Hip Hop Is Not Art

[SheykAbdullah]

It seems the general consesus on this thread is that hip-hop could be art, if it were differently motivated. I've learned in my various experiences that art is a very plastic term. It will be interesting to see if in a hundred years hip-hop will be called art. It very well may be, after all most of the great artists of the Roccoco school were unashamed to freely admit that the body of their work was nothing more than expensive pornography for the walls of the nobility, and they were content with that, yet today we call men such as Boucher and Fragonard geniuses.

The problem with hip-hop is not nesecarily about it being degrading and essentially low-brow, but that it expresses, unself-consciously, essentially universal human ideas that must be understood before they are dismissed, and not everyone is willing to either understand or dismiss them. In each of us here in our history there lurked the possibility that we could become misogynistic, violent debauchers or 'booty' shaking 'ho'es. Something, however, caused us to evaluate our own personal circumstances and navigated us away from that path, be it parents, school, education, whatever. We may have never even been exposed to that side of life and think it could never have happened to us, but as I said, it was only the insulation of family or maybe religion or something else, that kept you from it.

Humanity at its base is essentially the same; a dark, unrestrained, violent being with unlimited potentional (and potential, in the words of my father, just means you aren't working hard enough. You could be better). How do you restrain such impulses in people that are unwilling to change, or were given no alternative in their early lives? You can't. In fact, in a free society there is nothing you can do aside from education in the various sciences, and if education in the intellectual process fails to convey a better social stance then there is nothing left. After all, untill they have actually committed a crime they have every right to be as crass as you may be noble, and while that could be the ultimate undoing of free society, changing it would be its death just the same.

[Shannanigan]

I just finished a course in African-American literature, and hip-hop art was very much included in the Norton Anthology that the course required. A lot of members are saying that they are tired of hearing "the same themes" over and over again in hip-hop, but how is that any different than the blues or rock and roll? Many genres focus on certain themes, sometimes they are even defined by those themes! Hip-hop, at least good hip-hop, will focus on themes that concern black people of the time...

Now, I am by no means a hip-hop fan (though my sister most definitely is), but while I do agree that there is a large number of useless, uncreative crap out there being called music (just as there is a large number of useless, uncreative crap out there being called poetry or literature) we can't denounce an entire genre of music just because what we, non hip-hop enthusiats, focus on the negative effects of the music and music videos and not the positive effects of the artists providing a sense of identity and companionship for young black people just as other musical artists undoubtedly did for us while we were growing up (I don't know how I would have survived without my alternative music growing up...)

There is good hip-hop out there...once you look past the stereotyped rhythms and baselines...

[jon1jt]

I just finished a course in African-American literature, and hip-hop art was very much included in the Norton Anthology that the course required. A lot of members are saying that they are tired of hearing "the same themes" over and over again in hip-hop, but how is that any different than the blues or rock and roll? Many genres focus on certain themes, sometimes they are even defined by those themes! Hip-hop, at least good hip-hop, will focus on themes that concern black people of the time...

Now, I am by no means a hip-hop fan (though my sister most definitely is), but while I do agree that there is a large number of useless, uncreative crap out there being called music (just as there is a large number of useless, uncreative crap out there being called poetry or literature) we can't denounce an entire genre of music just because what we, non hip-hop enthusiats, focus on the negative effects of the music and music videos and not the positive effects of the artists providing a sense of identity and companionship for young black people just as other musical artists undoubtedly did for us while we were growing up (I don't know how I would have survived without my alternative music growing up...)

There is good hip-hop out there...once you look past the stereotyped rhythms and baselines...

it's sad that hip hop would be included in a Norton Anthology for a college course next to the great minds of the heritage. i also don't understand how hip hop can be classified under "literature." i know of several high school teachers in the suburbs who spend mindless time in class interpreting hip hop music presumably because they can't get enough students jazzed up to read Robert Frost. forget about Shelley.

ghideon states that hip hop provides a thoughtful "social criticism" to ghetto life. it's just superficial observation "girl from compton got knocked up pop's picked up for grand larceny, yo yo, kid limp and cold in da' g'bage pail..." ugh. and the only time they inject a criticism is when it pertains to law enforcement.

has anyone heard the fairly new hip hop song, "Riding Dirty"? need i say what the song's about? i happen to see the video on MTV, which embellishes the drug dealer being "too slick" for the cops. i don't hear rock and roll doing that or even the disposable pop music out there. the days of dylan, simon and garfunkel, neil young, harry chapin, were social critics of their age and often kernels of poetry were discovered in their music along the way. not always. nor was it always fair and even-handed toward those it waged its disagreements. much of it was wrapped in hyperbole and crudeness. but the music pushed boundaries and provoked policy change, and generated an awareness of and discontent with democracy, not against it.

[subterranean]

Define art please....


And why am I getting an impression that non hip hop rap genres are not guilty from giving bad influence?

[jon1jt]

Define art please....

Art is not smut.

[stlukesguild]

Virgil, etc...

