)v(ajin Koji wrote:My views on rap (emphasis on MY):
Right, I used to like rap, y'know the whole Eminem scene...when I was about 13 and thought that swearing was bloody cool. In the 5 years since then my tastes in music have radically changed-although I'm very much into indie (Feeder being my favourite band) I now listen to pretty much anything, even classical which I used to have a major predjudice towards.
I' not a big fan of "Screamo" bands and I'm not much of a fan of "Bitch-'Ass'" rapping, but all I see from the fans is them having a go at the other side about how bad the other is.
I think rapping is just black people talking fast and "Screamo" rock is just a lot of teenagers who need prosac.
That is my VERY generalised view on rap...and "Screamo" rock too, apparently.
:¬ \
Yeah, I can feel where you're getting at. But I do have something to say about the matter. Aside from the mainstream partying rap that you most likely have been listening to, the other themes of rap is also about : Race, social structure, social status, and financial status.
A rather large portion (at least one third) of rap fans out here in America are in fact, White while the rest of the fanbase are ethnic minorities of all sorts... the largest being Black and Latin American. There is a major difference between the two sets. Most, not all but most, of the White fans are from the suburban areas, living away from the inner-city which is what rap is most vocal about. They may be heavily into rap at first because of all the hit party singles they have heard on the radio, or have seen on MTV... but once they actually buy an album that is vocal about all the social issues such as: guns, rival gangs, best friends or relatives killed, and racial profiling. How is the Higher-class fan gonna relate to that? They just grow out of it because they couldn't relate to it and look to other music they could relate to. Rap to most of these people are just a trend, and has no real personal effect to them.
Suburban fans may find rappers making songs about all the social issues that I mentioned above to be rather silly because they had never lived through it. Its very different with people from the inner-city however. They actually have experienced that stuff before. To them, the content of the rapper's lyrics are very close to their truth. They can idenitfy with rap because the content of the rap that they listen to is very similar to they live themselves.
I believe that you were part of the "Anime Isn't Personal Anymore" discussion that we had before. Very much the same thing.
Chungking Express is my favourite ever film. And that scene of her playing with the toy plane is in my opinion is the definitive music video. Nothing can compete.
Hopefully someone'll manage to get a decent quality copy on the web soon. (sod morality, I'll buy a cinema ticket and the dvd soon enough for sure >_<)
