being the devil's advocate maybe? but it all depends on the rap you hear (i don't blame you for disliking it if all you've heard is the stuff on tv and radio)... in terms of the modernist's claim that any organization of sound is music i'd have to disagree...

but even the old school stuff featured all 3 basic components you mention... they might not be organized to create something you enjoy but they're still there... a 'good' rapper does have a melodic flow to their words... harmony is an iffy thing but the trade-offs between one rapper to another do require a certain element of harmony to keep the flow of the music going... and a person 'beat boxing' into a mic (properly) has as much rhythmic validity as the bass in a barbershop quartet going 'buh buh buh bah'

Rap artist don't always use melody. It can range from something as minimal as one kid beatboxing while another free styles using no melody. To something as layered as a fully produced rap song with backgound instumentation. So it depends. Rythym(and lyrics) does always seem to be a large aspect of it, so it can overshadow other musical aspects.

But from a music theory standpoint, is melody more musicaly important than rhythym? You always need rythym otherwise it really would just sound like noise. Imagine playing something like Bethoven's 9th while completly ignoring the rythym. it wouldn't sound great.

ps: indie, whenever some one says "I wish I was black.." I cringe because what usually follows is an absurd display of stupidity and/or ignorance. thanks for not being an exception.

Rap music employs rhythm, harmony, and melody to varying degrees. Of course the 'rapping' portion leaves out or is quite often intermixed with a melody portion of the song. Regardless, it isn't the melody that makes the music, it's one of any of those aspects.

Rap is music.(period emphasized) And I don't speak for the 'anything is organized' camp, but rather the 'it's common sense' one.

Why am I suddenly getting a strange sense of deja vu?...

i can see how some of the actual drummers or instrument players make music, but the rapper gets all the credit and fame for something which he didn't create. someone gives them a beat they like and they start to spill out lyrical gargin.

OK, here's where I take the side of the rapper. Good rap is, as I said before, an art form. A well written and well performed rap (and there is in fact such a thing) requires close attention to how words fit into rhythm, a strong command of grammar and pronunciation, and a skill at finding the right consonants and vowels, putting them together in a way that is both meaningful and rhythmically "tight", and using all the powers of the human voice to speak clearly and emphatically.

I may not consider rap my favorite kind of entertainment, but I know a thing or two about what makes good rap good. A really good rapper, especially one who both writes and performs rap, is certainly an artist.

Indie, alot of the things you say apply to some rap artist. I will totally agree with you that there is definitly some no talent people out there who are famous rap artist. And quite frankly I wish they would go away too. (I'm looking at you Nelly).

The reason a few of us might have deja vu is because it seems to be a theme in the rap area for people to rag on the whole style because the don't like the limited (usually pop-rap) that they hear. I don't go in to the Punk section and tell them "yo I listened to Blink-184 and sum-41 on the radio and I gotta say I punk music sucks". That would be silly. Cause even I know that a few mainstream acts are probably not representative of the entire genre as a whole.

are their rap artist who are in it for the money/women who jump around acting like idiots? Sure, there are people like that in all kinds of music. But don't rag on rap as a style because Nelly/50cent/Chingy or whomever you have heard gets on your nerves.

you always act like i'm some ignorant fool who only has heard the mainstream rap. yes i do think alot of shit like sum 41 and creed and blink 182 is shit. i use to listen to rap and had all the underground shit and everything like that, but sometimes people just have to grow up and mature to a better level of music. i could only take so much of that style of what you call "music". you say someone who writes them own material and performs it is an artist, well bands such as primus(for example) plays a 6 string bass while singing his own songs. now see that takes talent.

seriously... WTF

i couldn't have said it better panbient.