This question of whether rap/hip-hop is art really doubles back on our previous discussions of l'art pour l'art. Having previously stated that I am quite uncomfortable with the notion of using non-art measures (morality, politics, etc...) as a means of judging art, I must agree that rap is art, if I am to maintain any semblance of continuity. On the other hand, whether I like or dislike it (usually the latter) or whether it is good or bad art is another matter. I find that most of this "music" is rather simplistic (if not mindless) as poetry... laden with ridiculous bravado and swagger which mostly lacks any wit or inventiveness. And then there is the repetitive... monotonous nature of the music itself. Of course similar criticisms could be leveled at many other musical styles: certainly much of heavy metal (which is almost equally [unintentionally?] comic in its posturing to rap) and much of pop music in general. Of course there are always exceptions and I have long maintained that 90% of all art is mediocre at best. As to the issue of art... music, film, TV etc... having a potentially negative impact upon an audience, this is another question altogether. While I fully support the right of artists to create works laden with blatant sex, violence, anti-social behavior etc... I don't immediately assume that the rights of the artists to create such should be interpretted as negating the rights of parents and society from censoring... or restricting access to such from children. I should also note that the defense used by the music/film/tv industries suggesting that exposure to such "entertainment" has no impact upon society is complete BS. You only have to ask yourself why would corporate America spend billions advertizing on TV, magazines, etc... if such investments did not impact consumer behaviors (spending). But then excessive violence and sex on TV has no impact? They can't have it both ways.

[SheykAbdullah]

Art is not smut.

I would just like to reiterate my comment about Boucher and Fragonard, two of the greatest artists of the Rococco movement, who painted unabashed pornography which is now hung in nearly every major, and many minor, museums from the National Gallery in DC to the Hermitage in St Petersburg.

As far as older music styles not having empty violence and senseless death, I might refer you to Mississippi John Hurt's "First Shot Missed Him" which says, among other things, "First shot missed 'im a mile away; First shot missed 'im a mile a way; But the second shot got 'im, so they say, But the second shot got 'im so they say" or many of the songs in the Stago Lee sagas. Also there are bluegrass classics like "Willow Garden" with lines like "I drew the saber through her which was a bloody knife; I threw her in the river, which was a dreadful sight," and goes on to explain how he hoped to bribe his way out of jail. Also one can reference "Long Black Veil," which is about an adulterer. All these are important songs in the development of the American music tradition, and each of them were recorded originally before 1950.

Granted the violence in at least the first song is not so terrible, but when taken from the cultural context in which it was recorded it can be said to be no less extreme than that present in rap music.

Gratuitous violence is also extremely common in political songs. One can reference "Dunagon '57" which has lines like "And the RUC (Royal Ulster Constabluary, the pro-British militia in Ireland) went right back in again when he found he was lookin' down the barrel of a sten (machine gun)!" and "And if the British soldiers came, he said he'd blow 'em all to hell!" Additionally, "British Army" has lines like "When I was young I had a twist for punchin' babies with me fist." Of course, one can say that these songs are socially degenerative, revolutionary, and therefore not art, but they are political action songs not unlike The Battle Hymn of the Republic, or poems like The Charge of the Light Brigade.

Of course these examples only address the violence inherit in rap and not the misogyny, which is admittedly pretty unprecedented.

I am not excusing the content of Rap songs, or even saying that I listen to them, nor am I saying that they are art. Art is far too maleable a term to be applied in a rational discussion of things, but to dismiss the music out of hand simply for having disagreeable elements is certainly not an enlightened approach to understanding the nature of the phenomenon, which exists by popular demand, and thus is not an enlightened approach to understanding our society, which endorses, at least on a public stage, this form of music and elects it by patronage as modern, maybe I should say post-modern, dance standards.

As to the shame of it being included an an anthology next to the 'great-minds' of our literary heritage, I have to disagree. The fact is rap is as popular, if not more, today than Byron ever was in his own time, and popularity is more often than not what dictates endurance and legitimacy (there are obviously some exceptions to the rule). Perhaps Rap may be less intellectually challenging than Shelley (whom I have heard accused of being a driveller by several critics), less involved, less allegorical, but such possibly malicious simplicity may be the common sentiment of our time.

Undoubtedly many things can be said of rap to discredit it as a trend worthy of note, but then again, many things can also be said of 'artistic' works of the past. After all, what, fundamentally, is the difference between Animal Farm and propganda? Andy Warhol and the glorification of Commercialism? Uncle Tom's Cabin and a common pamphlet intended to incite what could be a seditious view of the state fo affairs? Trajan's column is little more than the self-glorification of an emporer, and who can really see Napoleon standing amidst plague victims as in the painting by Gros? Despite the rather unflattering origins of these pieces of 'art' no one hesitates to call them such, and many of our great pieces come from similiarly disgraceful origins, yet we do not hesitate to label them as great, and why? Because of popular sentiment. You may doubt my words, but if I were to proclaim Shakespeare here as a hack what would people say? There would be universal uproar and clamor decrying my sense of literary quality, but if I said I thought so because his stories were outdated, uninteresting and lacking the clear, straightforward, glorifingly simplistic guise of modernism, my opinion would still be repudiated as uninformed by the argument that the whole world loves him, that he is the earth's second greatest selling author, and as such I am in disagreement with the enlightened opinions of the greater part, again overwhelmingly greater part, of the educated world, and that therefore my opinions must be wrong, based on an artist's popularity, dare I say his percieved intellectual cachet.

The fact of the matter is that whether we like it or not rap and things just as intellectually challenged in my mind (Conceptualist pieces such as The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone living, which is a shark suspended in a tub of formaldehyde), are popularly, therefore highly, regarded today. Part of the price of democracy is admitting that the power of the people to make desicions about art is just as legitimate as the power of the people to decide their own government, and the price that must be paid is the swallowing of certain uncomfortable compromises thus implied. Rap seems to be one of them. As someone who considers himself a gentleman I find it as offensive as the next person, but the cruel, carnal fascination it posesses for the rest of us demands it be recognized, explored and if not wholly legitimized, at least accepted for what it is precieved by society as a whole. People will only be able leave it and its ideas behind, or accept them as wholly legitimate and normalized, once that has been done, once its basic concepts have been brought out and shown for what they are and people forced to choose whether it is what they truly like and agree with or whether it is really smut. If there is any power to destroy it that power is certainly not scorn, force, or disownment. Those only give it cachet as being the 'the music of the people,' 'the Truth,' or even the 'unart,' whose very nature begs at what it pretends to oppose.

