The entire rap genre transformed at the exact same time the entire rock genre transformed

[cmw43]

Biggie, Tupac and Eazy E would be turning in their graves if they could see rappers today.

 

[INTERL0PER]

I can see the similarities, but as with many conversations like this, it only applies if we're only taking about the mainstream.

Otherwise all this talk about "harder, darker"rock falls apart (The Stooges, Joy Division, Motorhead, 80's pink and hardcore, death metal etc etc etc), same goes for the idea of Gangsta Rap absorbing everything and nothing "fun" or conscious coming during or after (Tribe, De La, Jurassic 5, Blackstar etc etc etc).

But yeah, if we're talking pop music and what the mainstream is paying attention to, I can see the correlation. It was all largely a reaction to the hyper commercial nature of the 80s mainstream.

 

[INTERL0PER]

Early rap (80s/90s) was actually tolerable. It hasn't been tolerable for close to 2 decades now.

Incorrect.

The mainstream rap/hip hop scene may be intolerable, but there are, and have been, countless lesser known rappers worth your time.

It's one of the greater travesties of late twentieth/early twenty first century pop culture that so much great hip hop got buried under so much trash. At its best, the combination of poetry and beats that great hip hop delivers is amazing.

 

[Jack Reacheround]

You're welcome to your opinion. I'd suggest demonstrating an understudying of my position first. I'll rephrase. Regardless of who is credited with the "first" Rock song, my point is that it evolved (and continues to) from multicultural influence. After all, the sound didn't originate in Africa. It just popped out of nowhere because blacks in the South weren't exposed to whitey's music?

If it moves this along I'm happy to concede the lion's share to the brothers.

It’s not an opinion that black Americans created rock & roll. It’s simply fact. How does one not know this?

 

[Jimmy Jazz]

Black musicians pioneered rock n roll.

white and native musicians did too.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

It’s not an opinion that black Americans created rock & roll. It’s simply fact. How does one not know this?

That doesn't contradict what I've said. A black American band could both have recorded the first R&R song and been influenced by the music they heard from white people, right (i.e. Country Western & Folk)? Sabbath created Metal in essence but they didn't do it in a vacuum. And what we know as Metal has greatly evolved. Rock is a huge genre and precious little of it today resembles Fats Domino. Did blacks take music in a new and wonderful direction that produced Rock? Absolutely. Would the history of Rock look anything like it does now without the cultural influence of whites? Absolutely not. Pretty sure it's a white guy credited with inventing the electric guitar. Where would Rock be without that?

Who was the first rock band and what was the first rock song? Probably impossible to pin down. While certainly not the first, here's a good ol' boy in 1947 coming from a Country perspective.




Some call this the first Rock record, and it's from 1951.

 

[Nathan LaMontagne]

Nirvana just copied the pixies.

First post is completely on point.

Also ripped off the killing Joke note for note.

 

[Adamant]

You ever give the Trip Hop genre a chance? It came out around the same time Gangsta rap did. I felt while NWA was dumbing down the genre Trip hop was taking it to loftier levels with its constant experimentation and blending of other genres into a hip hop base.

Incorrect.

The mainstream rap/hip hop scene may be intolerable, but there are, and have been, countless lesser known rappers worth your time.

It's one of the greater travesties of late twentieth/early twenty first century pop culture that so much great hip hop got buried under so much trash. At its best, the combination of poetry and beats that great hip hop delivers is amazing.

I'd be willing to give it a listen.

 

[revoltub]

First post is completely on point.

Also ripped off the killing Joke note for note.

Gotta give KJ a listen.

As far as pixie copying goes, I give weezer a lot more shit for it. But they also lasted longer as a band (clearly).

However, the emo bands of the 00s copied weezer anyway so the cycle continues.

 

[INTERL0PER]

I'd be willing to give it a listen.

Obviously this depends a lot on personal taste and what you're interested in, but here a few of my favorite hip hop artists. The common thread through them all is that they're intelligent, interesting and generally have good beats and actual, y'know, rapping. With complex rhyme schemes, wordplay and such...

For modern mainstream popularity, the best of the bunch is almost certainly Kendrick Lamar. Everything he's put out is pretty great, but I particularly like his albums 'Good kid Maad City' and 'DAMN'.

If you want something weirder, then try Aesop Rock - not to be confused with Asap Rocky, who's very popular. Aesop Rock has been going since the early 2000's and his signature is very heady wordplay with unusual subject matter. Like his song 'The Harbor is Yours' which is about a pirate who falls in love with a mermaid. Or 'No Regrets', a song about the life of a woman who just wanted to draw and nothing else. He's got a bunch. Check out his albums 'None Shall Pass' & 'The Impossible Kid'.

Brother Ali - he's an albino, legally blind, Muslim dude from Minnesota. He can also rap his ass off. Check out his album 'Us'

Run The Jewels - just good straight up, hard hitting hip hop. A duo composed of two veterans, El-P, a rapper producer from New York, and Killer Mike, a rapper from the South. All three of their albums are worth your time.

