ra

Rap music is something special. As a teen my peer group was either into rap or into metal, rap, for me, is the far more important of the two. At a base level; it's just cool. Something about speaking very fast with a skeleton of a song looping under it just shrieks cool. The bass lines inspired by funk, the vamps taken from roots reggae. But then there is something a bit more to it. The rap idea of "realness", something to have and express (kind of missing the more important point of questioning "realness"). Hip hop is about keeping it real, a realness that is distinct from reality. Reality is forced on you, realness is what you inflict back. More than that. Rap is the epitomy of "Art is theft", "Good poets borrow, great poets steal", "There's nothing to say that hasn't been said" et al. Non-apologetic. It's exciting to deface things that we live among. Miming the warped original. Punk, metal, country, techno/ dance doesn't come close to hip hop. No ownership, vessels and filters, mimetic souls made up of stolen goods, a "fuck you" to creativity hindering copywriting, paraphrasing in an alien voice, post-modder, self-aware/ referencing, a self-referencing mythology.