[stlukesguild]

Critic Nick De Genova brands the ghetto of rap music as a "space of death" and also as a space of "survival and transcendence."

As someone who teaches in the public schools in the very neighborhoods that spawn rap music I am well aware of the pain and horror and injustice that still exists in America. I guess that where I am having a problem with a good deal of rap is that I fail to see any "transcendence". Certainly a great many of the jazz musicians came out of circumstances that were no better (and in some aspects, worse) and yet there is the magic of the pain transcended... turned into art. This is not to say that the reality... the pain is ignored. It is certainly there. But there is no wallowing in juvenile embrace of the very worst. Transcendence certainly exists in Miles Davis, and Duke Ellington... and in other times and places and art forms it certainly existed in Sholom Aleichem, S. Y. Agnon, the Book of Lamentations, Goya, Breughel, etc...

[ghideon]

This is a place where minds of reason can, one hopes, meet. With that said I will examine your words,language and arugments. I do this with the hope that in website focused on literature and language we will all own the words we use. I have no problem owning up to each word I write. I hope the same can be said for all others.


"to the great minds of the heritage."

Heritage usually referrs to aspects of a tradition that have been passed down from one generation to the next. If you were using the word with that meaning then which tradition do you mean when you write "the heritage"? Do you believe there is one tradition that needs to be taught in the nation's schools? Now before you go and just lump me into one of the Lefty, multi-cultural, relativistic boxes let me remind you I have no interest in diversity for diversity sake. As if we need to stop and pay attention to non-white, non-Western literature out of some sense of duty or obligation. No. The simple fact, and I am more then willing to back this up with as much objective evidene that you may need, the fact is that if there is a single heritage in this society it most certainly would include an enormous diversity of cultural influences. That is just the simple truth not some Michael Moore whine.

Or have you forgotten that there would have been no Rock and Roll if there had not been the jazz/blues musical genre first. Are you unaware of Elvis's debt to the black musicians that preceded him? He was certainly aware of it.

i know of several high school teachers in the suburbs who spend mindless time in class interpreting hip hop music presumably because they can't get enough students jazzed up to read Robert Frost. forget about Shelley.

One film that I dare say could be considered part of this nation's cinematic "heritage" is Blackboard Jungle. It depicts a high school in the late 50s. It's a tough school in a tough part of town and the students, almost all of them white, with the exception of just a few blacks and hispanic students (one of whom is played by that actor you may have heard of Sidney Poiter). Anyway, a new teacher is hired and he keeps on failing to get the attention of the class. They pass notes, giggle, throw gum at each other, and so on...anyway, at wits end he gets a movie projector and plays a Tom and Jerry cartoon (I think it is Tom and Jerry) and the kids shut up and just watch. He then asks them questions. Good questions. Questions about motivation? Questions about plot? And the students begin to actually grasp the pleasure of critical thinking.

You glibly dismiss the efforts of some school teachers. Do you have any idea what most teachers are up against every hour of the day? If I was a teacher I would use anything I could to engage the students. What would you do?

Oh, by the way, those whites in the suburbs buy tons of rap and hip-hop. In fact, if memory serves me, they purchase at least as much of the music as the folks living in the hood. Are those students the innocent victims of some ghetto/black/Lefty conspiracy? Just what is going on in that dynamic there? Are they innocent victims of some dark menacing force (maybe born from the jungles of Conrad) that yearns to take over the clean, pure minds of our "good" youth?

ghideon states that hip hop provides a thoughtful "social criticism" to ghetto life. it's just superficial observation "girl from compton got knocked up pop's picked up for grand larceny, yo yo, kid limp and cold in da' g'bage pail..." ugh. and the only time they inject a criticism is when it pertains to law enforcement.

There are several differences between some of the thoughtful criticism and writings that are on this thread and your above assessment of hip hop lyrics. One is that most of the posts actually contain from actual songs. Yours does not and again the glibness gets in the way of reason.

You may ask yourself if those who are producing the clothes, music, parties, magazines, websites, of the Hip Hop culture care that you find it "superficial"? Or better, I am fairly confident that many of them would actually appreciate your attitude because it would offer them more evidence, as if more was needed, that many of their critics know nothing about their world but think they do.

has anyone heard the fairly new hip hop song, "Riding Dirty"? need i say what the song's about?

I don't know. Has anybody heard a major song out now(found it on Yahoos home page) called "Hip Hop Is Dead". A major artist expresses his anger with the community and the music he cares deeply about. Yes there is even "meta" hip hop out there and it is critical as well.


.

i don't hear rock and roll doing that or even the disposable pop music out there. the days of dylan, simon and garfunkel, neil young, harry chapin, were social critics of their age and often kernels of poetry were discovered in their music along the way.

