How Do You Respond: "Hip hop requires no talent to create."

You see? People are dumb.

YOU DON'T THINK PETER SAVILLE DESIGNS ANYTHING FOR ANY OLD BAND, DO YOU?

I mean, i understand that there isn't any accounting for taste, and that reasonable people can disagree about things. But isn't it really lame to just discount an entire genre of music out of hand? How can I prevent these people's lameness?

Then, I'd take a hammer and repeadedly bash them over the head, whilst repeating the opening verse from Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos.

If they're still breathing, I'd pour boiling water on their genitals and finish them off by force-feeding them LL Cool J cds.

Since just about everyone digs classic funk/r+b stuff, try playing hip-hop with that kind of vibe at your next society mixer. Maybe Blackalicious and (older stuff by) The Roots.

Are those my only choices, or can I set myself on fire?

The Latins... now those people were talented.

that said, "takes talent to create" /= "is good/enjoyable." i figure the quality/awesomeness of music is 100% embedded IN THE MUSIC. external factors (difficulty,circumstances of creation, "authenticity," etc) are secondary, if theyre important at all. if something SOUNDS good (lyrics figure in here, too, if you care about lyrics(i sort of do, but not all THAT much)), it is good, is the way i figure. that is the most important thing, and nothing should plague that enjoyment.

Take someone elses record, sample it, talk about your dick over the top. You got a rap song.

One thing is does take to create good rap, however, is black skin as white rappers suck.

White rappers have high pitched nasal voices unsuited to rapping over James Brown samples and triton presets and if you go see them live when they start to perspire on the stage the stench of bologna and wet dog becomes too much.

whoa! pedantry! awesome!

(Though I sympathize with the KISS kid a little - they're different kinds of talent, and lord knows that while I appreciate and respect great beats and tight flows, they don't fill me with awe the way your bluegrass shredders can when they get hot.)

-- pdf (newyorkisno...), December 30th, 2005.

Mwahaha. I went along to a showing of that freestyle documentary and it was FASCINATING and great but I suppose it only really featured pretty quality work so I have no idea what the rest of the genre sounds like. In any case, it was the stories & remembrances & historial context of battling, and the fun, imaginative shit people were saying that completely hooked me, not the sound of rap/hip hop as such.

First - kid that was into Kiss and hard rock saying that it took far less talent to write rap songs than to play electric guitar.

They're completely different disciplines and it's all relative. To some, learning how to play guitar might come completely naturally. And stringing together coherent couplets that rhyme might be second nature to others. They're both skills, though, and one is no greater than the other.

But fuck ye NOT with Kiss, that's all I'm sayin'.

I wouldn't say it's lost it's "relevance" because of a concentration on these things, but I think it's certainly scared off a lot of people....or, in my case, bored a lot of people. I can't fathom how people stay interested in listening to, say, 50 Cent boast about his wealth and prowess. I mean, fuck, bring something new to the table, why don't'cha?

Now - The complaint, voiced here about Kanye and others, that all hip hop artists do is recycle real music and write lame couplets

Well, that's crap too. I was listening to "Gold Digger" today and am continually blown away by both how inventive -- and yet still hugely accessbile -- his rap is, and found the production (beats, music, sampes, etc.) to be original and entertaining. So, tell that guy to piss up a rope....and this is from a guy who really knows dick up ass about contemporary Hip Hop.

I'm responding to some rather disparaging comments made to me by 'jesuschrist" a few posts up.

Possibly - though I would be more inclined to say James Blood Ulmer, R.L. Burnside, Junior Kimbrough and Little Axe.

As I said, you're a self-parody. These people are not hip-hop (Def Jux is, mind you). Go and listen to, oh, Eric B and Rakim, Public Enemy, NWA, Marley Marl, Grandmaster Flash for starters. And then maybe you can talk about not being aware of "any 'innovations' in hip hop that hasn't been done elsewhere." Because right now, you're saying that Rauschenberg did it all before Picasso (if I can momentarily give the likes of Prefuse 72 way too much credit for the sake of an analogy). Which is pretty fucking dumb.

And no, the argument is not that not liking hip-hop makes you a racist (or that Cliftonb is such). The argument is that, after 30 years of hip-hop as an overwhelming cultural force that remains black-identified, if anyone can say something as aggressively, provocatively stupid as "hip-hop requires no talent to create," they probably have some issues that they need to work through. At the very least, they need to enlarge their cultural universe beyond its no doubt lilly-white environs.

say "Neither Did You?" :/

The general consensus (even among hop-hop fans) is that hip-hop, well...lost something between its inception and the present. This is unfortunate. For hip-hop to remain viable in the years to come, it must continue to evolve. Now, I'm no scholar on this subject but it is my opinion the I nor any other individual has the authority to arbitrarily deem what is and what is not hip-hop (or any music for that matter). I'm a person who looks, say, at a night sky inhabited by celestial artwork and I consider what COULD be - what technology could I pluck from heart of a dead star that it may benifit us hear on Earth? The possibilities are endless! It's the same with hip-hop. The people who I mentioned (Prefuse, Dabrye, Daedalus, etc.) represent what I consider what "COULD BE". Even as a non-fan, I cound never place it in box and dismiss anything outside of that box as "not hip-hop". Some of my favorite music has been influenced (in varying degrees) by hip-hop and I hope the trend of cross-pollination and evolution continues. It benefits us all

Except The White Stripes and Interpol don't use samples from old hits.

