I sad most, not all, couldn't rap off the top of their heads.
The Difference Between "Hip-Hop" & "Rap"
- Thread starter The Amerikkkan Idol
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I sad most, not all, couldn't rap off the top of their heads.
At first I thought some of these dudes knew better but were just appealing to emotion claiming it boils down to nostalgic preference. The real deal is I think its easy to make yourself look stupid if at root you really are. Look at homeboy trying to debunk the list with all that drivel and time after time his counterclaim was "is there a difference?" If the brainiacs cant tell the difference what good is the argument? Let em grow up then we can have a discussion.
Until then it would be poetic justice if some of them ninjas got paid at the job using monopoly money. To which the employer should rightly ask "whats the difference? It's all paper, you got your different denominations and everything."
NAH NIGGA, they actually got DUMB ASSES out there who THINK there is a Difference without kicking all that HYPERBOLE / POETIC shit. I use to RUN into them all the time on TEMPLE OF HIP HOP.org and they would run down the same shit this article said.
Even KRS ONE got into it with DAVEY D over whether or not TOO $HORT was HIP HOP... KRS was saying TOO $HORT was not HIP HOP... Then you see KRS saying SOULJA BOY is HIP HOP... Lots of CONFUSION going on based on DUMB POETIC SHIT confusing the MASSES with this "HIP HOP WILLIE LYNCH MIND FUCK" of an ARTICLE.
Dudes read that shit and believe it.
Once again, KRS is talking about the true spirit of Hip-HOp though, not what is "technically" Hip-Hop. We all know that if you walk into the Hip-HOp section at Sam Goody or Tower Records, you'd find Soljah Boy and Too Short there.
He's not considered "real" because he's perceived as somebody who just jumped on a trend without any love for the culture or effort to try to be earn the respect of people who love the culture. That is where the "Hip-Hop" vs "Rap" type arguments start. "Real" Hip-Hop heads look for a way to put distance between what the mainstream chooses as popular rap and what the genuine essence of the culture is. The media called MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice and Young MC "rap music", so "Real" heads ceded the term Rap to the mainstream and kept the "HIp-Hop" term to discribe rappers who care about the craft and the culture. It's all poetic.
EVERYBODY knows that Rap = Hip-Hop in a technical sense, even KRS and people like that.
The Media Called it "Rap Music"?
Interesting... Because I remember calling it that since the 1980's.
The So- Called "Real Heads" are not even Purist in the truest scene of the word, They are Nostalgic to era's .When it comes to Raps, they are into they lyricism 86-93. When it comes to dress, they are into what was hot around 82-88.
Think about it. You see how so-called "real heads" bitch and moan about the elements not being represented like it was back in the day. Well, When KRS, Rakim and Kane were at their prime, Breakin' was out of style. Fat Laces were out of style. When we speak of the "GOLDEN AGE of HIPHOP", Breakin' and Poppin' was not in style during those years. All the Trains were clean because they put the Fences around the Train Yards... So even during the so called "Golden Age", all the so-called "Elements" were not represented in their PURIST FORM.
Scoob and Scrap, Leg 1, Leg 2, IOU, or them Queen Latifah Chicks were called "Hip-Hop Dancers", not B-Boys or B-Girls. Or But BIG DADDY KANE was "REAL"? Come on... RUN-DMC was REAL...
Fast Forward to 2009 and we got all these so called "REAL HEADS" trying to recreate an era they Missed out on so they fabricate a History to make it seem as if THEY THE REAL HEADS and EVERYONE ELSE IS A SELL OUT. When Backpackers eventually became a Bunch of WHITE KIDS trying to be HARD... And these are the CATS who claim to be REAL HEADS... They missed out.
KRS in his new Documentary on Youtube sad (and im paraphrasing) that - Hip-hop is about finding the Creative power from within and using that ability to get out of your current situation... That's TRUE SCHOOL..
RAP does not = HIPHOP... Not even in the Technical sense..
RAP is just a PART of HIPHOP... a PIECE is not = to the WHOLE...
RAP is OLDER then HIP-HOP.
I'm not saying the media invented the term Rap Music, I'm saying that the media did what they always did which is try to define somebody else's culture. The media tried to make it seem like Rap was defined by what was popular at that time, which was Vanilla Ice, MC Hammer, Young MC, and even people like NWA and Ice-T. What a lot of "heads" didn't like was that people made it seem like they were TRUE "rap" and that dudes who didn't rap like Hammer and Vanilla Ice, or who weren't gangsters weren't considered "real" because they weren't A: selling records or B: doing "gangsta rap". It's like today. Souljah Boy, 50 Cent, and Kanye West are considered by the media the faces of "Rap" music.
Those "heads" got frustrated and ceased describing their music as "RAP", because that term was then co-opted by the press and presented as one way, Rap's either violent gang music or it's mainstream pop, so everybody who didn't want to be involved in those two schools of thought started calling themselves "real" Hip-Hop or saying things like, "Fuck Rap, I'm Hip-Hop" and shit like that as a way to differentiate themselves from the people who were being called "rap".
Once again, you seem to keep looking at it from a technical sense. Everybody knows that Rap is just ONE of the FOUR elements, but when people are talking about real "Hip-Hop" vs. "Rap", they're not getting that technical. They're talking about the essence.
B-boying was definitely NOT out of style during the mid to late '80s. It just changed forms. You used to be able to see rappers dancing all over videos. Even 2pac got his start DANCING for Digital Undergroud, which in a way was his way to pay DUES, which is another important part of Hip-Hop.