Tobe Nwigwe - a new dude on the come up. Just started listening to him recently. He has an album, or really just a collection of songs, on Spotify etc called 'The Originals', which is worth your time.

The Roots - more commonly known as Jimmy Fallon's house band, they're hip hop OGs from Philadelphia and have been killing it since the mid 90s. They're an actual band too, drummer, guitarist, the whole shebang. I'd recommend their albums 'Game Theory', 'How I Got Over' & 'Undun', but basically all their shit is good. Their lead MC, Blackthought just released his debut solo record, which is worth a listen.

This post is getting too long, so I'll leave you with Blackthought, and his epic 10 minute freestyle, which went viral a while back, shit is ridiculous...

 

[blaseblah]

You're welcome to your opinion. I'd suggest demonstrating an understudying of my position first. I'll rephrase. Regardless of who is credited with the "first" Rock song, my point is that it evolved (and continues to) from multicultural influence. After all, the sound didn't originate in Africa. It just popped out of nowhere because blacks in the South weren't exposed to whitey's music?

If it moves this along I'm happy to concede the lion's share to the brothers.

This shouldn't be a hard concept. Black musicians created rock. In the same way they created hip hop. You can talk all you want about influences. Literally everything is influenced by something else. Whether it's music, technology, etc.

Everyone acknowledges that Edison invented the light bulb. They don't start arguing and bringing up his influences. That's the equivalent of what you're doing. Give credit where credit is due.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

Give credit where credit is due.

I did. Unlike your oversimplification. That's what acknowledging influences and evolution does.





Most of the ingredients came from black Americans (i.e. R&B, Jazz, Gospel). A little bit is from Country Swing and Folk. So unless Country and Folk aren't credited to white folks there's nothing I've said here that's shown to be incorrect. If a question on a test as if black Americans created R&R I'd say true. If I had to write a paragraph I wouldn't dumb it down quite that much.

Fair enough? Wanna move on to something more interesting, like where and when do feel R&R congealed as a musical form? Or give your opinion on the significance of Bill Haley?

 

[n...not crazy]

No literally. The first rock songs were by black musicians. The entire genre spawned from the blues. Then guys like Elvis Presley came in and made it popular for white people. Did you know all of Elvis's hits were covers of blues songs?

Yeah well the pants the blues artists wore were invented by white people. Without these pants, the loin cloths would've really ruined the blues image.

So really it was white people.

 

[Cygnus A]

Seems like a corporate push to me, did Nirvana really make Alt. Rock too? There were a bunch of groups out in the UK that were experimenting with unconventional sounds.

PE>NWA

It was DEFINITELY a corporate push. Big record companies 100% said what was played on the radio at all times. Absolutely GREAT alt rock goes back to the 70s. It wasn't invented by Nirvana or mysteriously come about during the early 90s.

That being said, the 90s was one decade where the good music was actually pushed by corporations.

 

[Jack Reacheround]

A black American band could both have recorded the first R&R song and been influenced by the music they heard from white people, right

Right. And aliens could have built the pyramids. But what could have happened shouldn’t be substituted for what we know happened in order to distort history to our liking.

 

[Cubo de Sangre]

Right. And aliens could have built the pyramids. But what could have happened shouldn’t be substituted for what we know happened in order to distort history to our liking.

Nothing's being substituted on my end. We know Folk and Country helped shape R&R. I ain't the guy distorting history. It's in the links I've provided so take it up on wikipedia if you've got a problem with the facts. Sorry you're not able to discuss this wonderful subject with any nuance. Cheers.

 

[Possum Jenkins]

Everyone bemoans the decline of gangsta and hardcore rap but the explanation for it is pretty clear: The hood got safer. Way safer

Shootings and violence still happen, of course, but when they're about 1/3 of what they used to be, it's hard to come up with the material.

The early 90s were rough. A dude in my middle school got killed because he flashed a gang sign to some dudes outside a movie theater. And I went to school in the suburbs. The guy was probably one of the few legit thugs and he got shot and killed.

 

[POWER2]

I just realized something I never thought about before. I was in my Will Smith thread saying the song I posted was released in 1988. And if you're old enough you'll remember almost all rap songs back in 1988 had a very similar style to what Fresh Prince and Jazzy Jeff had. And they were mostly east coast guys on the radio back then. But then NWA released Straight Outta Compton that same year 1988, and transformed rap forever.

After NWA came out, nobody wanted to hear corny, positive hip hop. We wanted to hear about that thug life. So rap became darker and harder. Edgier. More gritty and realistic. The WHOLE rap genre had to adapt or die off. Even MC Hammer released Pumps In The Bump trying to adapt to the new style (didn't work. Still was a decent song though.).