You "don't hear" cause you don't listen. Lets see...how much chicken blood is going to drip from the Satanic tribe? Or then there is the Hard Core Punk music. You know, that wonderful, classicaly trained musician Sid Vicious. I am down for all of it. I don't like like all of it but I do not base my values on my personal take. I do not let my individual likes/dislikes get in the way of being able to appreciate important cultural representations. Yea, maybe I don't want to listen to The Sex Pistols more then twice a month but their importance to the working class culture of England can not be ignored. Nor would it be wise to forget that Punk opened doors for many other types of music and bands from XTC to The Clash.


And finally, I could list about 500 songs from white Rock and Roll groups that glorify everything from murder, rape, drug use and so on. You're willing to defend everything from the the Door's glorification of LSD to Clapton (who I think of as a music deity) wrote singing "Cocaine".

But I forgot...coke is the uptown drug these days that rich folk use. The hood is still doing that ghetto fix crack. And thus, songs about snow are fine but songs about rock...no, no.

[stlukesguild]

I would just like to reiterate my comment about Boucher and Fragonard, two of the greatest artists of the Rococco movement, who painted unabashed pornography which is now hung in nearly every major, and many minor, museums from the National Gallery in DC to the Hermitage in St Petersburg.

SLG- As an artist I would be very interested in seeing all of these "pornographic" paintings. Certainly Boucher and Fragonard painted a great deal of art that might be termed "erotic" in nature...:







... and there are the rare paintings and drawings (not uncommon to most artists) that verge upon "pornography"... or at least those that qualify as more blatantly erotic. But unabashed pornographic paintings hanging in every major museum? Only if your definition of pornography matches that of mark Twain who imagine nothing but lewdness and crudity in Titian's great Venus D'Urbino.

As far as older music styles not having empty violence and senseless death, I might refer you to Mississippi John Hurt's "First Shot Missed Him" which says, among other things, "First shot missed 'im a mile away; First shot missed 'im a mile a way; But the second shot got 'im, so they say, But the second shot got 'im so they say" or many of the songs in the Stago Lee sagas. Also there are bluegrass classics like "Willow Garden" with lines like "I drew the saber through her which was a bloody knife; I threw her in the river, which was a dreadful sight," and goes on to explain how he hoped to bribe his way out of jail.

SLG- Again, I have no qualms with death, violence, sex etc... portrayed in art. Art should be able to address all aspects of the world. On the other hand... the "meaningless" or "emptiness" needs to be trascended through the art. Goya, for example, presents images of horror and ugliness that he certainly lived through during the dark days of the Napoleonic wars. However, he attempts to transcend these... to give them some "meaning" if you will by giving them the beauty an artist can lend. The bravado and sexism and racism and anti-social behavior presented in a great deal of rap music is not the expression of an invented character... it is rather the rather mindless ranting of an angry and simple minded "performer". It has about as much artistic worth as the rambling and self-centered agrandizing affected in most teenager's diaries, the "stories" of familial dysfuctionality explored on Jerry Springer or even the hate-filled racism and sexism spouted forth by the unemployed drunk in the local bar.

Gratuitous violence is also extremely common in political songs. One can reference "Dunagon '57" which has lines like "And the RUC (Royal Ulster Constabluary, the pro-British militia in Ireland) went right back in again when he found he was lookin' down the barrel of a sten (machine gun)!" and "And if the British soldiers came, he said he'd blow 'em all to hell!" Additionally, "British Army" has lines like "When I was young I had a twist for punchin' babies with me fist." Of course, one can say that these songs are socially degenerative, revolutionary, and therefore not art, but they are political action songs not unlike The Battle Hymn of the Republic, or poems like The Charge of the Light Brigade.

SLG- Again, the gratuitous violence alone does not negate our taking a work seriously as art. Certainly, Cormac McCarthy's masterful novel, Blood Meridian is disturbing in the extreme... and it is easy to understand why many balk at Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, Nabokov's Lolita, or Gore Vidal's Myra Breckenridge. In all of these instances, however, there is an undoubtable artistic brilliance. There certainly may be many precedents in other forms of music and art for the violence inherent in Rap/Hip Hop. In most cases, however, these were not afforded the commercial support that establishes Rappers as role-models among society. As for the suggestion that there is no difference between violent hip-hop and violent close-minded calls to murder and torture a political solution and The Charge of the Light Brigade... I guess that such an analogy is only possible to one unable to discern the difference between Boucher's rather harmless (even... dare I say it?... cute) eroticism and pornography. The next step would seem to be to suggest that there is no actual difference between the real act of murder and Shakespeare's portrayal of such in his plays.

... to dismiss the music out of hand simply for having disagreeable elements is certainly not an enlightened approach to understanding the nature of the phenomenon, which exists by popular demand, and thus is not an enlightened approach to understanding our society, which endorses, at least on a public stage, this form of music and elects it by patronage as modern, maybe I should say post-modern, dance standards...

SLG- Certainly, I would not think to dismiss all such music out of hand... and certainly not upon grounds that it tackles themes which make me uncomfortable. On the other hand... I can dismiss a good deal of it as juvenile and rather uncreative... using violence merely for shock value... or because the "artist" himself is is simply a rather hateful person. As for the notion that the music represents what the audience wants... this has long been claimed by the music and etertainment industry. This may indeed say something about our culture. It may say more about the whoremongering industry that will provide whatever is desired for a price. Do we, however, allow for the lowest common denominator to direct our culture? Because there are many teenage boys who can think of nothing more to which to aspire to than becoming a pimp does that justify not merely providing images and soundtracks for this market, but the backing of a great commercial industry to publicize such work?

continued...