Graffiti has never gone away. I leave my house and see graffiti all the time. It just was pushed to the background, not by Hip-Hop, but by the media and record companies who wanted to emphasized and package rappers as the lone representatives of Hip-Hop. This is another reason you don't see groups together like you used to.
DJ's are the same. DJ's were pushed out, not by Hip-Hop, but by the media and record companies, who didn't want to have to pay for all those samples that DJ's use to scratch(which is another reason that no rappers use the layered samples that you used to hear back during the "golden age". Even Kanye only has 1 or 2 samples per song as opposed to the 20 per song on Public Enemy records).
What us "heads" mean by "real" and "fake" and "Hip-HOp" vs. "Rap" is essentially, we like what WE created, not what Madison Ave. has told people is Hip-Hop. We want to be in control of our culture and respect people who don't care about what MTV or BET or radio think, because those corporations are only out to exploit the culture to make money.
Rappers who participate in HELPING those corporations do that are the ones described as "rap"(meaning fake). It's a poetic term, not a literal one.
I know exactly what the article meant because I use to think the same way, but as I got older I noticed something.
The very same guys I liked other "real heads" use to put down and now looking back those same people are saying they were real hip hop/rap.
An example would be Biggie Smalls. Some proclaim him to be the G.O.A.T., but I can clearly remember when he had his critics. I won't even use rap fans, but the artists themselves like Boot Camp who many won't disagree is vintage hip hop. They went at at Biggie saying he was not pure NY rap. Today? I don't hear that. What I hear is Biggie was the shit.
People use to say the West Coast was not real rap because of the actual music the rappers use to rap on. Hell, there was even singing on it which was a no no. The funny thing about the debates I use to hear was that one side would say they are not real rap and someone claimed that the actual music was east coast music, but from old school music from the 70's. The traditionalists were saying the music was too funky or too much r and b.
Another example would be someone like Luke. At the time many didn't consider what he did was really rap and had not real skills because of the vulgarity to his words. Next thing I know people were saying he was the blueprint for future music like Snoop's first album(nastiest rap album ever some say). Someone always cribs from someone and somewhere that may not even be traditional hip hop/rap and make it their own flavor.
I remember liking Outkast from the start and Andre did not get all this love he is getting now imo because he came from the south. I do remember Scarface always getting props, but we know he was not promoted as deep down south as Outkast was.
All I'm saying is that times change, tastes change, revisionist history, personal preference, and generational changes all play into what someone may feel is hip hop and rap. Different levels of good to great rap changes to some people. That is what I really meant about putting things into a box.
If things stayed exactly the same as the first hip hop record we would never have received guys like Rakim who did rap/hip hop their own unique way changing the game. Every song and style would be similar to the Grandmaster Flash days.
No LL Cool J who created those rap ballads. Some may not have liked it, but it spurned other rappers to make those kind of songs which may have been their taste or style. It's like a building block.
You're absolutely correct. 2pac and Biggie's deaths are two of the biggest reasons that there are no standards in Hip-Hop. Biggie was not liked . . . IN NEW YORK, by a lot of people. The Wu-Tang Clan dissed him on record(Shark Niggaz) and BCC had a lot of problems with that shit too. Puffy definitely pushed him in a "pop" direction, then everybody else went in that direction after Biggie, which is the reason why Hip-Hop is fucked up now. Biggie's death is the ONLY thing that has absolved him in history. If he had lived, he would've ended up going too pop and faced what LL Cool J and Big Daddy Kane faced eventually, which was charges of selling out. It hurt both of their careers and would've hurt Biggie's eventually.
Now, the West Coast thing. The East Coast have always been haters. That's not the issue. They hated everybody and always have. The problem with that is that they often catch on later to what everybody else already knew.
I think it was Cheo Hedoni Coker(or whatever his name is) that was talking about how when "The Chronic" came out, every body in New Jersey was bumpin' it. And even Chris Rock talks about how when N.W.A.'s "Straight Outta Compton" came out, how much love NWA got from New York heads. Ice Cube's first record was produced in New York by The Bomb Squad, so there was always love with the real heads. It was the "haters" that had issues.
Most of the people who hated on those groups had to eat their words, because it was QUALITY. Nobody's gonna eat their words about Hurricane Chris or Souljah Boy or those other faggots, just like nobody's eating their words about Hammer or Vanilla Ice. Pretty much the whole world sees them as wack now.
"Rap is something you do, Hip Hop is something you live"- KRS-one. If you cant distinguish between a rapper and an mc, we got problems. the rapper wants a check, the mc rhymes for the love. Shit any white boy can get on the mic and scream and yell but that dont mean they're guns and roses, led zep. how many mofos u know rap, most of the ninjas you know rap, white boys included. I didnt say they was hot or gonna get deals, but they rap anyway. Not everyone doing this has skills and is true to the art. most ninjas is rappers cause they do it try to get paid. one thing i remember is white boys from stoners to jocks used to be like yo anyone can do that shit. that shit is noise and it takes no music talent. wrong not true, to some extent its true but not everyone is gonna be making quality music. i know i can do the same shit rockers do on stage but i dont have the singing voice that some do, fuck that screaming shit. Rock doesnt have anywhere near the wordplay that hip hop has, neither does rap. i love mcs but damn i hate rappers. im sick of nursery rhyme hooks,bullshit weed and liquor anthems/endorsements, and videos got nothing to do with the song anymore. long live hip hop, fuck rap.(as i spit out my bubble gum)
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