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Monday, April 10, 2006

Hip and/or hop interlude

It may shock you to learn that I am a philistine. At least when it comes to hip-hop and rap. Or is it hip-hop/rap? Are they different? Regardless, I don't care for it/them and I don't appreciate it/them. When my musical taste was being formed, Run-DMC played on MTV as a novelty act. If you had told me in the mid-1980s that music like theirs would dominate the charts in 20 years, it would have been no more believable than if you said the same thing about the work of "Weird Al" Yankovic.

I won't bore you with a diatribe (for once), but I will leave you with a question. Not only do I think the question has no answer, I think it is a nonsensical question, like asking "Who is smarter, Albert Einstein or a rock?" (thanks, Scott).

My question is this:

Who is the Jimi Hendrix of rap?

I'm not looking for someone who died young. I'm thinking of Hendrix's instrumental virtuosity and songwriting ability. Bonus points for explaining what the terms "songwriting ability" and, especially, "instrumental virtuosity" might mean in the context of rap/hip-hop.

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posted at 10:49 PM

4 Comments:

Blogger syp said...

Clearly, your readership doesn't have a good grasp of the finer points of hip hop/rap either.

April 12, 2006 9:38 AM  
Blogger epicdoll said...

Hip Hop is an extention of Jazz. It is a movement in African American expression. If you are looking for THE black guitarist that can move the white rock world then you may look towards Ben Harper or Lenny Kravits. If you, however, would like to participate with a non-ethnocentric view of American culture then, I would suggest you start with Mos Def.
You can visit me at epicdoll.bolgspot

April 13, 2006 11:13 PM  
Blogger MWR said...

Truth be told, I wasn't looking specifically for a black person or a guitarist.

April 14, 2006 12:50 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

For me the problem with hip-hop or rap or whatever it's currently being called is that it is not music. Let's find a new name but please, how can it possibly have the same general label as sounds created by Mozart, Coltrane or even Sinatra. I mean this. It has no resemblance to music WHATSOEVER in my mind.

April 16, 2006 1:16 AM  

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