[stlukesguild]

As to the shame of it being included an an anthology next to the 'great-minds' of our literary heritage, I have to disagree. The fact is rap is as popular, if not more, today than Byron ever was in his own time, and popularity is more often than not what dictates endurance and legitimacy (there are obviously some exceptions to the rule). Perhaps Rap may be less intellectually challenging than Shelley (whom I have heard accused of being a driveller by several critics), less involved, less allegorical, but such possibly malicious simplicity may be the common sentiment of our time.

SLG- Now this is pure BS. First of all, popularity with the masses of the time has never been the element by which great art survives. Works of art survive because they continue to inspire the art experts (critics, scholars, historians, and other artists... in other words, those who have invested time and effort into studying/appreciating/exploring/understanding art) and they survive because they continue to speak to the public of art lovers (in whatever art form) over time. Most works of popular art quickly fade into embarrassing "period pieces". The Monkees sold more records than anybody in 1967... however I greatly doubt that they will still be idolized by 2067. Indeed, most would find them rather embarassing now. Harry Potter... well I'll leave that one alone. There certainly were artists who have survived who were grossly popular during their own lifetime... however there may be just as many, if not more, whose achievements were not recognized... whose work was too challenging or out of sync with the time. As for the notion that rap may well last because it is the best expression of the time... I should note that every time in history has had its simplistic entertainments. These rarely survive as the great art of the time. Art is more than entertainment and more than merely a mirror of a given time and place. We merely live in a time in which the money exists in the mass marketing of entertainment/art due to the ability to mass produce reproduction of art forms (books, cds,dvds). Pandering to the market of the moment is far more lucrative than marketing to a more discerning market.

Undoubtedly many things can be said of rap to discredit it as a trend worthy of note, but then again, many things can also be said of 'artistic' works of the past. After all, what, fundamentally, is the difference between Animal Farm and propganda? Andy Warhol and the glorification of Commercialism? Uncle Tom's Cabin and a common pamphlet intended to incite what could be a seditious view of the state fo affairs? Trajan's column is little more than the self-glorification of an emporer, and who can really see Napoleon standing amidst plague victims as in the painting by Gros? Despite the rather unflattering origins of these pieces of 'art' no one hesitates to call them such, and many of our great pieces come from similiarly disgraceful origins, yet we do not hesitate to label them as great, and why? Because of popular sentiment.

SLG- Popular sentiment has nothing to do with it. Neither George Orwell nor even Shakespeare are enamored of the mass public. The reason they survive and continue to do so... even in spite of presenting elements at times which disturb... is because they are acknowledged for their artistic worth by those who have invested the time and effort and even (perhaps) money into studying/appreciating/exploring/understanding art. Certainly I may question Gros' idolizing of Napoleon no less than Leni Reifenstahl's agrandizing of Adolph Hitler and Nazism. However, I do not question their ability to give brilliant artistic form to their perceptions.

You may doubt my words, but if I were to proclaim Shakespeare here as a hack what would people say? There would be universal uproar and clamor decrying my sense of literary quality, but if I said I thought so because his stories were outdated, uninteresting and lacking the clear, straightforward, glorifingly simplistic guise of modernism, my opinion would still be repudiated as uninformed by the argument that the whole world loves him, that he is the earth's second greatest selling author, and as such I am in disagreement with the enlightened opinions of the greater part, again overwhelmingly greater part, of the educated world, and that therefore my opinions must be wrong, based on an artist's popularity, dare I say his percieved intellectual cachet.

SLG- Again, popularity has nothing to do with it. What does matter is that your arguments would be refuted by many who have the experience and have invested much into the field of literature who would not merely counter with an argument as lame as that of suggesting that he's a best seller but rather they would answer each of the charges with reasons as to why they disagree with your assertions. As for the notion that you might critique Shakespeare (and undoubtedly Mozart and Leonardo) as failing to meet the simplistic standards of modern entertainment I suppose that this is done so everyday by the public that prefers Brittany Spears to Mozart, Yugi-o to Leonardo, and Tupac to Shakespeare. Personally, I don't buy the notion of artistic "relativity"... the concept that there is no "good" nor "bad" in art... that its all relative. To have such standards is often dismissed as elitist and snobbish, but the snobbism that I find far more offensive is that anti-intellectualism which sneers at anything which requires intellect, demands effort and discipline or achieves a high standard.

The fact of the matter is that whether we like it or not rap and things just as intellectually challenged in my mind (Conceptualist pieces such as The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone living, which is a shark suspended in a tub of formaldehyde), are popularly, therefore highly, regarded today. Part of the price of democracy is admitting that the power of the people to make desicions about art is just as legitimate as the power of the people to decide their own government, and the price that must be paid is the swallowing of certain uncomfortable compromises thus implied. Rap seems to be one of them. As someone who considers himself a gentleman I find it as offensive as the next person, but the cruel, carnal fascination it posesses for the rest of us demands it be recognized, explored and if not wholly legitimized, at least accepted for what it is precieved by society as a whole. People will only be able leave it and its ideas behind, or accept them as wholly legitimate and normalized, once that has been done, once its basic concepts have been brought out and shown for what they are and people forced to choose whether it is what they truly like and agree with or whether it is really smut. If there is any power to destroy it that power is certainly not scorn, force, or disownment. Those only give it cachet as being the 'the music of the people,' 'the Truth,' or even the 'unart,' whose very nature begs at what it pretends to oppose.


