# Why is hip hop SOOOOO popular for so long?



## ZJovicic (Feb 26, 2017)

It's already been decades since hip hop became part of mainstream, but nowdays it's become No. 1 genre. And it only grows stronger.

I understand elements of its appeal: rebellion, lyrics, narratives, authentic or "authentic" self expression, its directness, agression, in your face attitudes... that's all fine. And I guess hip hop is more like poetry than music anyway. Perhaps people need some kind of poetry in their lives, so they found it in hip hop.

But musically speaking, I think hip hop is *THE* LEAST musical genre. Most of the lyrics are pretty much spoken instead of sung... most of the music is just combination of samples, effects, etc... very little actual instruments at all. Very little melody, harmony, etc... very little of whatever was typically regarded as _music_.

So I am wondering do people need *music* in their life at all? Perhaps social / literary needs that hip hop satisfies (attitude, rebellion, narrative, identifying with certain group, poetical elements, etc) are more fundamental human needs than the need for any kind of actual *music*.

So does it spell end of music per se? Perhaps it's not just classical music that's sort of dead for the mainstream. Perhaps soon any kind of music at all will be considered _passe_.

Maybe soon anything musical, i.e. anything having melody, harmony, and stuff will be regarded the same way like some people regard operatic singing today: like too artificial, too emotional, too singy-songy... too frivolous, cheesy, or perhaps even _gay_. I mean most of music IS kind of gay, at least in the old fashioned sense of the word. People sing when they are happy, they cry when they are sad... (of course there are sad songs, I am just making a point)

And they rap when they are angry! So perhaps anger, and _*"attitude"*_ are nowdays the only socially acceptable ways of self expression. Emotions typically expressed by music, like happyness, sadness or longing, are for the weak...

Perhaps in the same way that melody and tonality became eschewed in modern classical music, they will eventually be eschewed in popular music itself, or the music itself will become eschewed and replaced by _*"angry rythmical rhymed speech with attitude"*_.

Your thoughts?


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Many are simple minded and hedonistic.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

ZJovicic said:


> And they rap when they are angry! So perhaps anger, and _*"attitude"*_ are nowdays the only socially acceptable ways of self expression. Emotions typically expressed by music, like happyness, sadness or longing, are for the weak...
> 
> Perhaps in the same way that melody and tonality became eschewed in modern classical music, they will eventually be eschewed in popular music itself, or the music itself will become eschewed and replaced by _*"angry rythmical rhymed speech with attitude"*_.
> 
> Your thoughts?


Your highly negative opinion of modern classical and popular music accounts for your "doom and gloom" attitude. I'm more optimistic.


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

Well there is always Eurovision


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

I would suggest that the OP do a little research. Being from Bosnia I'm going to assume that American History in all its nuances may be a stretch...so....... get a copy of a book by the American Historian, Ron Chernow, called _Hamilton_. It won a Pulitzer Prize for its author.

After you have digested this tome, then, and only then would you be ready to understand what a composer/rapper/songwriter did with it musically to win another Pultitzer.

I'm not sure we can agree what "art" is. Maybe Art is just the name of a dog that sits on Bob Dylan's porch. But this.....this.......I have no words.


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## bz3 (Oct 15, 2015)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mockingbird

And I'm only 50% sure I'm joking.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

*Why is hip hop SOOOOO popular for so long? *

Because Charles Ives was right when he observed that "most people listen to music with their feet."

And, I won't even get into those same folks' notion of good/bad poetry!


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## Red Terror (Dec 10, 2018)

This is dog sh!tÉ.



Room2201974 said:


> I would suggest that the OP do a little research. Being from Bosnia I'm going to assume that American History in all its nuances may be a stretch...so....... get a copy of a book by the American Historian, Ron Chernow, called _Hamilton_. It won a Pulitzer Prize for its author.
> 
> After you have digested this tome, then, and only then would you be ready to understand what a composer/rapper/songwriter did with it musically to win another Pultitzer.
> 
> I'm not sure we can agree what "art" is. Maybe Art is just the name of a dog that sits on Bob Dylan's porch. But this.....this.......I have no words.


