Once again, their was no such genre called "electro" when Egyptian Lover came out. He was called rap and hip hop because he sure as hell wasn't singing. No talent asses came up with term electro later to keep from being compared to people with real musical talent.

well you have the rap music (music mainly for the club, something to shake your ass too, or chant, or sing-a-long) for the immature audience....

50 Cent
G-Unit
The chicken noodle people
Yin Yang Twins
Lil' Jon
3 Six Mafia
Jim Jones
Cam'ron
and the list goes on and on and on and on....but i can't name anymore because I don't listen to this type shit anyway...



then you have hip hop (music that actually has something to say to you) for the mature audience....

Lupe Fiasco
Common
Mos Def
Kanye
The Roots
Talib Kweli
Little Brother
Ludacris
Nas
Jay-Z
Pharrell
etc.

As far as age wise, it varies by person, because you have some teenagers and young adults who are mature and listen to mature music, but you still have some adults who are 35 going on 17 and prefer's the immature music.
[Edited 12/4/06 14:51pm]

vainandy said:

Indeed. When we were poppin' and lockin' to it, we called it rap. Same goes for all the other ones that would later be referred to as electro.

gypsy fire, you need to tell me where you live because I've blasted Coltrane and Funkadelic out of my car for years (and I'm in my 30's - lol). Hip Hop to me is "young people's music".
The hip hop I respect is from the 70's and all thru out the 80's when it was still fun.

Many people that I know that are 30 and over are slowly easing away from today's Hip Hop. The vibe (to them) doesn't carry the same excitement that they had when they were 17 or 18. And they realize now that having responsiblites (marriage, kids, mortgage, work, etc) is more important than buying the new 50 Cent CD. The same thing could be said for the people that I know that were into 80's heavy metal.

vainandy said:

Like KingKrazy? (.....j/k Krazy!)
[Edited 12/4/06 16:08pm]

missfee said:

Good point! But doesn't Jay-Z count on BOTH lists? His cover of 99 Problemz can rock the clubs too.

TommyRoss said:

Even Afrika Bambaataa said that electro is hip-hop. Good point to you & VA.

For me it just was not to my taste anymore as I found it lacking musically and mentality wise. From the way I saw it there were 2 major forms of rap. The first being the commercial form of it and with all the talking about money,girls,cars,champagne etc... and the other form being the more non-commercial asspect of rap and its underground forms such as its rhymes about being afrocentric and anti-white(not always but in many instances) and having their own radical agendas and revolutionary beliefs and quite frankly I find neither one of these 2 examples of hip-hop to be appealing to me at all even though I know so many fans of real hip-hop praise the latter example as being a form of great artistic genius and experession because of its militant ideas and attitudes.

So hiphop in 2006 and beyond should try to sound like Jonzun Crew? Is that what we're saying folks?

CinisterCee said:

1. At least what I'M saying is lets have the tempo of these fresh new beats a little faster than 95 BPM for a little while (I'm thinking of a limit between 110 to 136 BPM). We want to be able to dance to hip-hop again!

2. Let have some rap artists that can rap at ANY speed!

3. Take a synth and learn to program a new sound. No more using presets, it's too lazy!

CalhounSq said:

Change the age to 36 and the rest gets a big fucking DITTO!!

Well for me, I realized I'm too old when:

1) I remember when it was called "rap" before the word hip hop came into play.
2) I remember there was the Bronx vs. Queens, yall remember Boogie Down Productions vs. Marly Marl and his group. Talk about ole skool.
3) When I watch hip hop today and find myself shaking my head. Lawd I can't stand the videos, same ole shit over and over and over and over.

I'm 35 by the way and I find myself liking hip hop artists who have stage presence: Kanye, Jay Z, Eminem, Common, Mos Def, Busta, etc.
[Edited 12/5/06 4:12am]

TonyVanDam said:

well i guess you got me there, Jay does have some club banging hits, but his words I can bare..at least. I think the problem with Jay now is that he is starting to say the same things over and over too. I guess you can run out of things to say even after a 3 year absence from the game.

