Why do conservative pundits dislike rap so much?

[Maxwell]

I am a Moderate Republican but rap has gotten stupid the 7 years. Soulja Boy and Lil Wayne are crap. The late 80's/early 90's had good rap. Eric B. and Rakim, Arrested Development, A Tribe Called Quest, LL Cool J, Das EFX, MC Lyte, and Heavy D. had some good music back in the day. Post old school 1993-mid 2005 was ok. Mid 2005+ rap I don't like it.

I don't want to make this thread an argument about hip hop, but you sound like every hip hop critic who doesn't actually like hip hop in the world. I'll give you Soulja Boy, but Wayne dropped some pretty dope music between 2005-2010.

[ingemann]

I think this is one of the most silly question ever raised. Rap music have the whole "Gangstar" reputation, people may come with "that's sooo last decade", but for us who don't like or follow it, it will keep having that reputation for decades.

So why should it be surprising that conservatives don't like music they think glorifies violence, and blame it for the high crime rate among the African American subculture, they think primary listen to that kind of music?

[tik 🪀✨]

Why don't people who believe in "traditional values" like something that they see as actively opposed to said "traditional values" and is popular? What a conundrum!

Then again, they view it as something that encourages the subjugation of women, glorification of guns and violence, is utterly intolerant of homosexuality, encourages the continuation of blacks killing each other, and putting ignorance on a pedestal. Perhaps we should be asking why they haven't wholeheartedly embraced it.. but wait, if these old white farts praised it, it would make the counterculture run away screaming. Accidental reverse psychology at work!

Hackishness aside, rap encouraging violence is a real chicken/egg scenario. It started as a reflection of the streets, but now is feeding back into itself to some extent. All art is a product of experience at first. If that experience is utterly foreign an unrelatable to you, and you lack a healthy artistic objectivity, it is confusing and therefore a little scary.

[The Free North]

They're out of touch.  Gangsta rap culture is long dead in the black community--just look at the athletes now, its all about the hipster look. 



The "hardest" rappers out there, if you can even call them that (Wiz Khalifa types), are more about smoking weed than any real crimes.  Of course, squares still think that is a real crime. 



I mean seriously, Kendrick Lamar looks like he comes from the set of the Cosby Show. This is the culture that is killing black youths?



Not even the survivors of that era are anything close to offensive.

To be fair, it was not always like that.

A guy like 50 cent grew up as a crack dealer, got shot like 8 times or something, and ended up breaking through in the early 2000s.

I think rap has changed now, but conservatives still like to think of it as some great scapegoat or corrupter.

Equally as interesting is how liberals seem more supportive of it, when the vast majority of rap (macklemore is a pop artist) is anti-gay mentions guns frequently and glorifies the objectivization of women. I would imagine there would be some cognitive dissidence there.

However, returning to the O'Reilly's of the world, I think it's simply an inability to adapt to new things and new culture. In reality, all music over the last 50 years has been centered around partying, women, etc. In reality, there is little difference in the topics, but the presentation is much different. O'Reilly probably has an inability to appreciate new presentation despite the underlying message being similar.

[barfbag]

Rap music like bad parenting leads to school shootings.

[hopper]

I am a Moderate Republican but rap has gotten stupid the 7 years. Soulja Boy and Lil Wayne are crap. The late 80's/early 90's had good rap. Eric B. and Rakim, Arrested Development, A Tribe Called Quest, LL Cool J, Das EFX, MC Lyte, and Heavy D. had some good music back in the day. Post old school 1993-mid 2005 was ok. Mid 2005+ rap I don't like it.

I don't want to make this thread an argument about hip hop, but you sound like every hip hop critic who doesn't actually like hip hop in the world. I'll give you Soulja Boy, but Wayne dropped some pretty dope music between 2005-2010.

Where do you get that from? I said rap was good in the late 80's/early 90's and was ok from 1993-mid 2005. I watched Michael Rappaport's documentary on "A Tribe Called Quest" the other night. Never said I didn't like Hip-Hop.

[hopper]

Rap music like bad parenting leads to school shootings.

That's like going back in time to 1985 that Juda's Priests Music leads to violence. Remember Tipper Gore?

[tpfkaw]

Uh, Soulja Boy is an internet gag video, not a pop music figure.  The proto-Rebecca Black, if you will.  Just in the realm of pop rap, Jay-Z's* Black Album and Kanye's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy could be considered genre definers, as well as Eminem's The Marshall Mathers LP if you're willing to go back a couple years before your cutoff.

