Is rap music? Should rappers be allowed in this guild?

[Saurencaerthai]

I am going to go a step further. Instead of dealing with buzzwords like logic, I offer the definition of music as framed sound and silence. The "what is music" question has been asked for generations and has been truly put to the test this past century. If you do not consider rap to be music, than you cannot on the same terms consider the Haka of the Maori people to be music. You cannot call the tintal of Indian drumming to be music. It is too easy of a trap to fall into. By that terms, rap is most certainly music.

YuzoraRyuu

Rap is a very poorly represented form of music. I have heard numerous songs (All out of America) that are jut plain amazing. It isn't just talking, it is a hamonious effort to point out what is wrong in the world. For instance Damien Marley's 'One Loaf of Bread' is very moving. He doesn't talk about some guy doing some chick, or shooting up a place because I don't like a guy's shirt. He brilliantly places a poetic movement into a simple chord progression and doesn't stay on one note. I believe that rappers should be more carefully selected but I still think it has musical potential in the world of art forms.

This is the crux of one of the issues and one that drives me crazy: those who damn a music often do not explore it in enough depth to have an informed opinion. Anyone who claims rap or hiphop to be all about "bitches, hoes, and bling" has only listened to a very small fraction of what has been posted on the radio.  

[Airborne_scout]

OMG rap is awesome...... Outkast is freakin amazing but I agree some rap thats just about bit3h's, money, and ho's is just retarded and a scar on true rap.  

[Arc En Licorne]

i hate rap i dont consider it music coz it does really make any sense to call it music. if u rap ur just rhyming so fast and off the top of ur head so that people think ur cool i dont think that they should be allowed in this guild unless they do something else with it  

[StudioGilliam]

Rap isn't exactly my favourite genre of music, but I would still class it as music, yes.

Unless you've see John Cena on WWE. He's no rapper. Just a talentless... Well, you get the idea.

The way I see it, is that it has to have actual music behind the vocals to constitute as music.  

[musiknerd]

I'm sorry if someone has brought up this point, but every genre of music has bad stuff. Maybe the only reason rap is so popular is because it's instantly gratifying and is the current trend (media helps it along too).

Any rap that is actually good (and there's some) meaning it's innovative and not the same generic crap will survive. As with art, the first person to paint a canvas black and put a white streak across it is a genius, the next is an idiot. The same goes with music in the long run. The Beatles will always be famous. Jay Z, not so much (but Eminem maybe... if not for his music the fact that he's white will survive).

So in 50 years, there will be some new good and crappy music, but there will also be good old music in the air.

How do I "know" all of this? Well, maybe my music history courses, but with Classical music, there were more composers than Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven in the Classical era... *most* of the other ones' music just kinda died.