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What is it with hi-fi forums and "not liking rap"?

Woodface said:
It’s changing all the time, I remember when UK rap music was a joke whereas now it is very cutting edge.
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It's really not about popularity.

If a white person plays jazz today, is there any pressure to respect the black cultural history of the music? I don't think so, but I'm happy to be proven wrong. There are mutterings about it in house and techno, but no serious pressure. But white rappers? They're constantly on thin ice because they and everybody else know that their ties to the culture are most likely tenuous and second hand at best.
 
gustav_errata said:
It's really not about popularity.

If a white person plays jazz today, is there any pressure to respect the black cultural history of the music? I don't think so, but I'm happy to be proven wrong. There are mutterings sbouty it in house and techno, but no serious pressure. But white rappers? They're constantly on thin ice because they and everybody else know that their ties to the culture are most likely tenuous and second hand at best.
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I wonder if our age distorts our views here? You see classes of kids in cities and they are growing up in a multi culture. I wonder if they make the same distinctions we do?
 
PaulMB said:
Of course the fact that "rap culture" seems to be anti-bourgeois, anti-intellectual, misogynistic, vaguely anti-semitic and violent does not help, since it seems to be Anti everything that I am. I am not attracted by the ghetto-romanticism of people shooting each other at the drop of a hat. And I don't accept that rap is the "real" music of "real" Black Americans.
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That is a huge generalisation. Pretty much the equivalent of saying country & western is the music of the KKK!

Please give this just four minutes and forty four seconds of your time:


It dates from 1992 and is so prophetic about future world events it is almost scary. This is amazing civil rights music. Some of the very best. It clearly follows Gil Scott Heron’s lead.
 
PaulMB said:
I don't see any connection between not liking rap, or even feeling free to declare that one does not like rap, and racism. Personally I can't stand it, just musically I find it monotonous, aggressive, and generally unpleasant. Of course the fact that "rap culture" seems to be anti-bourgeois, anti-intellectual, misogynistic, vaguely anti-semitic and violent does not help, since it seems to be Anti everything that I am. I am not attracted by the ghetto-romanticism of people shooting each other at the drop of a hat. And I don't accept that rap is the "real" music of "real" Black Americans.
Having said that, I can still enjoy a good car even if it was designed by a Nazi, or music by Wagner who, it seems, was a pretty nasty piece of work, or by R.Strauss who was, they say, an anti-semite (but was he really?) And I love Coltrane and Sonny Rollins and Motown and R 'n B.
But I find rap horrible, just as I find horrible the stuff that is touted as "meditation music" or "new age music." And I'll say so anytime I like.
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This is profoundly ignorant and I use the word in its correct sense, not as a pejorative.
 
PaulMB said:
Of course the fact that "rap culture" seems to be anti-bourgeois, anti-intellectual, misogynistic, vaguely anti-semitic and violent does not help, since it seems to be Anti everything that I am. I am not attracted by the ghetto-romanticism of people shooting each other at the drop of a hat. And I don't accept that rap is the "real" music of "real" Black Americans.
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You're about 30 years out of date with that characterisation of Rap. Even then, it's a narrow, uninformed view - it applies to one sub-genre. Bands and artists like De La Soul, The Pharcyde, Queen Latifah, Digable Plamets, Digital Underground etc just weren't making records about popping caps, hoes, the five-0 and all that.
 
messengerman said:
Some of you are not going to like me for asking this question but I think its about time to ask it.

It's been a while since I hung out on forums and in returning I can't help but notice the preponderance of posts in which we are informed - for no discernable reason - that the poster can't stand "rap".

Not just here but all over ALL the forums.

Is this code?

Is there some mysterious way we are supposed to find this info interesting or entertaining or helpful that I might have missed?

Or is it a dog whistle? Are these posters signaling their race? Their racism even?

Because in equipment threads I can't think how it could ever be relevant. Typically it goes "I like rock, indie, prog rock, techno and EDM but [wink wink] can't stand rap. Smiley face. Recommend me a DAC <£2k" The rap point is redundant.

Even in In music threads it's usually casually tagged awkwardly onto the end of something quite different or offered up on its own as as a dull drive-by. An ill-considered throw away method of garnering "likes" would be the kindest interpretation I can think of. But, regardless of intention, these remarks are all too obviously heard as dog whistles.

Meanwhile people who do show up asking about gear in a hip hop or reggae context are hurried away with lazy low fi / big woofer recommendations. As if you all think such genres are too crude to warrant great sound quality. Or perhaps their fans too unrefined to appreciate it.

So are hi-fi forums only for white people who listen to white music ? Because if not then why create such a hostile atmosphere? Or why sit back and allow others to?

PS PFM is not the worst BTW, the US ones are. But PFM could be a lot better.
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:)

I post a lot about Hip Hop. I am heading towards 60 yrs old.

In fact I posted several things that I listened to today.

There are the usual haters, but I don’t give a shit about their weak ass blinkered opinions.

I don’t think they are racist though. Just lame.

 
It's ok to say you don't like something and for that dislike to be based upon a narrow sampling of same.
I don't need to read all seven(?) fifty shades books cover to cover to express an opinion.
Based upon 2 pages I read in a WH Smith's I can safely say this global literary phenomenon is not to my taste and is in fact Shite, fans of the chic lit bodice ripper genre will no doubt point out my total ignorance :)
 
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I fear this is a reincarnation of the cable threads....

FWIW, I love some rap albums.

Have no time for others...

....same as rock, jazz, classical.... you like it or not.

Choice of what I enjoy listening to based on race? Errrr... no.
 
Tony L said:
Schoenberg is great!
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Until he started on that 12 note row nonsense

cooky1257 said:
Hands up, who likes Wagner?
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Moi!


Seriously though, there’s much amazing music out there, it comes in many forms, the Low End Theory, Kendrick Lamar, The Roots. I saw Public Enemy at the GMEX a few years ago, they were amazing. Not floating your boat doesn’t make it crap. Slating it generically possibly makes you at best a little bigoted, at worst veering towards racism, it’s all anti-Semitic gangster stuff isn’t it? That’s what they’re like, where’s the tune? It’s fine, listen to what you’ve always listened to, but don’t deride what you can’t be bothered to understand.
 
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