Thursday, April 20, 2006

Hip Hop vs Rock.

BedTime's Quote[96]:
"
Music is not something you listen to anymore, It's something You watch more than listen" --[x] [Social-Understanding]

Hip Hop vs Rock, A Musical Disorder

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In Music world, Hip Hop is ruling it now, it's more popular than Rock music. Rock music started before Hip Hop, during the late 1960s to 1980s , Rock music was the mainstream. Only in the 1990s Hip Hop started to take over Rock music, and became more popular internationally. It evolved slowly until it reached what it is today. It was more about the poor ghetto life, gangsters, and racism issues, Kill the police, and praise black panthers.

Today, Hip Hop music is becoming dirty, greedy, and all about lust. Hip Hop industry believes in Sex Sells, during 1990s When Mc Hammer* did the same, black rappers accused him of being materialistic and abused the art of hip hop to please his desires and turned it into business. However, today completely the opposite is happening, Mc Hammer went bankrupt, and those who criticized him have gone richer than many white people. Some might wonder, is this Hip Hop empire going to collapse like how the Rock empire did? The answer is; Rock Music empire did not collapse but it keeps evolving no matter how people like it or hate it or how much or less popular it is becoming to the audience. Hip Hop music stopped evolving since the beginning of 2000.

While Rock music has become so complex tree of genres., but Hip Hop Music has become a very complex man full of lust, and nothing else. It targets mostly men desires to sex, and "live Life to fullest" concept. Rock music has many genres, which target wide topics and issues in the world from Religious Believes, Romance, Social Issues, Wars, Politics, Death to Satanism. It's closer to reality than Hip Hop. Rock Genres are so diverse, and they are categorized by their instruments used and lyrics. However Hip Hop genres are mostly categorized geographically, by social issues, and instruments. In fact, most if not all hip hop genres deal mostly with the same topic, Gangsta, Ghetto, and women. It's barely used to express reality. In short line, Rock represents violence, reality, and knowledge, Hip Hop represents ignorance, lust, and hmmm ignorance again.

Most Hip hop Video Clips show women almost naked, alcohol, fancy cars, filthy rich lifestyle. The most annoying part of all these is that the singer is wearing a Christian cross blinking brighter than the sun around his neck. Most of these women shown in the videos are paid about 13-50$ an hour according to how much they are in front of the camera, If I am not mistaken. Most of them are already harassed and used by the artists and directors of the video. When the women arrive to a set, where they will be filming the video, they have to get as much naked as possible. In fact, the director doesn't afford many options of cloth for the women to choose from, it's either a bikini or nothing. No need to go through more details.

The sad thing is that many Arabs or Muslims listen to this kind of music. You, readers, can feel the ignorance here, if not. Then, let me explain, tell me, What's the relation between An Arab living in a hot land, full of dictators, no civil rights, social divisions, religious conflicts, bad economy, and ruled by the west - and - a black man living in the ghetto as he claims, being abused by racists, drug addicted, alcoholic, almost killed by a gangster, his father left him when he was 5, his mother was a stripper to get a living, and finally his ideal figure is 2pac ?. I think my question just answered and well explained my point.


Hip Hop Empire is going to collapse for the lack of creativity. There's no creativity in Hip Hop, same music, same kind of lyrics, same kind of women, same kind of cars, same kind of cloth, same same blink blinks. It stopped evolving, therefore it will die, no survival for the non-fittest. And, it targets mostly black communities and few topics.

It's only disordering our society, and keeps looking at women down, materializing them. Its lyrics are not even clear, some listeners sing along with a song without even knowing what the song is saying. Our World is just falling apart in all levels, in Music, Movies, Magazines, Social Relations, Science, Politics, and even in Governmental levels. In Today's World, when wrong means good, it's truly about "Sex sells", You do bad you reach the top, but you are honest and realistic, you reach the bottom.

I don't like Hip Hop, I listen to Rock mostly, I am not even a big fan of music, but sometime It's ok to listen to something. I know there are other kinds of music such as Jazz, blues, Arabic Music and more, but I liked to mention these two more, because they are the most popular nowadays. I did not like to write on this topic, I'm more into socio-political issues, but for a change of topic, this is not bad.
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FootNote: Mc Hammer's Blog*. His Blog sucks, like hip hop does.

Written by [x]

Political Status: Retreated.
Psychological Status: Highly Suicidal, impatient.


Good night Dear Readers.

10 comments:

Unknown said...

That was an excellent read and very well written article which I happen to totaly agree on. I have zero respect for hip/hop these days since most of it is sexual related and the videos are just disgusting with the semi naked girls in it and the fancy crap that you have mentioned. I would rather listen to rock ( I really like lots of rock genres) rather than listen to 50 cent or any of the other shit that those lame thugs come out with.

Blue Chi said...

