Does rap count?

I'll be half a century old this year, but yes, rap still counts as traditional songwriting to me, of course it does. I only have one rap CD, which is Eminem's Marshall Mathers album and I love it. I mostly listen to old 1960's, very early 1970's stuff, but I don't see the song Kim any differently than I do Delilah, by Tom Jones. See, even in the sixties men were singing about murdering women, except there wasn't the outrage back then about it.

Bitch II is brialliant, as the line 'Do you really wanna fuck with me?' suits me, because I'd never let anyone cramp my style in real life. Also, I love the track Stan, because I can see the funny side of it because of my obsession over Jean Reno.

Some rap songs have very wicked stories behind them. I consider some of them music although some truly disappoint... Souljah Boy comes to mind.

Eddyz. I forgot to say this earlier. To me rap is no different than folk, country and western, or blues music, it's all telling about life and the way we see it, but in a more modern form, that's all.
I know this is a bit of a wtf moment, but back in the early 1970's David Essex had an album out, named after the main song, Out of the street. The actual song is dealing with prostitutes, pimps and suicide. Rap hasn't really covered any new ground, it's just much more in peoples' faces these days.

Rap certainly is songwriting. At its best, it's great poetry set to music. At worst it's some twerp with a lousy attitude spitting into a microphone. If memory serves, some poets in the 1960s used to perform their poetry with musicians playing along in the background. William Shatner even claims that was what he was doing on his album ... okay, bad example.

The only place I draw the line is when a rapper calls him/herself a rap singer. Sorry, no, you're not a singer unless you sing. Granted, some rappers do mix singing with their rapping, but a pure rap is not singing.

Samantha's_Song said:

I'll be half a century old this year, but yes, rap still counts as traditional songwriting to me, of course it does. I only have one rap CD, which is Eminem's Marshall Mathers album and I love it. I mostly listen to old 1960's, very early 1970's stuff, but I don't see the song Kim any differently than I do Delilah, by Tom Jones. See, even in the sixties men were singing about murdering women, except there wasn't the outrage back then about it.

Bitch II is brialliant, as the line 'Do you really wanna fuck with me?' suits me, because I'd never let anyone cramp my style in real life. Also, I love the track Stan, because I can see the funny side of it because of my obsession over Jean Reno.

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Word. That is such a great album. I have most of Eminem's stuff, but The Marshall Mathers LP is still my favorite. Kim is powerful and terrifying, and it took an intense performer to pull it off.

I haven't really heard any of Eminem's other albums, I just really liked this when I heard my nephew playing it when it first came out. I love the whole album and will quite happily have it on loudly in the car and be singing along with it. My husband also liks it and he's 61 yrs old.

Yes Kim is a powerful song, but it's also a fun song in some ways. I may be quite juvenile, but I do actually laugh at some of the bits each time I hear it.

Celia Cyanide said:

Word. That is such a great album. I have most of Eminem's stuff, but The Marshall Mathers LP is still my favorite. Kim is powerful and terrifying, and it took an intense performer to pull it off.

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His new stuff is garbage but I agree his older albums were very good.

Rather than worry about 'not counting' I would suggest just putting a subject where it seems to fit best.

Lose Yourself, is wonderfully poetic in a street way. I love it.

It's also a great song and a great message. Eminem was a 5 ft nothing 97 pound white kid who showed up at the Detroit rap scene and did it well enough to earn a living.

I watch this, for inspiration.

Rap can be very deep if you look in the right places. Some of the deepest and most thought provoking songs I'ver heard were rap songs. Of course, there are terrible rappers out there too, mainly the popular ones you here on top 40 radio. I miss the era of about 2002-2004, back then the mainstream rap was actually really good. Now it's all materialism, and the beats have become extremely stale, I hate that 808 clap and the boring synths you hear in every song now.

