Or maybe I’m more accurately a "rural" white guy? Hey, easy now, I ain’t no hick. ;-)
I’ve been on a hip-hop kick lately. I don’t know why. I tend to be a channel surfer when it comes to music, able to listen to any and all genre of music, as long as it moves me. I can go from Dierks Bentley to Coldplay to Akon to Celine Dion to Metallica to Bach all on one drive to the store (that would be a long drive, I know).
But since the NBA finals, the only TV I’ve watched in the past 6 months, I’m on this hip-hop kick. I’m not sure what happened, but all that I feel like listening to (yes, feel, and yes, I’m giving in to it) is hip-hop stuff (and does it really require the stupid hyphen every time?).
So I have been listening to it. And it seems that "it" encompasses about 10 songs, played in a loop, on every "urban" radio station in the country. No, I haven’t graduated to XM yet. I know, I’m a dinosaur.
This post will probably prove me to be even more ancient and out of touch with society, but what I have noticed about those 10 songs I’ve heard a thousand times in the past 2 months is this:
1. hip-hop is really, really good musically these days. They’ve combined the best of trance / dance beats with pop synth, making it very listenable and head-bobbable. I never really liked it before because rap usually had no melody and R&B was not really my style (I like anthemic music, or as Coldplay would say, "music you can sing to the rafters"). But the new version seems to combine elements of rap, R&B, and pop, and it’s really listenable "music" imho.
2. hip-hop is really repetitive. I swear of those 10 songs, 8 of them use the word "shawty" or "lollipop" in them somewhere. About 20 times each. One song, I get. But all of them? Is "shawty" the new "baby" for this generation or what?
3. hip-hop is really, REALLY dirty. (see: lollipop reference) I mean, gratuitously, graphically, explicitly dirty. Oddly, though, I find it kind of humorous that they can be so explicit and describe just about every kind of sex act under the sun (sometimes in the same song!), and yet the FCC doesn’t care because they’re not using George Carlin’s 7 words you can’t say on TV. Seriously, the FCC is made up of complete morons. Every 10 year old in America knows exactly what these hip-hop stars are describing, and yet that makes its way across the airwaves while "shit" gets bleeped out. Cracks me up.
All that I guess to ask the question, why so repetitive and dirty? I’m not saying music should be preachy and needlessly deep just to avoid the other, but come on, if you can make good music and compose good songs, do they really ALL have to be about doing it from behind in a club or while riding shotgun on 24’s?
Just a question that I know has been asked a million times, probably always by white dudes like me. It’s not a racial question though – other genres of music have their dirty repetition too – it’s just a question I’m asking because I’ve been listening to it a lot lately, and personally wondering.
But it’s great bubblegum, so yes, I’m still listening. =)
Which begs the question – if music is the language of the soul, and if hip-hop is so explicitly dirty, then is listening to it really productive and good for my mental, spiritual, and even physical health?
…?