SLG- Certainly art and democracy do make strange bedfellows. Art is inherently an elitist activity. It is about "bad" and "good" and "better" and "best" and the masses certainly lack the ability (or the interest) to make such choices. Plato warned of the problems of art in a democracy as did DeToqueville. I agree that in the visual arts we find many questionable works of art that are praised and collected by an increasingly "democratic" public. This public has the wealth to buy art, but has invested little effort into looking at art and learning about art. As such, they are prime dupes for underhanded dealers. As a working artist I completely reject the notion that the public in any way should be seen as the legitimate measure of artistic worth. I would also suggest that I find it quite intriguing that the notion of "elitism" is such a problem in art... and yet we have no problem in admitting that elitism... that measures of "good", "better" and "best" exist in other fields. Certainly, we would not think to take a poll of public opinion with regard to questions of quantum physics, biology, the law, history, etc... As Plato suggested centuries ago, you go to the doctor when you are sick. You don't poll the man in the street. Why then should I care the least for the opinion of the public who has invested no real time or effort into exploring and learning about art beyond that which is spoon-fed them by the entertainment industry?

[jon1jt]

Dittos STLUKESGUILD! Well said!

You may ask yourself if those who are producing the clothes, music, parties, magazines, websites, of the Hip Hop culture care that you find it "superficial"? Or better, I am fairly confident that many of them would actually appreciate your attitude because it would offer them more evidence, as if more was needed, that many of their critics know nothing about their world but think they do.

of course they appreciate my attitude because they live under the illusion that my criticism is an acknowledgement of their innovation and also that people like me can't grasp its sophistication, such thinking which is a function of their own self-aggrandizment and nothing more. there's no sophistication in bubble gum; people chew it and spit it out.

You "don't hear" cause you don't listen. Lets see...how much chicken blood is going to drip from the Satanic tribe? Or then there is the Hard Core Punk music. You know, that wonderful, classicaly trained musician Sid Vicious. I am down for all of it. I don't like like all of it but I do not base my values on my personal take. I do not let my individual likes/dislikes get in the way of being able to appreciate important cultural representations.
Yea, maybe I don't want to listen to The Sex Pistols more then twice a month but their importance to the working class culture of England can not be ignored.

history makes the music sometimes and unfortunately trash is deified in the process. but these are blips in history, for only years later does posterity reclaim it's soul as it comes to terms with its old absurdity.

Nor would it be wise to forget that Punk opened doors for many other types of music and bands from XTC to The Clash.

And finally, I could list about 500 songs from white Rock and Roll groups that glorify everything from murder, rape, drug use and so on. You're willing to defend everything from the the Door's glorification of LSD to Clapton (who I think of as a music deity) wrote singing "Cocaine".

i'm happy you didn't mention pink floyd because i like them! and there's complexity in that music uncomparable to that hip hop horray ho!

But I forgot...coke is the uptown drug these days that rich folk use. The hood is still doing that ghetto fix crack. And thus, songs about snow are fine but songs about rock...no, no.

i don't dispute drug choice as being most tied to class. but i'm still trying to figure out who you mean when you talk about contemporary rock music full of drug (snow) references (lenny kravitz?, (new) aerosmith?, bob seger?...i don't think so) and grunge is dead, don't you know? are you talking about classic rock, perhaps? that was over thirty years ago! the 1980s was all about walking on sunshine. (hey i like that cheesy katrina and the waves song! ) well, there was ol' scruffy george michael getting dirty with wanting everyone's sex!

you keep bringing up music as being an evolutionary creation rather than the sheer genius of great lyricists and musicians who followed their own impulses. did you happen to get that evolution theory from one of those "Rap and Rock: Cultural Phenomena" courses offered as a multicultural elective in college? just a hunch. maybe you've even read that there book called "The Death of Rhythm & Blues" by Elson George that claim "white" rock is just an offshoot of "black" blues. yeah i'm familiar with all that drivel too.

You glibly dismiss the efforts of some school teachers. Do you have any idea what most teachers are up against every hour of the day? If I was a teacher I would use anything I could to engage the students. What would you do?

no, you're right, i wouldn't know anything about that. what would i do?
i would quit.

[dramasnot6]

To put it briefly, I find those hip hop and rap music videos revolting. They seem to appeal to every form of sexism out there, and promote stereotypes about many different races. So many of my peers idolize hip hop stars, using shockingly limited and crude vocabulary and objectifying themselves(particulary girls). Some of the older hip hop wasnt so bad, but today i can never turn on MTV in fear of gagging from images of skimpily dressed women with breast implants hanging off of violent men using lyrics far from poetic or soulful. Music is the language of the heart and soul,not the loins.

[SheykAbdullah]

SLG- As an artist I would be very interested in seeing all of these "pornographic" paintings. Certainly Boucher and Fragonard painted a great deal of art that might be termed "erotic" in nature...:

[... and there are the rare paintings and drawings (not uncommon to most artists) that verge upon "pornography"... or at least those that qualify as more blatantly erotic. But unabashed pornographic paintings hanging in every major museum? Only if your definition of pornography matches that of mark Twain who imagine nothing but lewdness and crudity in Titian's great [I]Venus D'Urbino

.

Boucher and Fragonard did paint pornography, it just is not at the same level of pornography that we acknowledge today. Their paintings were boudoir paintings intended to glorify the sexuality of a mistress or of woman with the thin verneer of occasional classical acceptability. Titian's Venus D'Urbino served the same purpose.

Just because something is not x (pornography for example) as we recognize it today does not mean it is y (what we call it today). The fact that their paintings were mostly made for pornographic purposes may or may not affect how you view them as art, and it may not dismiss them automatically as art, but everything must be looked at in its proper historical context in order to understand why it exists and what purpose it ultimately serves, in other words to get to the heart of the matter, and that means understanding why it was made. Boucher and Fragonard painted their greatest works to titilate their viewer, and such an action recieves the definition of pornography.

