Comment by Dn_Ab | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Dn_Ab | Hacker News Reader

1965ish. This is where, when Hip Hop was born. Probably a lot of you turn your nose down* at this angry crime glorifying inferior 'form of noise'. But look at the conditions of these kids and what they had to work with, is it any surprise that they would be so pissed?

Now look at today, not so many years after and against large odds; those kids have created an international culture with music, dance, stories, poetry - a veritable complex art form that touches the lives of hundreds of millions of people all over the world and gives, gave hope to those who had nothing else. This, at least is something that a community of hackers and entrepreneurs can appreciate. That is the true message of hip hop that has been lost by the bastardizing filteration process of media and people not so intimately connected to its origins - including descendants of the visionaries, who despoil the art and see it as only a means to get rich quick and stack up on some biches. Damned Entropy.

It speaks something of both the human ability to persevere and the unique aspects of the U.S. where people in such adverse coordinates can still go on to create. such great things.

I was a teeny bit hurt (not offended) by the Cr48 warning agains't exposure to rap.

yes i am aware that rap, heck music is a subset of hip hop

self.StepOfSoapBox()

Hear hear. For those who haven't had a lot of exposure to rap, I highly encourage you to explore the early roots of rap and hip-hop; you will find that much of it is extremely socially conscious, in ways more authentic and more compelling than long, drawn-out exposes and journal reports.

And then mainstream rap took a dive off a cliff into meaningless misogyny, bling, and euphemisms involving skeet shooting.

Rap today is a mashup of old lyrics, over-engineered (and unnecessary) beats and a sad use of Autotune. I used to DJ for years and couldn't stand where the music was going, but the classics are considered classic for a reason, in my book at least.

Listening to, and I mean really listening to the lyrics of true rappers that started and built the movement up is inspiring. Much of it is the obvious "Hoes & Cash", but there is almost always a reason they bring it up. It was either about what they strived to get to, or the rewards of their hustle and struggle to break out of the streets they grew up on. It truly is a unique form of expression that very few other music forms can touch.

Rap today is a mashup of old lyrics, over-engineered (and unnecessary) beats and a sad use of Autotune.

Mainstream rap, sure. But I don't think "rap" generally is worse. It's just that it's become popular enough for there to be a crass mainstream that didn't exist in the 80s.

It's common to bemoan the modern state of many things but we should recognize that while the mean quality may have dropped, the median probably hasn't. There's a lot of great rap still out there - it's just not the common definition anymore. (It's like bemoaning the commercialization of blogs or the low quality celeb accounts on Twitter - the good stuff still exists on both.)

hip hop can be all sorts of things, it doesn't just have to be what you like. Kanye's album was good, so are Weezy's mixtapes and Gucci's last mix that came out. Each of them has their own context. So does Del, Anticon, and everyone else.

Amen. I get so tired of the "mainstream rap has degenerated" argument. Every genre of music has tons of different artists, each with a different approach, and it's a general trend that people who listened to a genre of music in one era tend to not like the newer stuff (Try getting a classic rock or country fan to listen to a modern rock or country station, and watch the criticism flow!). It's just the nature of things.

The fact that you don't like the content/style/message/whatever doesn't make an art form any less an art form.

well put, and you didn't even have to try to praise Gucci Man to do it.

You might like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deltron_3030.

Totally - maybe a good transition would be NerdCore rap.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerdcore_hip_hop

> I was a teeny bit hurt (not offended) by the Cr48 warning against exposure to rap.

I agree, though I was a bit offended. I made a (downvoted) comment that I didn't get the joke on the original article, even though I understood that it was "peppered" with humor. Honestly, being exposed to hip-hop was one of the best things that ever happened to me.

    1965ish. This is where, when Hip Hop was born.

1965-ish? How do figure that? I always had it pegged as the mid '70s, South Bronx.

You're right that it was formed by the 70's but my emphasis is in the early undefined formative stages. Its true that by the mid 70s the movement had already organized itself into an early form of what we know as hip hop. But prior, in the late 1960s nascent movements were occurring that would eventually coalesce into the hip hop community by the mid to late 1970s.

If anybody is interested in learning about the roots of hip hop (more specifically of DJ culture), this is an excellent documentary on it:

http://www.amazon.com/Scratch-Afrika-Bambaataa/dp/B00006AL1G...

Also well worth watching, both for the hip hop history and a study of New York showing its best and worst:

"NY77: The Coolest Year in Hell" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1080761/

When I first heard about this project I was positive it would be a VH1 suckfest, but when I saw it was stunned. It's really good, quite accurate. Those were wild times in New York.

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