I figured @Brave ’s picture was worth 1,000 words, so here’s some thoughts. Why is this it’s own thread? Seems too big. I’m selfish. A shout out and sincere thank you to Brave for giving me reason to think critically about what I enjoy. There is no TL;DR, you can just pick any one part and start mocking it.

As my world grows progressively colder and lonelier, I find that I burrow into rap. I think a lot of people do. It’s not necessarily for purposes of escape. Rap can reprimand and validate us simultaneously. Rap reminds us there’s vibrance and warmth and humanity in the world, and in the same breath chides us for forgetting that world’s fundamental coldness. Whether you had actually forgotten it is immaterial, as good advice in life is often something you already knew coming from a different mouth. Rap often gives us good advice. Rap often says, f*** em. When I write that rap invites us to spend time elsewhere, rap says that often it’s not anywhere different at all from where or what we live. More accurately, rap asks our consideration. We in turn are considering rap this week, what it is and what it was. I read an excellent interview today that posited something very simple before the interviewer even got to asking questions: rap is a literary form. And it got me thinking about the discourse that Brave started, and why it mattered to me if people thought rap was dying, beyond the immediate response of “well, because I like it a lot and don’t want it to die”.

Rap fulfills the promise of posters we saw in grade school: books can show us other worlds! Rap really does that s***. Rap transports us fully (Did you ever mouth a paragraph of a book to yourself in the mirror and feel anything except insane? Case in point). Rap often says: my circumstances are momentarily your circumstances, what you see is my vision; this world, whatever world it is, is ours. Rap’s fluid refractions of narrator and audience trust us implicitly to understand on unspoken levels when “we” are the subject of discussion or are instead co-mingling on the same plane as the speaker discussing. Or any other number of positions that can be held, as rap is infinite. Any attempt I make to impose a rule or structure on it is like mapping the invisible walls of a video game: oh, I know it has terms and limits. I just can’t see them, or communicate their makeup. It’s too f***ing big.

Rap can never die because it is a pure form. And that perfect form state is separate but not removed from its existences as a genre, a mode, an economy, a force in & of popular culture, etc. I won’t pretend to know any more than your average dolt about Plato, but we can all grasp the general idea of his theory that “for any conceivable thing or property there is a corresponding Form, a perfect example of that thing or property”. Is this true for all things? I would say not. But rap is that pure form, the perfected dual existence of literary and linguistic expression (In the same way that painting is the perfected dual existence of visual and linguistic expression tbh).

Feasibly, it could be replaced. But whatever replaced it would have to come in on the cresting wave of a change so monumental to human modes of communication and understanding that I don’t think any of us can visualize it. The equivalent of progressing from horse-drawn carriages to teleportation. Anything that came after rap that doesn’t do so is doomed. It will either operate through rap, or it can only supplant one aspect or facet of identity that rap holds. All rap is poetry but not all poetry is rap. Why? In the same way that all televisions are technically radios but not all radios are televisions. Because it’s an advancement and progression of form. Visually-transmitted entertainment as a form wasn’t changed, they just found other ways to deliver it to you. That form has not been advanced upon. It’s no disrespect to other forms of lyrical expression existing alongside rap, before rap, after rap, etc. to say that this form has been advanced by rap. Of course rap has influences. Of course it has a timeline. It has its own history and a place in human history, it was shaped by history and circumstance and individuals. I’m not saying it’s divine in nature, but it’s also bigger than we usually consider, I think. We dig up caves, find the remnants of markings left by humans, interpret them and in the end say “damn, they knew how to paint!”. Did the people know it as painting at the time? Maybe. Painting was waiting for them though. When we go on youtube and watch The Jubiliers “rap” in the 1940s, did they know it as rapping? They might have. Regardless, in their delivery, rhyme style, and tone they presaged highly recurring elements of an expressive form. A form that exists, not because it was born fully formed from any one individual or area, but because it was waiting for humanity to realize it, shape it, and utilize it.

