... Country and Western music could be called blues too

There are a lot of comparisons if you care to look beyond a surface level, and isn't very far fetched. Maybe it's because I spend most of my days analyzing and comparing literature that I can find the elements in common.

Blues usually involves musicians, not guys spinning and scratching disks to some recorded drum beat. African slaves kept their own rhythm while singing work songs. Listen to some roots music and you'll see what I mean. Rap is not Blues. Otherwise wouldn't it be called Blues? There is no surface to look beyond.

This whole discussion is getting ridicules.

Rap pretty much sucks for the most part. It's all about fashion, sex, drugs and money. The days of positive messages are pretty much gone.

The Evolution of Rap Music and the Blues

Baker (1984) says that one must incorporate the "African Diaspora aesthetic" ( p. 80) and other theories into an analysis of African American music. The tradition of oral communication within the African Diaspora is based upon a fusion of language with "Šallusion, metaphor, and imagery and prolific in the use of body gestures and nonverbal nuances." (Hamlet, 1998, p. 92). So that language comes a platform for presentation of an individual's worldview with an opportunity to display verbal skills. Consequently, the transmission of ideas or feelings through language became the primary method for communication by Africans in the Diaspora.

As a Black urban art form, analysis of rap requires intense study of the past and present urban culture as in Baker (1993), Dyson (1991), Hayes (1993), Spady and Eure (1991), and Spencer (1991). Many similarities exist between urban blues and urban OG rap music from their historical origins to the preponderance of male singers to the sexually suggestive lyrics. According to Jones (now Amiri Baraka), blues is, " . . . primarily a verse form and secondarily a way of making music" (Jones, 1963, p. 50). Blues evolved from the societal realities of its time. It is necessary to understand the importance of the effects of the communities inhabited by the blues singers. These community effects include the mores, bias, values, and socioeconomic history of their communities on blues. Urban blues evolved from spirituals, work chants, chain-gang songs, jazz, gospel, ragtime, and the functional music of West Africa that was used for social control and educating youth (Jones, 1963).

Morley (1992) posits that rap music has also evolved from African American music forms with influences from be-bop, fusion, rhythm and blues, funk, and contemporary gospel. Rappers produce music that is both an evolution of the past African American oral tradition and a reflection of society from their perspective. Rap is primarily a verse form. The words and the rhymes are critically important because, like blues, these words describe the society from which it evolved. Oratory is rhythm and rhythm becomes 'stylin' or the manipulation of language to express feelings or tell a story (Hamlet, 1998, pp.96-97). Furthermore, both blues and rap speak of pain, struggle, and survival, despite periods of hopelessness.

Early forms of the blues appeared during the during the latter part of the nineteenth century in the rural areas of the South. Freed by the Civil Rights legislation of the l860s and l870s but disenfranchised by the violence of white backlash, massive numbers of African Americans left the rural South. They moved to southern cities or the cities of the North transporting their music with them.

As Blacks continued to migrate in large numbers to the northern United States during the first half of the twentieth century, images and the settings were transformed from rural into urban. The newly arrived rural immigrants became isolates in the 'Promised Land' of the north. They encountered racial segregation, discrimination in housing and unemployment. The also had to deal with a Northern law enforcement community as hostile as the one in the South (Georges-Abeyie, 1984; Mann, 1993). The blues became an instrument of identity and remembrance of hard times in the factories, stockyards, and docks. Amplified guitars and voices of blues singer blared from the community bars as they sang about "big boss man", the "po-leese," and the outlaw men of the North. Phonograph records, jukeboxes and radio broadcasts provided blues singers with an avenue to send this 'subjugated knowledge' into working class Black communities.

There's more to the general dislike of rap than just one single issue. It 's the overall package. Lots of artists use foul language. That's not really the issue. Lots of artists also refer to a criminal element and a few artists even degrade women. Thing is, Rap does all of those things in a loud-N-proud, in-your-face fashion. Plus they rip off real music. It boggles my mind how anyone could possibly defend it. Especially a musician or someone who is at least interested enough in becoming a bona fide musician that they would join this board. Poetry? Puh-lease ....

I was going to write the long thing but it's hard to argue with a genius like yourself. I've worked with Blues musicians for over 20 years as a backup musician when performers came to town. They kind of just shake their heads at the rap thing. That's real word stuff.

Half of the poor me I live in the hood and I have it so rough stuff is just manufactured BS. The only reason it exists is for the bling.

I guess you do need to be a genius to figure that out.

Peace Out Yo

... hmmm...so it is only in RAP that "they rip off real music"????

ever heard Aerosmith's classic 1977 tune "walk this way"? Sounds a bit of RAP influence there. So by your definition, they are not really true Musicians.

I do not recall saying that ONLY rappers rip off other people's music but I will go as far as saying they can be quite prolific at it.



By my definition? S'cuze me? Did I post a definition of Rap? I posted an opinion about rap. Also I think you must be confusing Aerosmith with Run DMC. Toys in the Attic came out in 1975, not 1977 and my first encounter with rap was around 1979 or 1980. I have personally never made any connection between the song and the genre.