MC's > Rappers

Color Me Curious - Mashed Hiphop & Gravy by colormecurious

A lot of people these days will say things like "I love all music except country and hip-hop." These two genres of music seem really popular to be generalized and disliked. I'll leave country music alone for this post and just talk to you about hip-hop. The way I see it is there is hip-hop and there is rap. The difference is hip-hop has a purpose which in it's history has been to empower, educate, entertain, and excite. Rap can't say the same, it's effect is to degrade women and reinforce negative images of violence and material wealth. When someone says they hate hip-hop, I don't think they've given it a listen. The best part about hip-hop is it comes in all different shapes and sizes. Hip-hop is jazz, rock, electronic, funk, and whatever else you can loop together to make beats for head bobbing and b-boying. Take a listen to this mix, it has old and new all in reworked in forms you probably haven't heard. I put in the song "Get Like Me" to help showcase the difference between hip-hop and rap. Note it has a really catchy instrumental in the background by a band called Fujiya & Miyagi, but the lyrics are horrible. Rap can have amazing production value, but if you forget about your values you'll find yourself listening to and repeating things you don't even really believe in. This is why I let the sound bite "Back to your regular scheduled program" on the mix, to accent the sudden loss of the intricate stories and beautiful metaphors. Instead you're bombarded by a lifestyle few live and even fewer live through. Granted there's more conscious hip-hop then what's in this mix, but I was trying to prove a point with some more popular examples.