*I am a hyphen reactionary, plus he'll probably put it back in like a month anyway.

[bedstuy]

I am a Moderate Republican but rap has gotten stupid the 7 years. Soulja Boy and Lil Wayne are crap. The late 80's/early 90's had good rap. Eric B. and Rakim, Arrested Development, A Tribe Called Quest, LL Cool J, Das EFX, MC Lyte, and Heavy D. had some good music back in the day. Post old school 1993-mid 2005 was ok. Mid 2005+ rap I don't like it.

I don't want to make this thread an argument about hip hop, but you sound like every hip hop critic who doesn't actually like hip hop in the world. I'll give you Soulja Boy, but Wayne dropped some pretty dope music between 2005-2010.

Where do you get that from? I said rap was good in the late 80's/early 90's and was ok from 1993-mid 2005. I watched Michael Rappaport's documentary on "A Tribe Called Quest" the other night. Never said I didn't like Hip-Hop.

There was still a lot of horrible hip-hop music in the 90s too.  MC Hammer, Will Smith, Vanilla Ice and Puff Daddy certainly sold more albums than ATCQ, De La Soul, KRS-ONE and Rakim. 

[Napoleon]

There was still a lot of horrible hip-hop music in the 90s too.  MC Hammer, Will Smith, Vanilla Ice and Puff Daddy certainly sold more albums than ATCQ, De La Soul, KRS-ONE and Rakim. 

what

[Reaganfan]

I think it's more what the content of the song is. I personally always enjoyed Coolio.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Ek5wedLAlw

[Maxwell]

There was still a lot of horrible hip-hop music in the 90s too.  MC Hammer, Will Smith, Vanilla Ice and Puff Daddy certainly sold more albums than ATCQ, De La Soul, KRS-ONE and Rakim. 

what

[barfbag]

Rap music like bad parenting leads to school shootings.

That's like going back in time to 1985 that Juda's Priests Music leads to violence. Remember Tipper Gore?

I was being ironic.

[hopper]

I am a Moderate Republican but rap has gotten stupid the 7 years. Soulja Boy and Lil Wayne are crap. The late 80's/early 90's had good rap. Eric B. and Rakim, Arrested Development, A Tribe Called Quest, LL Cool J, Das EFX, MC Lyte, and Heavy D. had some good music back in the day. Post old school 1993-mid 2005 was ok. Mid 2005+ rap I don't like it.

I don't want to make this thread an argument about hip hop, but you sound like every hip hop critic who doesn't actually like hip hop in the world. I'll give you Soulja Boy, but Wayne dropped some pretty dope music between 2005-2010.

Where do you get that from? I said rap was good in the late 80's/early 90's and was ok from 1993-mid 2005. I watched Michael Rappaport's documentary on "A Tribe Called Quest" the other night. Never said I didn't like Hip-Hop.

There was still a lot of horrible hip-hop music in the 90s too.  MC Hammer, Will Smith, Vanilla Ice and Puff Daddy certainly sold more albums than ATCQ, De La Soul, KRS-ONE and Rakim. 

Will Smith and Hammer I can listen to. Vanilla Ice and Puffy I can't listen to them now. True the pop-rappers sold more albums than the "authentic" rappers if you will back then. Remember Will Smith(as the Fresh Prince) was around in the late 80's/early 90's with DJ Jazzy Jeff. He took a break when Gangsta Rap was huge from 1994-1996. He just had that mini-huge comeback from mid 1997-early 1999.

[Keystone Phil]

In other words, rap is in no way shape or form responsible for the social ills we see to day, rather it developed out of the pre-existing problems.

I think the issue is that it glorifies those ills a lot of the time these days. I think it's obvious why someone that is socially conservative would take issue with a lot of the lyrics.

For the record, I am a rap fan but I cringe at what is actually said in many instances.

[Small Business Owner of Any Repute]

I mean seriously, Kendrick Lamar looks like he comes from the set of the Cosby Show. This is the culture that is killing black youths?

Kendrick Lamar's album Good Kid, M.A.A.D City reduces women to "bitches," and talks about using codeine (the purple syrup is a popular topic). On the cover of the album, Lamar's uncle is flashing the Crips sign, and a lot of time is devoted to raping about the pressures of gangs and gang violence. Hell, the song The Art of Peer Pressure is about participating in a home invasion.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out why conservatives are upset. There's a fine line between telling a story about the place you escaped, and glorifying the place you escaped from. Many people don't get that.