This concept brings me great joy, because we can participate in a perfect form. This concept reframes fears that rap is dying. Is it not a recognition of rap’s immense power for some to admonish rap for it’s failure to advance society towards a morally valid ideal? Is it not an equal recognition of rap’s impossibly wide and inextricably human scope, for some to reply that rap’s capacity to encompass all degrees of human nature and the negativity that can pervade that nature, is not a failure of rap? We mourn what is important to us. We dread that an organic, perfect form has been bent into a spectacle, if not fully f***ed than partially. We dread that because all forms of artistic expression witnessed in our lifetimes have been subject to those same eroding forces of commodification. I won’t tell you not to worry; worry! That worry is healthy, it indicates the proper respect and heft being given to a truly important concept. But don’t move on. Rap has splintered into dozens and dozens of movements, and it will splinter into hundreds more before you die. The machines that grind expression into profit will always seize on the most popular and massively appealing of those movements. That won’t change, within rap or any other form, or any other part of our lives really. But give up on rap and be left in the dust at your own peril. Stick around and worry, and use that worry to push rap towards what you want it to be. Why shouldn’t it be exactly what you want it to be? Rap levels the field and allows us all a chance to speak the s*** we think people will connect with. Stake your claim, make rap a purely political tool. Make it a complete abstraction. Make it nonverbal, turn it inside out if you want to. But you’d look stupid saying you gave up on art, as stupid as saying culture is dead. There is a solid choice to be made: a slow loss of momentum and narrowing of possibilities, or the further sporulation of rap into space still unexplored,to encompass all that is still yet to be contemplated and considered

Agreed

If the replies end here, it’s my most successful thread yet

tl:dr please

🤤They Feeding that Cat Some Good Soul Food🐈

From my understanding rap I just a blip in the timeline of culture it's meant to die and look forward to what's next

i'll help ya buddy

Great read and I see the vision

Rap really can't go anywhere but we gon use this downturn to motivate. Least that's what I'm doing. This s*** is too real to go away fully

me an my niggas finna make sure it dont die

now i'm a dumbass so i don't really feel that i can add to this in any meaningful way but i will say this was a very interesting read

I just feel so far removed from whatever is popular at this point and the stuff that I do try to listen to just sounds bad. I want to branch out to find some new underground rappers who still rap primarily with bars and s*** but it seems like even nobody in the underground is doing that stuff anymore.
and Im not just saying this to be dismissive or anything but over commercialization of this genre really screwed up the priorities. Like a decade ago we had Kendrick, Drake, and Cole all on the charts all representing kind of a different pathway of this genre... now we got who? What are the priorities of these new generation guys? It seems like the music isnt even the focus of this genre anymore and its just all branding and visuals. Plus not to mention all of the beefs on social media and clout chasing plus these stupid attention seeking gimmicks. like I'm almost a 30 year old man I dont care about hiphop social media pages promoting artists with stupid viral stuff like "_ ex exposes him as being a freak in the sheets!". This stuff is just childish nonsense to me lol where's the good music? where's the artistry? and most importantly where are the older generations collaborating with the younger guys? Like off the top of my head I can only think of a few of these new generation guys (like NLE Choppa) who actually collab with legends. and you know the bar is so low when Im bringing up NLE Choppa of all people... I dont even think I can name 10 of these new era guys off the top of my head either lol this isn't even a diss or anger, (beause most of my past angry rant posts were just trolling) I'm actually confused as to what is going on with this genre at this point... it just feels like the music is a second thought

to me rap is so much more than just lyrics

the vocal performances
the beats
the variety of sounds, ideas, etc

its undeniably one of the best genres on paper

drake needs to get on as much dog food as he can ASAP

sherm really one of them ones because ain't no way i'd read this much from most the niggas on here

Literally though ngl I'm on this type of s*** rn. F*** how corny it may be but I love rap and it's just getting started there's no way this s*** is dying

its niggas like us who make the world rotate bro

jus keep focusing on greatness and good s*** will happen

They writing liberal arts college essays on the Kanye fan forum 🤦‍♂️

@scott can we get a music a***ysis section so posters like this can stay away from discouraging actual a***ysis and convo. lol

this was a great read.

I think the only problem is that a lot of what sparked our interest in this S*** as 70’s-90’s babies came from what was on radio or tv and now it’s all kind of splintered so kids only know to replicate the usual suspects they see

I’m a dunce and you’re smarter than me!

this is what i was finna say

the game is so much more like spread out and diverse. if nas came out today he would probably be as successful as griselda, if lupe came out now tbh niggas wouldnt even care

it feels like s*** is stale cus the mainstream is trash but the actual scene is very vibrant. it sucks tho cus now we dont envision blowing up the same way, cus its obvious now the game is to find a niche not to try to b the next drake

It was just jokes I like OP and this thread

rap as an art form is separate from rap as a commercial entity

nothing can really replace rap because Latin music or whatever takes it place commercially doesn’t fundamentally do the same thing that rap does (which is the same thing that makes some feel like rap has a “responsibility” it isn’t handling)

if you feel like rap is dying you should contribute to changing that in whatever way you can

Is what I took from it

Lmao this guy said

Uhhh

Lemme pick a phrase at random here

Uhh

"visual and linguistic expression"

Lmaoo nerd

good read I'm way too tired to have a real answer so maybe I'll just make my own thread tomorrow