SLG- Again, I have no qualms with death, violence, sex etc... portrayed in art. Art should be able to address all aspects of the world. On the other hand... the "meaningless" or "emptiness" needs to be trascended through the art. Goya, for example, presents images of horror and ugliness that he certainly lived through during the dark days of the Napoleonic wars. However, he attempts to transcend these... to give them some "meaning" if you will by giving them the beauty an artist can lend. The bravado and sexism and racism and anti-social behavior presented in a great deal of rap music is not the expression of an invented character... it is rather the rather mindless ranting of an angry and simple minded "performer". It has about as much artistic worth as the rambling and self-centered agrandizing affected in most teenager's diaries, the "stories" of familial dysfuctionality explored on Jerry Springer or even the hate-filled racism and sexism spouted forth by the unemployed drunk in the local bar.

Art, as I said before, is too meaningless a word to argue about its meaning. If we used the Webster's definition of the word art, which is

"The quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principals, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance"

Then rap is art. It is a production according to aesthetic principals (granted a dark aethetic, but aesthetic is not necesarily beautiful as commonly precieved), which has for some people more than ordinary significance.

If we are going to get into a metaphysical debate about art, then I supose that would depend on your definition. I've never met two peole who had the same definition of art, strange as it may sound, which is why I stopped caring long ago about what is art and am more concerned about what is significant, because almost everything is, in fact, art in one way or another, depending on your perspective.

As for the empty violsence and pointless sexism I agree. I'm not arguing about that.

SLG- Again, the gratuitous violence alone does not negate our taking a work seriously as art. Certainly, Cormac McCarthy's masterful novel, Blood Meridian is disturbing in the extreme... and it is easy to understand why many balk at Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, Nabokov's Lolita, or Gore Vidal's Myra Breckenridge. In all of these instances, however, there is an undoubtable artistic brilliance. There certainly may be many precedents in other forms of music and art for the violence inherent in Rap/Hip Hop. In most cases, however, these were not afforded the commercial support that establishes Rappers as role-models among society. As for the suggestion that there is no difference between violent hip-hop and violent close-minded calls to murder and torture a political solution and The Charge of the Light Brigade... I guess that such an analogy is only possible to one unable to discern the difference between Boucher's rather harmless (even... dare I say it?... cute) eroticism and pornography. The next step would seem to be to suggest that there is no actual difference between the real act of murder and Shakespeare's portrayal of such in his plays.

What is brilliance?

There is no functional difference between Boucher and pornography, the only difference is the value we currently assign to each. Boucher's paintings were intended to titilate in the boudoir, to illicit a sexual feeling, and pronography is intended to do the same. I'm not calling into question that value either, to tell you the truth I don't care much for Boucher or pornography, though I like Boucher more. We must look to what something is intended to accomplish before we can judge what it really is.

SLG- Certainly, I would not think to dismiss all such music out of hand... and certainly not upon grounds that it tackles themes which make me uncomfortable. On the other hand... I can dismiss a good deal of it as juvenile and rather uncreative... using violence merely for shock value... or because the "artist" himself is is simply a rather hateful person. As for the notion that the music represents what the audience wants... this has long been claimed by the music and etertainment industry. This may indeed say something about our culture. It may say more about the whoremongering industry that will provide whatever is desired for a price. Do we, however, allow for the lowest common denominator to direct our culture? Because there are many teenage boys who can think of nothing more to which to aspire to than becoming a pimp does that justify not merely providing images and soundtracks for this market, but the backing of a great commercial industry to publicize such work?

continued...

If the music were not what the audience wants wouldn't it stop selling? I realize there is a market that manufactures ideas and brands and markets 'cool,' but the fact of the matter is one way or the other people buy ever increasing volumes of this freely. What would you do about it?

We do not have to allow for 'the lowest common denominator' to govern society, I never said we did. I said that the status of music is determined by its popularity. I would ask you, if most of America listens to rap, or at least a significant percentage of the youth population, a plurality I would imagine, are they then the 'lowest common denominator'? I believe that we may find ourselves soon in the 'lowest common denominator' if rap keep growing the way it does, and then what will we have to say for ourselves? That what we value is superior to the many? That the majority of society is trash? Society has no values, only individuals have values and the values respected by society reflect the values held by the majority of its members, in a democracy at least. The important thing to do is to understand rap, study it, so that you can understand what the phenomenon is as opposed to dismissing it off the cuff because its importance is measured in the quantity of its adherents.

[SheykAbdullah]

SLG- Now this is pure BS. First of all, popularity with the masses of the time has never been the element by which great art survives. Works of art survive because they continue to inspire the art experts (critics, scholars, historians, and other artists... in other words, those who have invested time and effort into studying/appreciating/exploring/understanding art) and they survive because they continue to speak to the public of art lovers (in whatever art form) over time. Most works of popular art quickly fade into embarrassing "period pieces". The Monkees sold more records than anybody in 1967... however I greatly doubt that they will still be idolized by 2067. Indeed, most would find them rather embarassing now. Harry Potter... well I'll leave that one alone. There certainly were artists who have survived who were grossly popular during their own lifetime... however there may be just as many, if not more, whose achievements were not recognized... whose work was too challenging or out of sync with the time. As for the notion that rap may well last because it is the best expression of the time... I should note that every time in history has had its simplistic entertainments. These rarely survive as the great art of the time. Art is more than entertainment and more than merely a mirror of a given time and place. We merely live in a time in which the money exists in the mass marketing of entertainment/art due to the ability to mass produce reproduction of art forms (books, cds,dvds). Pandering to the market of the moment is far more lucrative than marketing to a more discerning market.

