Are rappers really musicans?
 

Ok, I want to do this peacefully. And this has nothing to do with race. There is plenty of great music wriiten and performed by African Americans.

I found this in an article on the internet somewhere:
"Rappers speak over prerecorded beats, listen for hours to records, find samples (snippets of melody and rhythm), then place these on tape loops and begin narration. Sometimes rappers even use conversations as a compositional springboard, or develop rhymes while riding in cars.... Rappers utilize multi-tracking, insert snippets and melodic fragments, and weave their words in and out of thick sound montages. A rapper will change the formula of his presentation, altering enunciation, pronunciation, and cadence to make the point."

How accurate of a description is this of the songwriting process of a rapper? Obviously, everyone has there own methods to songwriting, but in general.

My point is I hear "prerecorded beats" and "finding snippets of melody and rhythm" and I'm thinking why don't you take out a musical instrument and write some melodies? If you or your band don't play any musical instruments, you have no musical talent and are not musicians. Most rappers I see performing aren't playing instruments and only have a DJ behind them with turntables.

I want to make this clear, I absolutely think rapping is a talent, but I don't think it's a musical talent.

You say rapping is a talent... and they use it to make music... so how exactly is it not a musical talent?

well, thankyou "rapsucks" for making a more intelligent argument then your screename would suggest.

to quote, im not sure the name of him, but the rapper sayd "rappers are musicians who couldnt play instruments but still wanted to be able to make music", not an exact quote, but along those lines.

I think being a dj still takes an incredible musical ear, if you listen to anything by "ant" or dangermouse you'd be impressed. Ive heard mixing of Frank Sinatra mixed with Biggie, the beatles mixed with jay z, even nirvana acoustic stuff mixed with jay z. And somehow they are able to make it blend perfectly.

I think it still takes a lot of musical talent, just not in the classical sense, and i think people are still not understanding that.

What I'm saying is that it is a skill to rap but it takes no musical "intelligence."

Since "rap" only describes the vocal style it's pretty hard to make blanket statements about the music. There are groups like the Roots who are straight up bands that play regular instruments. There are people like Dizzee Rascal (yeah, yeah, I know he's grime, he raps damnit) who compose original music electronically. There are people like Outkast who are multi-instumentalists who play live instruments, compose electronically and sample depending on what they're doing. There are groups like Dalek who sample almost exclusively but do it in such an interesting way that they make the music completely their own.

All of it requires musical ability. Let me put it this way: I'm a musician who makes music that is both done on a laptop and performed on regular instruments and I almost never try to build songs out of long samples like some rap groups do. Why? Because it's an unbelievable pain in the ass to try to make it work well. It's far easier to play something on a regular instrument.

So in answer to your question: yes, they are musicians.

wtf is intellegince? they're is hardly a way to describe what is intellegince in a topic as large as music. its subjective, no different from art, literature, or filmaking.

I don't think have the screenname RapSucks is any different than have the screenname (inert band here)Sucks. I can't make a whole argument with my screenname.

Ok, still if really had some musical talent would you write your own beats and melodies?

Playing 3 chords doesn't take much talent but you never see people saying are rock n roll bands / punk bands really musicians.

There are non subjective parts to music. There's knowing how to play an instrument, knowing scales, and knowing how to read music. That's Music "IQ."

True but at least they're writing something of their own. No matter how simplistic it is.