thoughtful and political hip hop back in the 80s and early 90s but if it is till happening it is rather drowned out by the violent and homophobic misogyny that makes up much of the current output.
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You really need to listen to some different rappers, I hear plenty of current stuff that's not like that at all.
 
Yithian said:
Tony Hawks.
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I used to play his first Ocean software game on the Spectrum 48K .. although I remember it being called Tony Hawk's 360 .. but that could be a false memory (the 360 part)? .. dunno ..


.. anyway, straying off topic sorry all .. rappers and their individual intelligence .. I think freestyle poetry's an art form if it doesn't hang onto too many cliches, just like all poetry and art then it can be extremely impressive ..
 
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