I think that the article is true for a great majority of Hip Hop music artists, but it does not really apply to every single Hip Hop album/artist out there.

First of all, the article implicitly assumes that there are no hip hop female artists, which is not true. One of the most successful hip hop artists nowadays is Missy Elliot. Though her music is very sexually oriented, but it is not racist, it does not promote violence, and talks a lot about self appreciation, self esteem and survival. Missy Elliot has been one of the most creative people in the industry, her talent is appreciated beyond hip hop as she now produces for and collaborates with RnB and pop artists as well. (eg. Madonna, Christina Aguilera, Whitney Houstin, etc).

Another female Hip Hop artist that I appreciate, but is no longer with us is the late Left Eye Lisa Lopez. Left Eye is widely considered as a talented hip hop artist as she even collaborated with 2pac. She was a member of the group TLC and had her solo album that was very spiritually oriented and mainly talked about the search for the true purpose of life. Left Eye was also featured by a wide selection of artists from various backgrounds, starting from 2Pac, to the Spice Girls Mel C, to Toni Braxton, Maya, and N*SYNC.

An example of a Hip Hop that was released last year and does not fall under any of these categories is Will Smith's comeback album, Lost and Found. This was a hip hop album that did not talk about the bling, the ghetto, nor any of these other matters, Will Smith is a black artist and the album did not have an advisory mark on it. The only swear word said in the album was one 'Shit' and it was beeped out. The album talked about extreme religious personalities, 9/11, and fanatics in addition to other themes included in the album.

I do not believe that hip hop has stopped innovating or being creative. Main stream pop music is now seeking the help of people such as the Neputens, Missy Elliot, Jazzy Pha, Timbaland, and other hip hop artists to add an new twist to their music. I believe that music genres are now in a state of divergence, where the distinctions between one form and another is no longer clear. Pop, rock, RnB and Hip Hop have all merged into a combination that we hear on main stream music radio channels.

. said...

lol finally Nabhan feels relief, and all the anger was released.

. said...

Levee, Yes I know "My You know What shakes", and yes they make up stories then they end up having gagster civil-war and the singer gets killed lol.

. said...

Well Blue-Chi, I did not talk about female artists, I was going to, but it would be too much to write, I tried to make it as short as possible and in great details. What I wrote targets mainly what MTV promotes, not what you like. I was targeting the majority mainstream hip hop artists, 50cents to 1 cent artists, Not to mention their stupid miss-spelled names. POP ran out of creativity that's why u don't see it as popular as it used to be. And yes they use some hip hop stuff to improve themselves, but some still the same such as Madonnna. I am not into music that much, I listen to it when I am bored, or to read its lyrics nothing serious. but Blue-Chi ...knows it all lol.

Thanks all for stopping by.

Salam.

Anonymous said...

Two thumbs up nezitiC!! am glad to know that there are some who get this whole thing. I agree totally on what u had said and u represented everything as it it, what you said about Rock and the crap Hip Hop is being.
btw, MC's blog, as first as u hear the music in it, you click on 'close this window'!

Well done, writing it all down. Good way of bringing the subject in term.
Tc.

Senorita

muscati said...

Political rap has always been around and there's always good non-violent, non-mysoginistic rap around. It's just doesn't chart, that's all. Public Enemy are amazing. Last year's best rap albums by Common and Kanye West weren't gangsta. And let's not forget that the main reason why violent rap is popular is because it's bought and heard mostly by white people who wanna act ghetto.

Having said all that, I still think that nothing beats the sound of a guitar. It's been over 50 years since Rock n Roll came around and it's amazing how there are still a million ways to make a guitar riff sound fresh.

Just keep your ears open to all good music, even if it's rap.

. said...

I agree with Muscati, except that political rap doesn't hit the chart much, last political rap song i heard was Mosh by Eminem i think.

Thanks for your opinion, Muscati.


Salam.

Anonymous said...

Mm i rather be neutral .. why ? It is simple , because not everything is the same . I am a Rock fan ,but sometimes i enjoy listening to hip-hip or pop "depends" on the singer or band .. So you see it's hard to put Hip-Hop in the black list .. The best thing is : you choose what you like & leave the rest :)

It's hard to put things in a permanent category don't you think ? .. Nice topic by the way .. Ta-ta

shuvo said...

it's a wonderful read i made earlier. in fact i completely agree with. but, don't you guys think that most music today lacks an originality in genres. there's nothing... may be it's a part of being creative. it's all about some thing hybrid fusion eventually and fortunately it's getting popular, hoot. and however being a muslim i agree that most youngsters here in bangladesh like hip hop... i mean any sort of violence in music no matter it's hip-hop or hard-rock or even death metal. the fact is we're in a changing environment and most of us can't cope up so quickly as it's expected. we lost and as usual searching continuously a best so called combinations in deed. that's ok...
ok, keep writing...