[Yank2133]

They're out of touch.  Gangsta rap culture is long dead in the black community--just look at the athletes now, its all about the hipster look. 



The "hardest" rappers out there, if you can even call them that (Wiz Khalifa types), are more about smoking weed than any real crimes.  Of course, squares still think that is a real crime. 



I mean seriously, Kendrick Lamar looks like he comes from the set of the Cosby Show. This is the culture that is killing black youths?



Not even the survivors of that era are anything close to offensive.

This....Gangsta rap has been dead since Tupac got shot. The oldies just haven't caught on to that fact yet.

[King]

I mean seriously, Kendrick Lamar looks like he comes from the set of the Cosby Show. This is the culture that is killing black youths?

Kendrick Lamar's album Good Kid, M.A.A.D City reduces women to "bitches," and talks about using codeine (the purple syrup is a popular topic). On the cover of the album, Lamar's uncle is flashing the Crips sign, and a lot of time is devoted to raping about the pressures of gangs and gang violence. Hell, the song The Art of Peer Pressure is about participating in a home invasion.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out why conservatives are upset. There's a fine line between telling a story about the place you escaped, and glorifying the place you escaped from. Many people don't get that.

The album isn't even close to glorifying, and really, actions speak louder than words.  Lamar nor any major rappers in the game today get into to the feud business that encouraged and escalated violence in the 90s--far more than the lyrics.  It's not visible in the culture. 

Territorial violence among the poor has existed long before rap music and will exist long after its gone.  It also doesn't explain gang violence in Latin America, where rap isn't even popular.

I agree with conservative points about the lack of father involvement and preteen pregnancies.  They're right, but then they refuse to do anything about it.  No to releasing black fathers from jail for petty drug crimes, no to contraceptive access for poor black teens, no to raising wages for poor black mothers, no, no, no. 

What's the plan? PSAs telling them to visit their dads in jail every week for advice, try to abstain from sex when they can't afford any other entertainment, and to keep working hard to pay the cable bill to watch the PSA?

Might as well just spit in their face and say a n will always be a n.  It does just as good.

[morgieb]

They still think it's 1995 clearly.

[rejectamenta]

Personally speaking I like offensive music full of bravado, but I don't think you can argue that they're completely off base when that UOENO song is still sitting at #4 on the charts.

[HAnnA MArin County]

They probably dislike it so much because of the allegedly overt use of profanity, sex, drugs, violence, etc. in the lyrics. As someone previously alluded, it's a scapegoat in the same sense as heavy metal music/Marilyn Manson was blamed for the Columbine school shootings. Always blaming the liberal media and Hollywood entertainment industry anytime there is a school shooting tends to be the typical conservative mantra nowadays, which is a bit ironic because I thought conservatives were the ones who preach personal responsibility and do not believe in victimization.

They could also dislike it so much because the majority of their audiences listens to country music with lyrics about God, farming, hunting, drinking beer, the good ole USA, Mom's apple pie, and other aspects of the "real America." In other words, I'd venture to say that they simply do not understand rap music, and most people fear what they do not understand.

I listened to rap and hip hop in high school and I've never pulled a trigger in my life.

[The Free North]

They still think it's 1995 clearly.

Rap was at its peak then.

[Keystone Phil]

I listened to rap and hip hop in high school and I've never pulled a trigger in my life.

As have I but some people are more impressionable.

Anyway, please see below:

Listen, walk to your boy and I approached him, 12 midnight on his traphouse porch and everybody saw when I f**kin choked him. But nobody saw when I f**kin smoked him, roped him, sharpened up the shank then I poked him, 357 Smith & Wesson [unintelligible] scoped him, roped him, had me crackin up so I joked him, it is betweezy six feet ova, told ya f**k with my money I'll roast ya.

http://gawker.com/rapper-charged-with-murder-after-bragging-about-homicid-977525636

"Had me crackin' up so I joked him..." He was rapping about killing a sixteen year old, by the way.

[hopper]

They still think it's 1995 clearly.

Rap was at its peak then.

Yeah but 2003-mid 2008 it was even more popular and than it tailed off after that.

[TNF]

Do you really even have to ask?