This little bit from The Message is answer enough to that question for me:


Broken glass everywhere
People pissing on the stairs, you know they just don't care
I can't take the smell, I can't take the noise no more
Got no money to move out, I guess I got no choice
Rats in the front room, roaches in the back
Junkies in the alley with the baseball bat
I tried to get away, but I couldn't get far
Cause a man with a tow-truck repossessed my car

Don't push me cause I'm close to the edge
I'm trying not to lose my head, ah huh-huh-huh

It's like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder
How I keep from going under
It's like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder
How I keep from going under

Amen,Cranky!

Rap most certainly counts as lyrical storytelling and song writing. There are some deep meanings and feelings behind the best rap.

Scarface:
He greets his father with his hands up
Rehabilitated slightly, glad to be the mans child
The world is different since he seen it last
Outta jail been seven years and he's happy that he's free at last
All he had was his mother's letters
Now he's mobile and he's gotta make a changed and make it for the better
But he's black so he's got one strike against him
And he's young plus he came up in the system
But he's smart and he's finally makin' eighteen
And his goal's to get on top and try to stay clean
So he's callin' up his homie who done came up
Livin' lavish now they dealin' wit' the same stuff
And had that attitude that who he was was worth man
And with that fucked up attitude he killed his first man
Now its different he done did dirt
And realized killin' men meant comin' up
But it still hurt
And can't nobody change this
It's 1994 and we up against the same shit
I never understood why
I could never see a man cry
Until I see a man die


Tupac

Now that I'm strugglin in this business, by any means
Label me greedy gettin green, but seldom seen
And fuck the world cause I'm cursed, I'm havin visions
of leavin here in a hearse, God can you feel me?
Take me away from all the pressure, and all the pain
Show me some happiness again, I'm goin blind
I spend my time in this cell, ain't livin well
I know my destiny is Hell, where did I fail?
My life is in denial, and when I die,
baptized in eternal fire I'll shed so many tears

Lord, I suffered through the years, and shed so many tears..
Lord, I lost so many peers, and shed so many tears

Now I'm lost and I'm weary, so many tears
I'm suicidal, so don't stand near me
My every move is a calculated step, to bring me closer
to embrace an early death, now there's nothin left
There was no mercy on the streets, I couldn't rest
I'm barely standin, bout to go to pieces, screamin peace
And though my soul was deleted, I couldn't see it
I had my mind full of demons tryin to break free
They planted seeds and they hatched, sparkin the flame
inside my brain like a match, such a dirty game
No memories, just a misery
Paintin a picture of my enemies killin me, in my sleep
Will I survive til the mo'nin, to see the sun
Please Lord forgive me for my sins, cause here I come

There are many more. More than any other music,rap is the soundtrack of my life. As Chuck D said,it is the CNN and poetry of the ghetto.

Kitty27 said:

Amen,Cranky!

Rap most certainly counts as lyrical storytelling and song writing. There are some deep meanings and feelings behind the best rap.

Scarface:
He greets his father with his hands up
Rehabilitated slightly, glad to be the mans child
The world is different since he seen it last
Outta jail been seven years and he's happy that he's free at last
All he had was his mother's letters
Now he's mobile and he's gotta make a changed and make it for the better
But he's black so he's got one strike against him
And he's young plus he came up in the system
But he's smart and he's finally makin' eighteen
And his goal's to get on top and try to stay clean
So he's callin' up his homie who done came up
Livin' lavish now they dealin' wit' the same stuff
And had that attitude that who he was was worth man
And with that fucked up attitude he killed his first man
Now its different he done did dirt
And realized killin' men meant comin' up
But it still hurt
And can't nobody change this
It's 1994 and we up against the same shit
I never understood why
I could never see a man cry
Until I see a man die


Tupac

Now that I'm strugglin in this business, by any means
Label me greedy gettin green, but seldom seen
And fuck the world cause I'm cursed, I'm havin visions
of leavin here in a hearse, God can you feel me?
Take me away from all the pressure, and all the pain
Show me some happiness again, I'm goin blind
I spend my time in this cell, ain't livin well
I know my destiny is Hell, where did I fail?
My life is in denial, and when I die,
baptized in eternal fire I'll shed so many tears