TotalAlisa said:

oh just fuck the shut up, will ya ?


I'm married with kids, age 41 and I love and still listen to lots of HipHop/Rap, just as I always did since the days of Rappers Delight and the Message. sure, I admit that like most folks here I can't get warm with to many artists in todays rap scene and foremost put on the older records but still.... oh, and my 7 year old caucasian middle class Middle European son enjoys it just the same, that is to pump some loud Paid in Full and all that old skool shit during long car rides together with me



.
[Edited 12/5/06 4:36am]

I would be on Cloud 9 if it did! But seriously, everything does not need to sound alike. All I want is for them to come up with something original. If they are going to use drum machines, change the style of the drum machines they have been using for the last 15 years to something that beats harder and doesn't sound so "amateur" "K Mart", "20 dollar keyboard" sounding. And for God's sake, speed the damn tempo up. Hell, there is absolutely nothing for the dance floor anymore.

What rap and basically all music lacks these days is fun and life is not worth living without any fun whatsover. Hell, no wonder they shoot and kill each other all the time. There's nothing else to occupy their time.

I definately remember those pop locking and breakdancing days. Back in those days, some of the funkiest jams on the radio were rap. Groups like Soul Sonic Force, The Jonzun Crew, and Newcleus were like a trip into what we pictured the year 2000 and beyond to be like. Little did we know it would turn out to be more boring than ever.

Exactly! Remember Felix and Jarvis' "Flamethrower Rap"....are you ready to throwdown...yes we are! Those motherfuckers could rap at tongue twisting speed.

TotalAlisa said:

I´m married with kiss, very older than 35...

I like Kanye West.

I use to play the 90s stuff by MC Lyte

I like Missy Elliott also

I like RUN-DMC things.
I dont think is a matter of age.

On the other hand, I like a lot blues music, but all that music is very older than me. Its not about age, imo.

wonder505 said:

The Bridge Is Over!

vainandy said:

now that is me ALSO... I still listen to the older rap. when booty wasn't the topic all the time.I think it is okay to be over thirty five and listen and blast the hell out of old school if you are from that era. I mean, since other music formats still rock on, why not the classic rap? JMO

Most definately. Rap was funky back then. It served a purpose. It was fun and danceable. It did what music is supposed to do in the first place....entertain you, make you have a good time, and get your mind off your problems.

Today's rap is the total opposite. All it does is bitch and moan about their problems and we all have enough problems of our own without having to listen to who they want to fight or kill. The lyrics aren't the worst of it though. I could tolerate them if the music was good behind them but it's not. It's nothing but a stripped down midtempo beat that serves absolutely no purpose whatsoever. It's too slow to dance to and too fast to fuck to. It's just there.

When I ask kids why they like it, they say "listen to what they are saying in the song". Whoopie, big thrill! Hell, who cares. A record that you can only sit and listen to a story does not need to be set to music. It needs to told in a damn ghetto soap opera, movie, or around a damn campfire roasting marshmallows. Music needs to be for the dancefloor and the bedroom where it belongs. All that storytelling bullshit is for the birds.
.
.
[Edited 12/6/06 9:04am]

chewwsey said:

XM Radio/XM Radio Online has a classic rap station (actually call Old-school Rap). They play a lot of the rap songs of the earty 80's.

TonyVanDam said:

much love to vainandy and TonyVanDam. I knew rap was in trouble when it went to phrases like " I write this because that is all I see in the hood"

I was at a recording session last night and these young cats were working on a rap track. After a couple of hours of listening to the SAME 4 measure LOOP I thought I was going 2 go postal. I left the session and will NEVER go back.

chewwsey said:

In most cases, a rap artist (especially gangsta) are only going to write songs that are based on their life experiences. And if those experiences are negatives, that's exactly what they're going to rap about.