Ron, I have tried to appreciate rap but it doesn't resonate with me. It's because I don't have much in common with it. I have a classical music background/ education and have no inner city/ urban street life experiences. My background is European and it's music tradition which flowed out specific cultural events. I accept that and like it! It's my roots, if you will.

However, I don't denigrate rap music just because I don't personally understand it. It just originates from a different culture. Their roots, if you will.

Now that I think about it, I can somewhat relate to the rhythmic beat and energy in rap,(as it has that in common with baroque which is my favorite music, as I most enjoy the fugues of Bach and other counterpoint music), and the words are spoken as a kind of poetry, so I can appreciate that quality as well. So it's primarily the content/intent and vocabulary that is alien.

And I was just listening to rap this morning...forced to listen to it... from a car two miles away. So, I don't need to buy any for myself

Hey Stampeding turtles. I hear ya buddy. Only thing I ask is respect for any type of artistic expression.

The point of rap is to depict a negative picture of why our society and our government Is supposed to depict why a country as rich as us can't help bring a positive thing to our own.
Rap music tells the world, and especially the youth of America and the politicans about whats really going on.
How it's crazy that we got all this money to spend on foreign countries, and yet in our own damn country there are still young under priviliged children tryin to do anything they can do to survive.
Whether it be by dealin drugs, joining gangs, or just going up to somebody and robbing them.
Rap music tells everybody how it goes down in places like Brooklyn, Compton, Long Beach, Watts, Oakland, all those places.
Nobody just don't wanna hear it though because they figure the more crack they deal out the less poor people will be on welfare.
The government is all messed up.

[This message was edited by SeattleRon on 11-17-03 at 03:52 AM.]