I always tend to rather dislike questions about music. Maybe it's the inner concern,there's not really for me something like bad music. Music, apart from it's kind, always seemed to me to have a power, not only to create some certain types of emotions but sometimes to literally make things happen. I know that it all sounds like a bunch of cliches as far, but don't worry, this is not what I'm going to write about. Let me explain.
This question came into my mind all of a sudden at a party while I was dancing with A Great Guy. The club had a southamerican flavour and so did A Great Guy's origin. Suddenly, in the middle of a party this delightful balance got interrupted by a bizarre rhythm, blowing up the floor. I saw a consternation on A Great Guy's face (and when I say 'A Great Guy' I mean it!). It was then when this question came up. And yes, speaking regarding to the just-heard rhythm we both said we didn't like rap. But later on, I thought it was clearly too much to say, even though I never really was a fan of rap. But also it's not necessarily true I don't like it. And I thought about The Guy I Was (Not That Recently Anymore) Dating. He did like rap.
My love affair with rap music was short and had pretty much a lot out of a one night stand. It started when I was still very young and fed up with christian-associated rock music, mostly because rap music in it's definition was always, if I can say it, rebelious. But the only CD which stayed with me for long was the one of a young, charismatic poet, not very popular in a 'rap' world and gathering rather a small, but faithful group of fans. He recited his own poetry with his calm, low voice with a slow and melancholic music in a background. I lived in a small eastern european city where the devil seemed to have said goodnight long time before, on a fifth floor of a hundred-years-old apartment. There was no elevator and wooden stairs were squeaking with my every single step, leading me to a dark courtyard to later enter a busy street in a centre. This CD was my only company in this walk through the forgotten world I didn't know yet I was supposed to leave one day, filled with crowded trams and sad, post-soviet architecture. I forgot about these moments afterwards, the moments with a rhythm. Only to remind it years later, at the party in London.
At that time the question of rap, as a form of expression rather than music, came back in my mind and, moreover, somehow made a huge difference in my life. I used to have a friend who suffered from bipolar depression, also known as borderline disorder. Most of my friends were scared of him and I'll save you details of his behaviour. He also liked rap and the idea of being into it was to get involved wholly- making music. Just like for The Guy I Was (Not That Recently Anymore) Dating, it was not only about an expression. It was about describing th actual meaning, rediscovering it and renaming again and again. You can say that these qualities can be easily found in every kind of music, but what I'm actually trying to say is that rap always is more attached to strong experiences. I don't want to say that people with hard life expriences have similar music preferances. I don't believe there is anything like a psychological profile of a person who likes crtain kind of music or art in general. (Need to outline I was never into psychology and don't even have an idea about it.)But they both convinced me that rap (again: as a form of expression)is a good way to deal with many things.
It is indeed the kind of modern music which stays in the closest relation to poetry. You can of course argue with that, but you cannot completely deny it. Reciting a poem on a musical background is not a 'just happened' thing and was not invented by drug dealers. Evolution of rap is a part of a long storytelling tradition. Even if you don't like it, there are certain points about it you can find not only cool, but also phenomenal.
Let's take a look at two main contents here: the background and the lyrics. Those two in every meaning keep a structure of a perfect story pursued at every creative writing course: the form and the text, the description and the actual plot. Yes, it is enough to tell a good story. That's from the theoretical side.
In practice, we get the beat. Someone once told me that the rap's beat is based on a heartbeat. Might be, but what I feel is an urban rhythm, the rhythm of a big city crowd. This kind of urban state of mind, which tells thousands of stories at once.
Alongside with this rhythm you get a text, like printed letters on the image, synchronized, articulated line by line. What's powerful about this kind of lyrics is that the rhythm gives you no room for a failure. Every line has it's own place in the line, it's own piece of the rhythm. You can hear every sound. It may indeed sound interesting in the crowd of bad lyrics surrounding us in different forms of contemporary music, unforgiven even composed within an exceptional melody. Therefore rap lines authors are usually talented storytellers. Even if you're bothered by a form of expression (like my mother) after reading the lyrics through you would surely appreciate it.
Speaking about my mother: that's a funny thing for me how rap music was always that important things which could build a wall of misunderstanding between generations in my family. She told me she felt suffocating everytime she hard it. After all these years, I found it a nice coincidence that rap was a thing stronly attached to the idea of a young generation- and was able to find such differences in mine and my mother's tastes, which are usually sadly the same. (Another difference like this was that my mother hates bags- she wishes all belongings could be carried virtually in our minds. Everytime I hear it and I think about Prada I want to cry.)
I feel like I owe you in this point a little explanation. I never really have a chance to get in contact with rap in fully commercial understanding. All my friends who were really into it always kept records of some edgy productions, quite far away from 'charts' (hello to Senorita Vargas, who always felt a bit overwhelmed by my rather rare taste of music). Little tip is that it was also quite long time ago- like ten years before the idea of booty shake reached my country (luckily for my teens). And it might be that's why I do preceive rap as completely tolerant, cosmopolitan and feministic. Once I read an article about building a rap subculture in post-soviet countries. It was for me the most inspiring piece those days. What hit my attention was the idea described as 'music for everyone, music easily within reach which doesn't limit you neither define'. It reminded me of a situation when I was still a kid and for a while we had in our house something pretending to be MTV. There was a song rapped by a young woman in German. She was a normal girl, walking through a city centre, just reciting, but at the same time entirely feminin and beautiful, with a power which doesn't need an embelishment. I have to admit that she changed my image of a woman forever.
Paradoxically, the main reason why rap can ever seem feministic was a mass imagination about it as something strongly connected to a male energy. Here we also have a poetry association: still, nowadays we accept a division of a male and female poetry, for female understanding a significantly emotional piece. Tracking down my experience in writing about music I do admit that the stereotype of a female solo singer is a young diva singing a romantic ballad (and so musicians who are able to meet these qualities are more recognizable and successful, for indie music to be the most recent example). Maybe that is why I cannot resist a woman, not denying her feminity at all, performing a clear form of an urban poetry. It is that kind of feminity which doesn't need a definition- it doesn't show off and doesn't overthing itself. And need no Photoshop.
For me it's daring and natural, free of imitation and cliches. For a man it can be a good guide to distinct a female replica from what feminity is about. But I start lecturing here.
So I will never be a fan of rap. I am finishing this article and putting a CD of Concha Buika on. But there are these unique qualities which are worth attention. A rap expert is probably already bored by this text- someone who has been avoiding it- I hope will listen to Mala Rodriguez now.
*I wrote this article for a music magazine I had a misfortune to work for. What you can read here is a corrected version of it, something I would have written if I had come across someone like Mala Rodriguez before. Case you have any doubts on it: they didn't take it. It was too long.
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