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

Red Terror said:


> This is dog sh!tÉ.


 "One man's symphony is another man's earworm."


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Room2201974 said:


> "One man's symphony is another man's earworm."


I don't care for the affected vocal style. It sounds phony. I have heard talented musicians and songwriters incorporate hip hop elements into their music which I can enjoy. But the affected vocal schtick without some melodic music doesn't do it for me.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

It is certain that not everyone likes hip hop:

"Hip-hop is not music, in my estimation. (If music resolves.) Hip-hop does not progress, it revolves, replicates, sticks to the floor. It is not approximate emotion. It is approximate obsession. The "voice", the bard, the oracle, the messenger, the minister of propaganda intricately, saucily rhymes, chugs, foreshortens, sneers, insinuates, retreats. The voice betrays no emotion; has none; this is not rage, but cleverness. Too wise. Too sly. A dictatorship of rhyme. There is a message; the message is masonic; the conveyance too dense; deep as a trance. The voice is preoccupied and always in the present. It is the voice of schizophrenia. It is bad advice. It is the voice of battle--Beowulf, Edda, the madder psalms--the voice justifies endlessly. What is going to happen if you don't stop this! On and on and on. Slamming the table. It is the post-lude to music. Long after emotion has been flung from the bone, the beat remains. The beat plows through the rubble of music, turning under the broken arches of melody, stabbing about for rhyming shards--raising them, rubbing them together rhythmically--trying to ignite."

Thus sayeth Richard Rodriguez, in _Brown_, 2002. Good book.

Except for Neneh Cherry's _Raw Like Sushi_ and Debbie Harry singing _Rapture_ back when, I can live without hip hop.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

There is some stuff that is clever and imaginative, but the majority of it is a relentless avalanche of generic push-button garbage.


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## haydnguy (Oct 13, 2008)

Rap(Hip-Hop) started as a voice of the street. As with everything else, someone saw a market and it was commercialized. It's middle-aged now, however. Doesn't say a whole lot about the evolution (what creativeness there could be) of popular music.


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## DeepR (Apr 13, 2012)

It's a form of expression and it's music, regardless of what it lacks in musicality. It's dance music as well.
I don't care much for it myself (I especially don't care about the lyrics), but sometimes I do appreciate the production aspects, when it has catchy, "phat" beats, bass and other electronics. 
It's part of culture and it has a rather prominent place in popular music. It is what it is. If people enjoy this music, making it or listening to it, that's fine with me. 
I don't think it poses a "threat" to other (popular) music with more musical substance. I'm pretty sure there will always be people who look for other things in music. If anything the internet is proof of the diversity of music we have today and that there is an audience for just about any kind music.


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## Bwv 1080 (Dec 31, 2018)

Well it is music, and like all other genres, some of it sucks and some is quite good





















and even stuff as popular as this:






I mean, would you rather listen to Ed Sheeran?


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

I notice that so much of Hip Hop, Rap, and "Popular" music in general is, today, deeply tied to video. I'm sure theses have been written about MTV's impact on music, making it at least much more _visual _than it had been in the past. I often get the notion that pop music is currently _more_ visual than aural. I admit I don't listen to much of what is current in pop music (whether it be hip hop, rap, or Ed Sheerin) but I do wonder if the audience for this music actually _listens _to it rather than mostly experiences it simultaneously as visual and aural. As one with roots in the theatre, I certainly champion the combination of visual and aural, which theatre is. No play, not even those of Shakespeare, was written only to be read (or heard), unless, of course, it is a radio play or closet drama specifically penned for listening or reading, and in such cases the radio or closet play script is _different _from that of a play intended to be acted visually before an audience.