OK, so now look at the rock genre. There's no argument that after Nirvana came out with the Nevermind album, the entire rock genre was changed forever. And I mean transformed completely. Remember we went from 80's hair metal like Van Halen and positive rock like Eddie Money or Bon Jovi......we went from THAT....to depressing lyrics, screaming, guitar distortion, more realism, a harder sound, and much more edge.


ok check this out:


Nirvana came out in 89 with the Bleach album. But Nevermind put them in the entire countries ear. Nevermind was released in 1991.


So how crazy of a coincidence is it that NWA came out with some hard shit, Straight Outta Compton, that didn't sound like ANYTHING anybody had ever heard before, and transformed their genre........at almost the exact same time Nirvana came out with some hard shit, Smells Like Teen Spirit, that didn't sound like ANYTHING anybody had ever heard before....and transformed THEIR genre too?!



NWA came out in 1988 but I don't think they blew up nationwide until around 1990...maybe late 89. Nirvana came out in 1988 but blew up when Teen Spirit started airing, which was 1991.

Both these bands came out and made almost everybody else in their genre obsolete. And with both bands the transformation of their ENTIRE genre was complete by 1994.
By 1994 in RAP - you didn't hear styles like Fresh Prince, LL Cool J, Run DMC....those styles were DONE. By 94 you heard Dr. Dre, Snoop, Tupac, Biggie, Warren G, Bone thugs, etc.
By 1994 in ROCK - you didn't hear styles like Eddie Money, Van Halen or Bon Jovi. No you heard Stone Temple Pilots, Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Smashing Pumpkins, etc.




Another similarity is that Nirvana created two new subgenres of music....grunge and alternative rock. And that in turn created 2 new SUBCULTURES OF PEOPLE, and social trends, fashion, attitudes.
NWA created a new subgenre of hip hop, Ganster Rap. Which in turn created a new subculture of people, social trends, fashion, and attitudes. Both subcultures wore a lot of flannel shirts too, and baggy pants, and beanies. It was weird.


I have no point here, lol. I just find it interesting and a little weird that both rap and rock changed in almost the exact same ways, starting at nearly the same time, and both being completed by 1994. There are a LOT of similarities there that I never noticed. So what's up with that? Why did that happen with both genres and why did it happen with both genres at the same time? And it goes deeper than the music genres changing. If you remember, those changes in rap and in rock changed our entire culture! Or at least the subcultures of rap fans and rock fans. Black people started dressing in flannel, big baggy pants, beanies, dew rags, etc. And rock fans started dressing in flannel (another similarity!) shirts, fairly baggy pants, beanies, skate shoes, etc.

All hip-hop didn't sound alike in 1988 and Will Smith had SEVERAL hardcore rap songs that your mother wouldn't have let you play in the house. They just didn't get released nationally. If you knew people who were into mixtapes, before mixtapes were really a thing, you could get someone to mail you a dirty engineered tape from the east coast with Will saying all kinda shit.

There were a LOAD of positive rappers after NWA. And many of them became millionaires, so their success really isn't an issue. By 1994 the number of positive rappers had grown exponentially, but in regional markets and nationally. Arrested Development were still touring in 1994 and beyond. Speech made so much money he just fucks around the world "talking" about whatever is of interest to him.

What did change after 1994 is the number of groups that were outwardly "Afrocentric".

As for rock, MAINSTREAM rock changed in the early 90's and definitely again around 1995. So much so that much of it isn't wasn't really true rock at all.

 

[Crimson Glory]

It was also when Prog, Power and Various Extreme Metal came to the forefront. Where Hair and Thrash Metal became dated(you had Hair Metal completely ruined with the current generation and you had Metallica abandoning Thrash all together), you had bands forming or releasing albums in the late 80's early 90's.

Whats depressing about the current date is, I'm unaware of any kind of shift like these. Too me, popular music sounds about the same as it did back in the 2000's. 10 to 15 years later and, I could be wrong here, but I don't hear much coming out nowadays that's much different than what was out back in 2007.

The only thing I can think of is, Rock is making a bit of a comeback, Greta Van Fleet and Ghost, like Zeppelin and Sabbath back in 1970... it's actually kind of weird. You've got a Zeppelin clone that's popular and a Doom Rock band that's getting attention too.

If only Wolfmother, Queens of the Stoneage and the White Stripes were coming out today too, it'd be a great.

 

[Crimson Glory]

Everyone bemoans the decline of gangsta and hardcore rap but the explanation for it is pretty clear: The hood got safer. Way safer

Shootings and violence still happen, of course, but when they're about 1/3 of what they used to be, it's hard to come up with the material.

The early 90s were rough. A dude in my middle school got killed because he flashed a gang sign to some dudes outside a movie theater. And I went to school in the suburbs. The guy was probably one of the few legit thugs and he got shot and killed.

This is good to hear.

Not only will Gangsta Rap go away, but people aren't killing eachother at the same rates as they used to.

Win/Win.

Maybe something to do with BLM?