Timeless

To me, good music is timeless. I can listen to The Beatles and sing each and every word....and love it. Jimi Hendrix, Elvis, etc. These artists recorded songs long before I was born and yet somehow people who are younger than me love their music to this day.

If you look at the history of music you'll see that almost all forms or genres of music were offspring of a previous style. Jazz birthed blues. Blues birthed Rock. Rock birthed Heavy Metal, Alternative, etc. Where did rap come from? Well, that's an interesting thing to think about isn't it? You can point to rap's earliest recordings and say that it probably came out of 60's and 70's R&B and soul music. Yet rap can be traced back further than simply the earliest recognized "rap" recordings.

Many point to Blondie's Rapture as rap's first major hit. This came out in 1981. However, Sugar Hill Gang's Rapper's Delight hit the top 40 in 1979. But many have claimed that rap existed for years or maybe even decades before it first appeared on a popular record. Look no further then Jimi Hendrix http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoakPJ2Rmyg
If you haven't heard Lightnin' Rod check out the youtube address.

So rap's history includes many different styles being used as it's core sound for any given song. In today's music world I fear we have lost the concept of making timeless music.

Has anyone else noticed how the term production is used to reference who made the music for a song? Granted, that person who produced a track may not have played every instrument but they laid the groundwork that the song was built on. There's a definate formula to how a song is made. Rarely does this formula include a concept first with music to follow. Nor does most rap being made today include samples. Yet samples are what can make rap timeless all by themselves because they are taking music that was made years ago and then turn them into something completely new for today. That's why rap sounds like any other pop song these days. Samples are the essence of rap. Without samples people are just making pop or some other form of music. Just because you have someone rap over a beat doesn't make it a rap song. Rappers have dropped rhymes over many different styles of music. They've done verses on heavy metal songs, pop, R&B, etc.

This is just my take but I don't hear rap being played on the radio these days. I just hear pop music. I am not saying that it's impossible to make a rap song without samples on the beat. Some cats can do an amazing job of making beats by just using a keyboard. I guess they're able to tap into a soulful style that gives the track that edge that samples do. I'm a hip-hop purist. Keep this shit in the elements. Rap music was birthed by DJ's who would spin the "breaks" in a song. Let's keep rap timeless. Samples ya'll. Don't leave home without 'em. Or you're just leaving rap behind. Word.

Big Fletch