Lord, I suffered through the years, and shed so many tears..
Lord, I lost so many peers, and shed so many tears

Now I'm lost and I'm weary, so many tears
I'm suicidal, so don't stand near me
My every move is a calculated step, to bring me closer
to embrace an early death, now there's nothin left
There was no mercy on the streets, I couldn't rest
I'm barely standin, bout to go to pieces, screamin peace
And though my soul was deleted, I couldn't see it
I had my mind full of demons tryin to break free
They planted seeds and they hatched, sparkin the flame
inside my brain like a match, such a dirty game
No memories, just a misery
Paintin a picture of my enemies killin me, in my sleep
Will I survive til the mo'nin, to see the sun
Please Lord forgive me for my sins, cause here I come

There are many more. More than any other music,rap is the soundtrack of my life. As Chuck D said,it is the CNN and poetry of the ghetto.

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Yep. And swap out the junkies for alcoholic bums in The Message, and you got some of the poor white neighborhoods I grew up in.

For contrast, I'm gonna post some lyrics to some songs that nobody would try to say doesn't count as songwriting, I think:

Alabama Clay

First time he saw the ground get busted
He was 10, it was 1952
His daddy worked hard
From sun up til sundown
And the goin' got tough
Behind them old gray mules

The farm grew to be a money maker
And the house he lived in
Grew up room by room
The boy worked hard
But soon got tired of farmin'
So he slipped away one night
B'neath the harvest moon

His neck was red
As alabama clay
But the city's call
Pulled him away
He's got a factory job
And run's a big machine
He don't miss the farm
Or the fields of green

This one, by Garth Brooks, is pretty damn familiar, in that the song is a bit of a "slice of life", much like the lyrics of, say, Brenda's Got a Baby. Er, actually, to The Message again. A more fair comparison for Brenda's Got a Baby would be Thunder Rolls, I think.

Anyway, so here's part of those two songs:

Thunder Rolls

She's waitin' by the window
When he pulls into the drive
She rushes out to hold him
Thankful he's alive
But on the wind and rain
A strange new perfume blows
And the lightnin' flashes in her eyes
And he knows that she knows
And the thunder rolls
And the thunder rolls

The thunder rolls

And the lightnin' strikes
Another love grows cold
On a sleepless night
As the storm blows on
Out of control
Deep in her heart
The thunder rolls

She runs back down the hallway
To the bedroom door
She reaches for the pistol
Kept in the dresser drawer
Tells the lady in the mirror
He won't do this again
Cause tonight will be the last time
She'll wonder where he's been

Pretty heavy stuff,yeah?

Then here comes Tupac's:

She tried to hide her pregnancy, from her family
Who didn't really care to see, or give a damn if she
Went out and had a church of kids
As long as when the check came they got first dibs
Now Brenda's belly is gettin bigger
But no one seems to notice any change in her figure
She's 12 years old and she's having a baby
In love with the molester, who's sexing her crazy
And yet she thinks that he'll be with her forever
And dreams of a world with the two of them are together,
whatever
He left her and she had the baby solo, she had it on the
bathroom floor
And didn't know so, she didn't know, what to throw away and
what to keep
She wrapped the baby up and threw him in the trash heep
I guess she thought she'd get away
Wouldn't hear the cries
She didn't realize
How much the the little baby had her eyes



All of these songs have a social message to them, so I think it's a fair comparison. BUT the lyrics of Brooks' songs are sung, and Tupac's are rapped. (I like Garth Brooks, JFTR ) Oh, and of course, there's a repetitive chorus in Thunder Rolls, and rhyming lyrics. Oh, wait, wasn't that in The Message, too? *evil grin*

So I'm left with the irritating idea that merely because the lyrics are spoken rather than sung, rap "doesn't count" in some folks' books. Which makes no sense to me.

Cranky,let us engage in cyber matrimony!


Truer words have never been spoken. I totally agree.