I've heard all the Beethoven piano sonatas. I have the scores for this music. I've listened to them many times via recordings, and have even read through the manuscripts on occasion. I admit I have not heard the majority of these performed live in concert where I could actually see a performer moving, nor have I accessed videos of performers doing these works (with the exception of a handful). To me, this is music for pure aural enjoyment (though I can understand the "theatrical" effect of watching a pianist play the pieces -- which can lead one to prefer or not prefer the "antics" of the pianist which can even be wholly aside from one's like or dislike of the music itself, as seeing weak actors performing great play lines and scenes and still appreciating the play if not the acting). But I can enjoy music without visuals, and this remains the sort of music I tend to prefer. With music such as showtunes, I seem to appreciate the "music/lyrics" in a different way when seeing the song performed within the context of the show from those times when I simply hear the music whether from the "original soundtrack" or in, say an arrangement for jazz band or symphony orchestra, with or without the vocals. I wonder if Hip Hop fans can appreciate an orchestral arrangement (without vocals) of their favorite Hip Hop tune; I don't even know if such an arrangement would be possible or make sense. Maybe other posters here have opinions on this.

In the end, I admit I know little about Hip Hop. I've heard little Hip Hop, but only because that which I do hear does not inspire me in any great way to pursue the hearing of more. My bad, I guess. But I advocate that such "music" is fine for those who do enjoy it. I wonder, though, if those who _do_ enjoy it are highly knowledgeable in the art of "music" itself, or if they even really _care_ about music per se. I know folks who don't care for theatre; they would prefer watching the drama of a football game (which I enjoy, as well) arguing even that the "plot" of a sports competition remains unknown and how can one experience drama when one knows the plot and how the play ends? I've read the Sophocles' _Oedipus_ hundreds of times and seen it dozens of times and certainly know the plot and how the play ends, but still enjoy it. I know how the Beethoven piano sonatas go and how they end, too, and yet I still enjoy starting at the beginning and going through any of them one more time. I know I have heard some pieces of music once and cared never to return to them, or, in some cases, have returned to them on occasion only to have the sense that I am again wasting time listening.

A lot here to process, but in the end, is Hip Hop truly a "musical" art, or is it more a hybrid art form, one even removed from the hybrid of "song" (which is music plus lyrics) and is it closer to a theatrical art in which the visual and the aural are at equal or at least relative importances? Does anyone really_ listen_ to this stuff? Just listen? (And I suspect we could ask the question, too, "Does anyone just read the poetry of this stuff?")

Again, my ignorance of Hip Hop shows, I'm sure. And I should probably take time to educate myself further in this field, but time is limited and I've delegated my time to other pursuits which I've deemed (through my various life experiences of several decades) to be of greater import. I may be wrong in assuming Hip Hop has little to teach me now, but I know I can still enjoy much in the musical arts, even in rehearing pieces I've heard literally hundreds of times. So … condemn me if you must, but were I more clever, perhaps, I could create a rap about this attitude. I have written dozens of plays, including musicals. I'll rest my laurels on them. Let others rap and hip hop on. I'll none of it.

Back to Beethoven ….


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## bz3 (Oct 15, 2015)

SONNET CLV said:


> A lot here to process, but in the end, is Hip Hop truly a "musical" art


No.


SONNET CLV said:


> I may be wrong in assuming Hip Hop has little to teach me now


You're not.


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## Andrew Kenneth (Feb 17, 2018)

ZJovicic said:


> (...) And they rap when they are angry! So perhaps anger, and _*"attitude"*_ are nowdays the only socially acceptable ways of self expression. Emotions typically expressed by music, like happyness, sadness or longing, are for the weak...







30 years ago (1989) rap band "De La Soul" addressed this issue. 
De La Soul were a band that made fun mellow hip hop without the macho aggressiveness of gangster rap.
In the video they are sent to rap school where the teachers and fellow rap students all are very much into the angry agggressive macho way of rapping and De La Soul are ridiculed for being softies.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

starthrower said:


> I don't care for the affected vocal style. It sounds phony. I have heard talented musicians and songwriters incorporate hip hop elements into their music which I can enjoy. But the affected vocal schtick without some melodic music doesn't do it for me.


