Reply #146: you're confusing disposable pop culture Hip Hop for the entirety of the phenomenon

[NuttyFluffers]

pop culture, which is almost synonymous with disposable, is manufactured popularity -- plain and simple. it's why pop culture rock, country, easy listening, world, etc. are, for the most part, crap. it is an inescapable defining feature of the market it is pushed into. media is a method of information distribution -- the consequence is that it can be used for control and profit. the best ways to control people is to appeal to what they think is their basest desires, surge the message, silence the dissent, and then claim that's all what the community wants. this act of selective editing and promotion does 2 things: it silences mass distribution of real talent and message as well as reinforcing cultural attributions projected on the target audience.

now, once you get that all mass market media is deliberately selected to craft "identity" and thus control, and not inspiration and expression, you will rapidly understand that there is a reason so much stuff sounds like crap. there is a reason why Hip Hop was so amazing at one time, just like rock, folk, disco, etc. before it: the masters of media need time to understand the format to repackage the image to in turn silence the message. essentially they need to figure out why this new burst of creativity ticks, so in the first few years a lot of milestone works get released. once they figure out where they can market it into an image they feel "safe" with then the format begins to suffer unbearable monotony in the mainstream. no form of music has escaped this in modern times. jazz has its Kenny Gs, world music gets its Yanni and endless coffee house "Now This is What Makes Me Unique and Cultured! vol. 20" compilations, and easy listening has... well, shit, pick anything.

now, if you want to find good music, the best bet is talk to people who can remember good early works as well as keep up-to-date with underground releases. since all creative movements must be co-opted and neutered for an oppressive system to survive any real creativity has to go into hiding and evolve outside the masque provided for "the masses." i don't know what you are exactly looking for musically or message wise, but there's likely something out there that will appeal. i'm surprised that there has not been any mentions of Arrested Development, Bone Thugs N Harmony, Monie Love, anything with Ya Kid K, A Tribe Called Quest, Queen Latifah, etc. for those who don't know better there's quite a bit of rap that uses harmony and melody, though it isn't the main emphasis, but they often end up using far more complex levels of meter (referred to in the community as 'flow') and rhyme schemes.

furthermore, considering all songs that contain lyrics must consider harmony, melody, meter, and rhyme in the aspects of lyrics it would be just plain ignorance to say music with lyrics that places more emphasis on harmony and melody is "music" compared to music with lyrics that places more emphasis on meter and rhyme. in fact, discounting the background instruments in the identity of music, thus placing primacy on lyrics, is just as ridiculous as saying music w/o background instruments cannot be music (which would be saying choral hymns aren't music) or that music w/o lyrics isn't music (which would be saying all instrumentals aren't music). in fact, the extremes of music lacking either of lyrics or instrumentation entirely far exceeds the difference between music that just place different emphasis on how lyrics are used. and since we cannot say those greater extremes are not music, without looking like a total ignorant boob, then therefore something less than those extremes, by definition!, must be included in the spectrum of music. now with this we can say everyone has been marginally brought up to speed on the properties of music; so persisting on this "argument" that "rapping isn't music because i don't hear melody/harmony" would be traveling from the realm of ignorance (when you didn't know better) to the realm of stupidity (when you did know better). let's refrain from that again, shall we?