The Atlantic - Latest Comments in Can Gangsta Rap Go Highbrow?

Re: Can Gangsta Rap Go Highbrow?

Jaiquan Metatron Fayson — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 10:45:51 -0000

i agree somewhat with the your instrumentation theory... i'm planning on doing both visual art and rap music. maybe you should check my stuff out, both just to verify your max roach/bdk theory...
http://youtu.be/o3_mTsvq7ds here is some of my music http://www.facebook.com/media/... and some of my art... enjoy and like or comment if you please...

Re: Can Gangsta Rap Go Highbrow?

CeezDiem — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 16:49:07 -0000

Completely agree with E.C.

Because instrumentation is a talent AND a skill it's not unlike being an architect or something. You can always have it to fall back on, even if you're not working on your own sh*t. So there's always enough money to pay rent with and keep you from working at UPS. You have an easier time pusing boundaries of music when the heat's on.

not really the case with rappers.

Compare Max Roach and Big Daddy Kane. Both supreme talents, but one worked with his brain AND his hands. A great carpenter's gonna have an easier time finding work than a great poet.

Also jazz seems limitless as an art form. What are its limitations? I only know what is and isnt jazz when i hear it. You can take any instrument and make jazz. While you could say the same about a hip-hop beat, Rap's ultimate limitation is "its gotta rhyme"

Could the day come when A rapper could teach at Julliard? I doubt it. But you never know.

Re: Can Gangsta Rap Go Highbrow?

zak — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 17:39:32 -0000

I can't think of anybody in hip hop, or even in popular music more generally, who innovated like the RZA in the 90s. The first 2 Wu Tang albums were so mind blowing, not just the music, which was awesome, but the whole *concept*, the business model, was so genius. Bobby Digital, the Ghost Dog soundtrack, and all the production work he did, too. Amazing. Wu Tang for President.

Re: Can Gangsta Rap Go Highbrow?

E.C. — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 08:34:50 -0000

1. Keep doing your thing Mr. Coates. I'm reading.

2. "whether gangsta rap will become high-brow like jazz."

Among other reasons, our greatest jazz artists are/were eventually admired as vanguards of high culture because they (a) are/were geniuses, (b) are/were assiduous students of their artforms, (c) are/were advanced technicians who worked hard to hone their skills, and (d) are/were inventors who created new techniques that would expand their artforms' sets of tools over time.

Only a small group of gangsta rappers (I won't even try to define 'gangsta rap') appear to be both a and b. Are any c? d? Artists often get high-brow respect only when they and their artforms have the smell of intellectual toil and the disciplined cultivation of advanced skills and tools over time. There are exceptions to this general rule of course, but relatively few exceptions.