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Rap. In theory, it's music, but there's no melody, no harmony, just a repetitious and usually not-very- interesting beat. One rap is pretty much the same as the next — only the words can change, since there's no tune or harmonic structure to vary. It's sort of shouted poetry, but really lousy poetry you wouldn't want to read if it were printed on a page. L.L. Cool J. is no Keats or even a Ginsberg.
For example, Eminem is reputed to be talented, but what exactly is his talent? He plays no instrument, composes no music, doesn't sing, doesn't dance ... he just talks loudly while strutting around a stage making weird little gestures with his fingers. And since when does the ability to rhyme — which many five-year-olds do incessantly and annoyingly — comprise talent? I would have thought that, by now, even the brain-dead people who initially popularized this stuff would have become bored to death by the sheer mind-numbing sameness of it all. Yet now, Eminem is touted in the mainstream press as some sort of musical genius, and I'm afraid we'll never be rid of this stuff. With the recognition of rap as some sort of primitivist art form, we may finally have hit the bottom of the cultural barrel, both musically and intellectually. Can someone tell me why I'm wrong about this?????
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