Making a hit doesn't neccessarily take talent. The Crazy Frog and Schnappi anyone?

And playing the album "Daily Operation" is a proper response to almost anything. Where did I put that...?

But, the way they lift entire ideas and chunks of sound from their influences and graft them to one another seems to be the effect digital sampling has had on modern rock music. At least, that's what I'm hearing. The White Stripes songs I have heard sound like that dude said, "I'm going to lift this riff and layer it to this beat and add this groove over hear." They write songs the way a producer layers beats and samples.

-- Geir Hongro (geirhon...), December 31st, 2005.

Again, Geir, make a hit then. If it doesn't take talent, than do it.

No more than most 50s rock, and later blues based rock, has used the exact same 12 bars again and again.

Again, Geir, make a hit then. If it doesn't take talent, than do it.

Making a hit takes more marketing skills than musical talent.

He must have one of those really big monitors, or some sort of security station-style array.

"Talent is certainly more than just skills" - Not so sure about this either. What element in "talent" is missing in "skill?"

I can't remember when there ever was a hit wong.

This is the dumbest string of words I can even conceive of. What world do you even fucking live in? People are making novelty songs in Fruity Loops that are hitting the top of the charts? (And by the way... uhh... do you even know what music production IS?)

Somehow a hit is born. There have been many "hits" that come as complete surprises even to the songwriter.

I don't even get what this even means! Are you saying that the hitmaking process is totally arbitrary? Or when The Beatles made hits it was because they made it happen but when 50 cent does it, it's just random luck?

And what seperates this idea of "market sense" from "musical talent" in the first place? When you make music, aren't you making it for someone? How come artists like David Bowie, shit the Rolling Stones even who have entire careers predicated on this idea of making music with a market sense get a pass but when a black guy does it he lacks talent? WHAT ARE SKILLS AND HOW ARE THEY NOT TALENT? HOW IS IT THAT PEOPLE WHO ARE HAVING HIT AFTER HIT, USING A DIFFERENT PRODUCER ON ALMOST EVERY HIT ARE SOMEHOW RELYING ON "OTHER PEOPLE'S TALENT" TO MAKE IT HAPPEN? THEY'RE WORKING WITH DIFFERENT PEOPLE EVERY TIME!! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU FUCKING PEOPLE TALKING ABOUT? AHHHH!!!

Here a but a few exaples:

"Sukiyaki" - Kyu Sakamoto. Became an unexpected hit in 1963 after a Washington D.C disk jockey played the original Japanese version after firest hearing the British one.

"Time in a Bottle" - Jim Croce. This was pretty much a "throwaway" song on Croce's first solo CD. The producer, Terry Cashman, didn't even bother putting the finishing touches on it claiming that "No one is ever goint to hear it". The song shot to number one after it was used as the main theme of a TV movie called "She Lives"

"Ringo" - Lorne Greene - During the height of Beatlemania, Lorne Greene (best know as Pa Cartwright on the TV series 'Bonanza), released this spoken-word tale of the Old West.

There is a plethora of readily accesible of documentation as it relates to music history. Pleas, availe yourself them! I reitterate that it is impossible to totally predict what will or will not catch on in some major way with the Populace. This leads credence to my assertion that it is entirely POSSIBLE to bullshit a hit song. Sorry, but i didn't make the rules.

David Bowie has always aimed at more than just having a market sense.

When white guys aim at the market only, like the ones behind Crazy Frog and Schnappi (or even Simon Fuller or Pete Waterman), they get as much well-deserved shit as black people aiming at the market does.

You are obviously oblivious to the total brilliance that is "Schnappi". My condolences go out to you.

here's the problem right there. to do so would be completely fucking GAY.

fuck you fkjfkfj

and your little dog too!!!!!!

What is this "Schnappi" you people talk of?

With my deepest apologies:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcibw-m8tRk

Is Schnappi more maligned that metal?

Insofar as it not-so-discretely alludes to both schnapps and krokodil, it is a dangerous ditty, so yes.

Well, it's true, isn't it ?

White rappers have high pitched nasal voices unsuited to rapping over James Brown samples and triton presets and if you go see them live when they start to perspire on the stage the stench of bologna and wet dog becomes too much.

― ELLI$, Friday, December 30, 2005 12:02 PM bookmarkflaglink