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[Solifuge]

I never cared for rap until... maybe the last 5 years or so. I mean, I still don't care for the stuff I hear on the radio, but why should that surprise me, when I hate radio Pop too? So I started looking into stuff that wasn't mainstream; stuff that wasn't written about material culture or sexy ladies or to badmouth some rival in a battle of insults, or whatever. Stuff that tells a story, and uses word choice and the human voice as instruments in ways that go beyond traditional vocal music. It's definitely a more poetic form of music, and takes a great deal of oratory skill and vocal control to perform.

In a way, it strikes me as a modern evolution of the folk ballads of yesteryear. The rap I enjoy emphasizes wordplay, rhyme and vocal meter, unusual rhythms that turn in on themselves, and generally breaks musical and lyrical conventions. The music tends to be made of simpler loops, which can be evocative on their own, but may get a bit repetitious with some artists. Deliberate word choice, fixed meter, and the sounds of words themselves are largely lost art forms in modern music, but they persist in rap. When done well, it can have a lot of raw emotional power too... seems to hit closer to the bone. It's still relatively new, and I feel it has a lot of potential that has yet to be explored.

...but to each their own!

Ha ha ha! Haha ha ha!

Bauglir no stop those are not food you are insane.

[misko27]

Ha. I'm having a fun day. Dressed as Dolan's Joker, with wild green hair, black eyes, a mark of red over the lips, whitened face, and even fake scars. The reactions of people on the Subway were amusing, from "ehh" to "Wait what the hell", to "There are even scars" (whispered). Everyone in school could come in a costume, and about a 1/8th of them did. Everything from 3 people dressed as the Power Puff girls to the girl from the Hunger Games with a set of working home-made bow and arrow (the bow was made mostly of duct tape, so that is really impressive). I even managed to scare a few people coming around the corner, and jump scare a guy dressed as Batman. Best of all, the guy who sits next to me in last period came in wearing a rather similar costume (read: makeup) to mine, so we were the two jokers in the front row (I had fake scars and better hair though, as a friend of his pointed out). It was just all around fun day.

[smirk]

For the most part, I don't like rap because there's very little technical skill involved. Sample a beat, write some very simple lyrics about a flat subject, autotune, and you're done.

For most mass-market junk, yeah. It's closer to wall-of-noise shit like Dubstep; just an excuse to move around to basic rhythms. Like any other music, it gets better when people put more thought and effort and, yes, technical skill into it - because you very much can. Personally I think it's uniquely suited as a medium for social change and unrest: Immortal Technique, for example. Just depends on what you like I suppose.

[penguinofhonor]

For the most part, I don't like painting because there's very little technical skill involved. Get paint and paper, draw some shapes on a flat surface, add shading, and you're done. Yeah, there are some decent examples out there (there was a spanish one about melting clocks and memory or something) but the floor and ceiling are so much lower than most other types of visual art, due to a lack of technical proficiency, that it amplifies Sturgeon's Law so much that it should read, "95% of everything is utter and complete dogshit, and the rest is mediocre," when applied to painting.

There's just so much better art out there that there's no point in wasting the time looking at the mediocre stuff.

[Bauglir]

Ha ha ha! Haha ha ha!

Bauglir no stop those are not food you are insane.

I foolishly scratched an itch near my nose. This must be what cocaine feels like.

[Vector]

Ha ha ha! Haha ha ha!

Bauglir no stop those are not food you are insane.

I foolishly scratched an itch near my nose. This must be what cocaine feels like.

And you intend to put this in your stomach. . . be sure to tell them to post the funeral photos on Bay12


Propped upright on couch, eating picadillo taco and thinking about the varenie burning a hole in my fridge :9  Listenin' to spaghetti-western dubstep because why not.

If I'm using all my vacation days until January on fuckin' pneumonia then I might as well enjoy myself :I

[Bauglir]

I have confirmed that 1/4 of a pepper is sufficient for an oversize bowl of very spicy ramen. Excellent.

Also, I've finished racking some wine, and the leftover strawberry pulp, mixed with a bit of milk, should result in a tasty treat once it's been frozen.

[DarkWolfXV]

Rap has giant potential. Rap with crazy time singatures, changing beats, good (and actual presence of) basslines would be my shit plus actual good rapping with good flow. Add turntable wizardry and im sold. I myself dont like much rap but I enjoy polish Paktofonika (0:40 to skip the sample) and Buka.

[Owlbread]

I happily listen to classical music, folk music, rock from basically any decade (my favourite bands are Kino, Queen, ACDC, the Rolling Stones, Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd, many many other songs and bands), funk (of the Parliament/Funkadelic kind especially) all that good stuff but I also enjoy swallowing any pretension and reveling in the joys of Gangsta Rap. I don't even think it through I just listen and get into the flow of things. I can close my eyes and pretend I'm a real gang banger, smoking blunts, packing heat, smacking up bitches and making paper.

My favourite rap/hip hop song is The Message but I also enjoy Dr. Dre and a few individual songs like this classic and a fair bit of Ice Cube. Mostly because he just sampled lots of much older songs that I like, unfortunately, but they're great. He did a few that were originals that I enjoy like this. I've never really been a fan of Tupac, I prefer Biggie Smalls.

Damn it feels good to be a gangsta.

God I'm so fucking white.

[Lightningfalcon]

I have confirmed that 1/4 of a pepper is sufficient for an oversize bowl of very spicy ramen. Excellent.

Also, I've finished racking some wine, and the leftover strawberry pulp, mixed with a bit of milk, should result in a tasty treat once it's been frozen.

I just put chipolta powder in it until it changes to a yellowish red tint. That's how I know its enough.  I also drink over a gallon of water whenever I drink Ramen now. 

[MonkeyHead]

Personally, I have had a soft spot for Busta Rhymes for some time, but then I do have very wide ranging tastes.

[Owlbread]

I try to keep my mind open as much as I can. I tend to like songs rather than bands and genres, but as I said I try to keep an open mind. It's a healthy way of being I think.

[Mr Space Cat]

Listenin' to spaghetti-western dubstep because why not.

Ha, I love that. It's an absurd experimental idea and it came out well.

[Frumple]

Came out alright, anyway. Vocals kinda' reminded me of that fifth element opera thing, if not quite as impressive. Which is a good thing.

Did make me realize I apparently have no bloody idea what dubsteb is. That just sounded like techno to me

That said. I'd totally dig dubstep rehash of Copland's Rodeo, especially the hoedown.

[MaximumZero]

For the most part, I don't like painting because there's very little technical skill involved. Get paint and paper, draw some shapes on a flat surface, add shading, and you're done. Yeah, there are some decent examples out there (there was a spanish one about melting clocks and memory or something) but the floor and ceiling are so much lower than most other types of visual art, due to a lack of technical proficiency, that it amplifies Sturgeon's Law so much that it should read, "95% of everything is utter and complete dogshit, and the rest is mediocre," when applied to painting.

There's just so much better art out there that there's no point in wasting the time looking at the mediocre stuff.

You seem to have misinterpreted my opinion, here. Yeah, I get it, bashing an entire genre of something is bad. Problem is, I don't like anything in that genre, or any sub-genres thereof. Nothing within the genre appeals to me on any level. Maybe I'm biased because I grew up in an urban area and had rap crammed down my throat as a teenager because that was what was popular, but even the pieces held up to be of the high quality (see Soli's post, et al,) just...aren't of a very high quality when compared to other forms of music. Maybe I'm getting more closed-minded as I get older, but frankly, I just don't understand why people enjoy rap, and the examples above haven't been helping.