Is rap music meant to be taken seriously?

This is actually an incredibly offensive question.

I haven't read this thread, but rap music is more than just music. It's a culture. It's a culture that people actually identify with and relate to, and just as there are hundreds of thousands of teenagers who genuinely feel that Justin Bieber changed their life, there are also hundreds of thousands of other people who feel the same way about Nas, or other popular rappers. Music speaks to people's souls, and rap music in particular is great at doing that. There's more to the genre than the surface sex, drugs, money infused Top 40 hits that we all hate so much.
 
Patchisou Yutohru said:
This is actually an incredibly offensive question.

I haven't read this thread, but rap music is more than just music. It's a culture. It's a culture that people actually identify with and relate to, and just as there are hundreds of thousands of teenagers who genuinely feel that Justin Bieber changed their life, there are also hundreds of thousands of other people who feel the same way about Nas, or other popular rappers. Music speaks to people's souls, and rap music in particular is great at doing that. There's more to the genre than the surface sex, drugs, money infused Top 40 hits that we all hate so much.
Click to expand...

Before I start, just going to say: I know next to nothing about rap. Seriously. But I still have the capacity to type nonsense, so I will.

Anyway.

I don't think this question was intended to be offensive, and I think the question is regarding the content that is often addressed through rap rather than the music style by itself.

Rap provides a medium where, mostly men (to my understanding; female rappers are not the dominant presence in the music industry?), write lyrics that are seemingly always focused around the objectification of women their supposed material value.

You could argue that you should take it seriously, which then brings forth the issue of the fact these influential members of the music industry and society are promoting misogynistic attitudes and are addressing them as the norm or what is desirable. It's encouraging/supporting ideas that are problematic, which is not fantastic. But rap is hardly the first medium to do that; look at literature and various forms of media. But this kind of emphasises the (assumed?) need to take these rap songs less seriously, to see them as fun and just as something that is a thing for basic entertainment. Otherwise it's suddenly not fun anymore and everyone's a killjoy.

Point being: some pop rap songs that involve sex or a specific focus on doing things to ladyparts or the-like aren't always the greatest representation of what rap is or its potential. It's not limited to just that, it can express a lot more than the stereotype likes to state. Taking those kind of rap songs less seriously doesn't take away the value of rap as a form of entertainment, I don't think.

TL;DR: some pop rap songs are just for fun because taking them seriously = lots of unhappy people and killjoys, others can be taken seriously because they have deep meaning to them and whatnot. All to do with interpretation?
 
Last edited:
I tend to find that rap music has had a lot of people looking down on it that miss the fact that it's a diverse genre with a variety of artists who are all saying different things. Rap is as legitimate as Rock, Country, Jazz, R&B, etc. and should be taken just as seriously as they are.

It only stands to reason that there would be rap out there that aims to be taken seriously. Artists will attempt to achieve this through experimentation and innovation with their lyrics and production, or with their message. Other artists don't have that kind of ambition, or aren't trying to say anything, but they manage to do enough with what's established to still make good music. This is a milquetoast answer I don't like giving, but: it very much depends on the artist out there. Moreover, it also depends on the song or album that you're listening to. Most artists don't only do one thing. It also depends on what makes something worth taking seriously. I don't think all rap music needs a message to be appreciated, and not every song that has one is good.

I've been starting to rediscover my love for rap music in recent months. As someone who hadn't been heavily interested since he was around 15-years old and only now coming back to the genre, I'm looking into rap music's past and seeing the kind of artists and albums that have been influencing the music. So far I've only been looking into the seminal albums, but even there I've learned just how much diversity there is and how much of it people have overlooked because they've come to believe the irritating stereotypes of what rap is all about. Like many other musicians, there are rap artists who speak from personal experience, even if they aren't trying to say anything. Their music can be a window to who they are and where they came from. As said above, Hip-Hop is a culture.

And as an aside - since people have mentioned N.W.A., I would also suggest taking that a step further and checking out Ice Cube's first three solo albums AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted, Death Certificate, and The Predator. It's NWA's best MC in his prime, and there's a definite point behind songs like "A Bird in the Hand" (which is very much still relevant to this day).
 
Although I personally don't have any inclination to the genre, I do feel that aspects of it can be taken seriously. Especially everything from the late 80s up to the mid 90s, that whole era was amazing music wise.
 
Most mainstream rappers take their music seriously but their just another generic rapper, which we have enough of. The rap game is beyond screwed up because of a majority of the mainstream rappers. They got nothing to say outside of degrading women, falsely gang banging (they know nothing about that life), rollin' on mollie in the club, sports cars, and fashion. I've heard very seldom topics outside of those on the radio, and it's one of the reasons society and the youth is getting worse because they glorify that type of lifestyle. Don't get me wrong I love hip-hop but I hate the mainstream unless I wanna get turnt up. There's more to life than getting "turnt up", but I guess it's what sells.

As Immortal Technique said about this topic: "So if your message ain't ****, **** the records you sold, cause if you go platinum, it's got nothing to do with luck, It just means that a million people are stupid as ****"

^ That's basically my view on rappers or any musician for that matter. I wouldn't have a problem with the mainstream rappers releasing songs about getting turnt up if it wasn't their only topic because even underground rappers write turnt up songs but it's not their only topic, they actually got a message behind most of their music. When a mainstream rapper releases another song with no meaning and it goes vile and like a cattle of sheep the rest of the mainstream rappers follow, it seriously irritates me. It makes them seem less intelligent than they really are because they can't come up with anything to say other than copying *inserts previous rapper that did it here*, making them generic rather than unique.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top