I read in a book that Hip-hop was influenced by reggae, I haven't fully gotten into old school Hip-hop and don't know the details. And books can be wrong. But if there were early Hip-hop groups that used steel drums and trumpets, or at least had a reggaeish sound let me know. Because I'm curious to see how the style started.

Also about modern "Rap" I'm not quite sure what it is, it doesn't sound like poetry to me, and it doesn't have reggae influence in it, in some old Rap and Hip-hop I have heard reggae sounding trumpet, and modern "Rap" just uses synth, so it could be a new style.

Most modern "Rap" is ok overall, I like the beats in some songs and some have pretty good synth solos (not as good as Keith Emerson's though). And some songs are hilarious like "Throw some D's".

Styles always change, but Rap hasn't become a tree with as many branches as Rock.

The branches of rap I know of are:
Christian Rap
Horror Rap
Gangsta Rap

Rap hasn't been around as long as rock but I can't see it as a tree, but you never know, a few years after Rock n' Roll started it was dying down and people thought of it as just a passing fad, until some very talented musicians came along, the same might happen for rap.

And who agrees that there aren't any extremely bad cities in Texas, at least not bad compared to Baltimore. Every day when I watch the news its all new shootings and stabbings and murders and robberies.

Cause from what I hear Chamillionaire is from Texas. And "Ridin" doesn't really have lyrics that would make him look like a poser, it's not like the song is about how bad the ghetto is, it's just him riding with drugs which happens everywhere. It seems that almost all Rap these days is about the streets, and for some reason people think it's where all the catchy Rap is from. I'm sure most of the modern rappers are from there, because the mainstream knows people wanna see someone from the ghetto, so if a person's not from there then they don't get produced. This kinda stuff happens all the time, some guy was kicked off an olympic team because his life wasn't interesting enough.

It makes me think of all the talented people the mainstream might have rejected because there songs weren't about sex, money, relationships, the streets, breakups, etc. For all I know some guy could have made an amazing song about pie that got rejected.

And I could be wrong about this stuff cause I haven't dug very deep so no flaming, just tell me what I got wrong and what I have to look at.

I don't know what you are really trying to find out. You start out by talking about Reggae and the influence it had on rap and then it seems you just get into the generic popular rap sucks discussion.

Let me ask you something, is a lot of good rock being put out now rejected by the mainstream because it is simply not marketable?

If your turning to top 40 radio to discover good music I think you are just setting yourself up for disappointment.

But thats not to say there isn't any good rap being put out. For new releases that have come out fairly recently I've been very happy with:

Talib Kweli and Madlib - Liberation
The Roots - Game Theory
Ratatat - Remixes Vol. 2
Clipse - Hell Hath No Fury

As far as different styles, Christian rap? Horror rap? Check out the Golden Age of rap or jazz rap.

Allmusic has a list of some styles:

http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p...E2781&sql=73:1

I'm not going to talk about individual artists street credibility because that is just lame and the equivalent of gossiping about pop stars. Its pointless and gets you nowhere. If you like the music then why does anything else matter?


And for Reggae, does it need to have steel drums and trumpets to be considered Reggae?

I think what this book was aiming to try and get across was the similarities dancehall, a branch of reggae, has because of the DJ rapping/singing over a beat. If you are interested in some good dancehall the Trojan label has an excellent collection. I have their dancehall boxset and love it.

In the end I think it was R&B variations like Funk and Disco that influenced rap more so than dancehall. Take a listen to The Sugar Hill Gang's - Rappers Delight for the first big rap hit and see what comes to mind in terms of influence.

I like to think Rap has a more aggressive flow ie. DMX, 2 Pac, Biggie (Mostly gangsta rap, etc.) And Hip-Hop as more even flow with focus on melodies, beats such as Mos Def, GZA, or Talib Kweli to give some examples. But as a whole in a genre I like to think it as "Hip-Hop" but there are many different forms.

No, I don't think it's marketability. It's probably catchiness. I mean TMV is a great band but they're not on any pop stations because their music is not catchy at all.

There is some talent in pop music, mostly female singers though. The male ones aren't as great. I listen to mostly classic rock and more underground modern bands.

What I meant by steel drums was it was used a lot in the caribbean so an immigrant from there might've used them if the children of immigrants influenced hip-hop, because drums were used in Rap and hip-hop. Now it's usually beatboxes and synths.

The most noticable thing (to me) about the reggae sound is the trumpet. I don't completely pay attention to the drums.

A lot of people who are ignorant (I'm not saying that you are, I'm talking about people who don't know anything about the style) about reggae think Bob Marley plays steel drums. I was talking about reggae on the bus and "I Shot the Sheriff" came up and this kid who doesn't like reggae said: "I can't imagine someone saying I shot the sheriff while playing those drums". And I said: "Bob Marley plays guitar!"

Reggae is so amazingly upbeat, it's impossible to be apathetic while listening to it.

Oh yeah horror rap was something my brother said some random band was, clown was in the name of the band but he said they rapped about death. And he was playing a riff from them that sounded like my brother was trying to play a Zeppelin riff (forgot what song) and was messing up.

To me rap is just another name for the lyrics of hip hop music, for example an MC would be rapping not hip hoping.

But I think people should also realize the cultural aspect of hip hop and the other art that is just as much hip hop as rapping is; graffiti, dancing, the DJ and turntables.

I don't really want to get into and discussion of the mainstream, it seems like half the posts on this board lately deal with dissecting the mainstream. The Mars Volta is pretty catchy to me but so is Slayer, it is all a matter of opinion. Both of those bands are pretty big but aren't played on top 40 radio since they are not marketable. Slayer because they are as metal as it gets and The Mars Volta since its tough to craft a single out of them.

Theres a reason The Mars Volta isn't on pop radio and that is because it isn't pop, but does that make it not catchy? I don't think it needs to be pop to catch your attention.


I feel like you are putting a lot of emphasis on instruments used in reggae when it is not so much what is used but how they are used. The beat, rhythm, of the songs is the common trait that gives it a distinguishable sound.



Your brother is probably talking about Insane Clown Posse who I regard as crap but some people seem to love. To me they are just trying to shock, might be interesting to hear the first time but boring the second.

Never really looked at catchiness as an opinion, I measured it by how many people thought something was catchy. I don't find The Clash all that catchy but I can't think of a single Clash song that hasn't been on a commercial.

I don't plan to start a mainstream discussion but people shut their minds to it too much, some musicians are very talented in pop.

Blaze right idea brotha

Hence the term Gangsta Rap: Eazy E, NWA, Pac, Crucial Conflict, Psycho Drama, Dre(chronic).

Hip-Hop is more of a culture, although it also has music to go along with it: Suga Hill Gang, the WU, Beatnuts, Alkholics, even some Linkin Park.

Good Call Blaze.