To which track were you referring? And are you only referring to the rap portions of the song?


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

At $.85 a can, times revenue of $633,000,000*, one may purchase 744,705,882 cans of Alpo®. 

All composers and songwriters should have that problem. Unless of course they are cat people. 




* And counting.


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## TMHeimer (Dec 19, 2019)

I agree completely with the OP and don't think his/her post is pessimistic at all.
Perhaps it's as simple as when the '80s ended we just ran out of all the good stuff.
Classical/Romantic/Impressionistic "serious" music ended and we got "contemporary" such as Schoenberg, other 12 toners, etc.
While I find the contemporary "classical" stuff interesting & challenging to play, I don't really consider a lot of it worthy of "in the car" entertainment.
How 'bout some Disco, Madonna, Culture Club, Chicago, Phil Collins?


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## haydnguy (Oct 13, 2008)

What are those that sing the "angry, aggressive" music angry about?


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## bz3 (Oct 15, 2015)

haydnguy said:


> What are those that sing the "angry, aggressive" music angry about?


Bars on windows, beat cops, people who wear the wrong color pants in the wrong neighborhood. The usual plight of modernity.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

I like this one!


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

Red Terror said:


> This is dog sh!tÉ.


I like hip hop, but I can't stand Hamilton, and it makes no sense to me how popular and esteemed it is in American upper/middlebrow circles. To me, it sounds like saturday morning cartoon tv commercial-level hip hop. Like, the raps Tony the Tiger would be doing on a Frosted Flakes ad. Painful.


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## Disco (Mar 19, 2020)

Hip-hop has great songs, but not from nowadays ))


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

howlingfantods said:


> I like hip hop, but I can't stand Hamilton, and it makes no sense to me how popular and esteemed it is in American upper/middlebrow circles. To me, it sounds like saturday morning cartoon tv commercial-level hip hop. Like, the raps Tony the Tiger would be doing on a Frosted Flakes ad. Painful.


Funny.

Hamilton is to Hip-Hop as Bye Bye Birdie was to Rock, and City of Angels was to Big Band.

They're all Broadway watered-down music genre rip-offs. Hamilton is clever, as is City of Angels.

Even Bernstein's magnificent West Side Story is a rip-off of Operetta, cool jazz, and Latin rhythms.

Genre fusions happen all the time, from Gershwin to Elvis to the Beatles to John Williams.


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## jegreenwood (Dec 25, 2015)

howlingfantods said:


> I like hip hop, but I can't stand Hamilton, and it makes no sense to me how popular and esteemed it is in American upper/middlebrow circles. To me, it sounds like saturday morning cartoon tv commercial-level hip hop. Like, the raps Tony the Tiger would be doing on a Frosted Flakes ad. Painful.


While I am not a fanatic Hamiltonian, I do enjoy the music. I've seen the show, so I hear it in that context.

BTW, in the fall, God willing, a theatre company with which I am involved will be premiering a new musical, "Black No More." The score is by Tarik Trotter. The book is by John Ridley ("12 Years a Slave"), based on the novel by George Schuyler. The music is a mixture of styles, but it contains hip-hop (not surprisingly). Hope you check it out and find more to like.


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## bz3 (Oct 15, 2015)

If minstrelsy is off the table due to political complaints I'm afraid I'll have to register the same against Hamilton. Jokes aside, no interest in a weird racially-charged bastardization of the founding of my country. I'd feel the same if it weren't racially-charged but just a bastardization.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

This guy has some interesting comments about it (stars at 29:22):


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## Metalkitsune (Jul 11, 2011)

SixFootScowl said:


> Many are simple minded and hedonistic.


yup. Like some i heard is about a rapper rapping about thug life,drivebys,degrading women and much of it seems antigay


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