I don't know whether I would say popularity of the masses has never been the route to survival by great art. There are many art styles that have survived due to poularity despite having little real contribution to the history of art itself. I might point out styles such as Art Nouveau which continues to be popular, but gave us little in the way of new techniques or vision. The Pre-Raphaelites are another popular movement for their time that have little of great worth to communicate to use. Sometimes popular movements do die, and then sometimes they last. There is no explanation and no way to predict what lasts. It's just whatever catches people's fancy.

Art, the great art to which you refer, is anything. Anything that deserves a label as such. You are right in saying that great art can do more than just reflect the mores of a time and place, or be more than just an entertainment. Art can be almost anything. It can be an experiment, a farce, a commentary, an entertainment or an infinite number of other things. It is ultimately in the eye of the beholder.

SLG- Popular sentiment has nothing to do with it. Neither George Orwell nor even Shakespeare are enamored of the mass public. The reason they survive and continue to do so... even in spite of presenting elements at times which disturb... is because they are acknowledged for their artistic worth by those who have invested the time and effort and even (perhaps) money into studying/appreciating/exploring/understanding art. Certainly I may question Gros' idolizing of Napoleon no less than Leni Reifenstahl's agrandizing of Adolph Hitler and Nazism. However, I do not question their ability to give brilliant artistic form to their perceptions.

I would argue about Shakespeare being enamoured by the mass public. Everyone wants to like Shakespeare because of its percieved intellectual cachet. I have met plenty of 'rappers' from the ghetto, people I served along with, cheek to cheek, who liked Shakespeare and Tupac in equal quantities, even if they didn't necesarily always understand the first.

Popularity does not necesarily restrict itself to the mass population. Fame is dictated by the popularity not just of the public, but the popularity a certain work has with the intellectuals. If a work were not popular with them it would not be handed down as genius. It would become lost to time, rotting away on a shelf. Perhaps there are a hundred better (in either my oinion or yours) Shakespeares in such a state who were relegated to molder because the professors, academics, intellectuals, theologians and scientists of the time considered them to be terrible, base and uninteresting.

Again, what makes brilliant artistic form? Quantify that term. It is wishy-washy and easily bent into anything the speaker wants. Is brilliance allegory? Aethetics? Treatment? Color comprehension? Structuralism? Tonality? Pleasant manipulation of the scales? Intended disharmony?

SLG- Again, popularity has nothing to do with it. What does matter is that your arguments would be refuted by many who have the experience and have invested much into the field of literature who would not merely counter with an argument as lame as that of suggesting that he's a best seller but rather they would answer each of the charges with reasons as to why they disagree with your assertions. As for the notion that you might critique Shakespeare (and undoubtedly Mozart and Leonardo) as failing to meet the simplistic standards of modern entertainment I suppose that this is done so everyday by the public that prefers Brittany Spears to Mozart, Yugi-o to Leonardo, and Tupac to Shakespeare. Personally, I don't buy the notion of artistic "relativity"... the concept that there is no "good" nor "bad" in art... that its all relative. To have such standards is often dismissed as elitist and snobbish, but the snobbism that I find far more offensive is that anti-intellectualism which sneers at anything which requires intellect, demands effort and discipline or achieves a high standard.

The literati would undoubtedly have a better argument, but I would bet you the vast majority of the reading public would cite such a reason in refuting my taste in literature if I said such a thing.

You fail to understand what I said, I did not mean that I dislike Shakespeare
because he is not simplistic, perhaps I mischose my words. I dislike Shakespeare because (and I don't really dislike Shakespeare, but I don't really like him, this is for argument's sake a bit of an exaggeration of my actual opinion) he is not a minimalist and I like minimalists. I like authors who are, in the words of Sabatini;

"...the modern realistic school, by which I mean a synthetic author, an uninspired university product, a chronicler of unimportant and mainly sordid trifles, whose unimaginative and uninventive art lies somewhere between the arts of photography and journalism, whilst expressing, with that presumption which is the chief asset of his class, his contempt of the modern historical romance"

Which is a little unfair because while I revere those he derides I don't hate historical romance. In any case, Shakespeare is not one of those uninspired university products that chronicle unimportant and sordid trifles. It is the glory and scale of Shakespeare I object to and for that reason I say that Greene's The Heart of the Matter is infinitely better for its simplicity of both expression and theme. In accordance I will freely admit I prefer Charlie Parker to Mozart and Edward Hopper to Leonardo.

Art must be relative, else who are we to judge it? Who defines what 'art' is? How can that defnition be made when there are a thousand conflicting opinions even among the educated? If I were to make a definition of art, and I am educated on the subject, well-read, versed and spend a lot of time in the study of both literature and painting, I would say that almost every famous painter since and including Rothko with the exception of Botero, whom I do not like either, is the farthest thing from an artist and are instead mere opportunists, rogues, self-delluded or egoists striving for a piece of Modernism's greatness, but what would be the point in me saying something like that? Would it change how their art is percieved? Would it change what they did? I have studied Pollock, Rothko and Warhol despite the fact I find them no more interesting the the ingredients on the actual soup can one of them painted, but they need to be understood within their context and with their own unique ideas in the same way rap does.