Hip-hop and rap, unlike other genres of popular music, are quite heavily dependent on a producer's skill. While a good (my emphasis on good, not the Spears and Simpsons of the world) pop-rock singer/group can generally get by with instruments without any electronics, (except the instruments themselves), hip-hop with its use of samples and loops of sounds from various sources lends itself to the skill of a completely different beast - one who is comfortable with computers and complex equipment with a bewildering range of knobs and weird lights. I'd go so far as to say that the genre doesn't exist without the producer.
However, that's not entirely true. Hip-hop started out on the streets, and it is the crass commercialization of today that has reduced it to merely being commercially successful with lyrical gems like "It's getting hot in herre, so take off all your clothes".Bleh.
Eminem and Jay-Z are notable exceptions (I really like a lot of Eminem's work, and I haven't heard the Grammy-award winner Kanye West), and there are great singles out occasionally that get your attention, but the rap genre is a great dance-floor (and album sale) mover with nothing much to say. Rock may be dead, but I still take some of today's rock bands over rap.
However, that's not entirely true. Hip-hop started out on the streets, and it is the crass commercialization of today that has reduced it to merely being commercially successful with lyrical gems like "It's getting hot in herre, so take off all your clothes".Bleh.
Eminem and Jay-Z are notable exceptions (I really like a lot of Eminem's work, and I haven't heard the Grammy-award winner Kanye West), and there are great singles out occasionally that get your attention, but the rap genre is a great dance-floor (and album sale) mover with nothing much to say. Rock may be dead, but I still take some of today's rock bands over rap.
1 comment:
Kinda like Eminem myself.
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