More On "Rap Is Crap"

Looks like Ben Shapiro didn't realize that his venom was a bit out of date!

Co-writer Tim Slagle from Big Hollywood is unimpressed.

To his credit, I think that Tim's response is a perfectly reasonable piece.

I just finished reading Ben Shapiro’s Rap Is Crap and I can’t let it go.

I am not a huge fan of rap music. It is not the top rack choice on my iPod, and yet, I can appreciate its contribution to music and pop culture. Very few of the top 40 songs today don’t have at least a small rap section in bridge of the song. It has now been over thirty years since rap made the leap from the inner city streets to the top of the pop charts, so it’s not going away anytime soon.

All of Ben’s complaints were once said about rock and roll: lack of melody and harmony, overemphasis on rhythm, vulgar, overly sexual lyrics… Rock and roll was also called a corrupter of youth and predictions of it’s quick demise abounded. There were record burnings and organized protests against this Satan music, and today, footage of these protests are viewed comedically. Do we really want this stigma attached to Republicans any longer? Are we tired of being the punchline yet?

And more.

Instead of becoming this generation’s up tight pantywaists, we should be looking for common ground between the rap culture and ourselves. Isn’t that kind of what Big Hollywood originally set out to do: find common ground between conservatives and pop culture? Because, I think there is a lot of common ground. After all, we both have a fascination with guns and a distrust of government.

And we both get a big kick out of making politically incorrect jokes. For the most part, rap lyrics are intended to be funny. And when you become incensed, you’re letting on that you didn’t get the joke.

Don’t do that. It makes us ALL look bad.

This topic seems to have split the standard talking points - the comments are all over the map, which I view as a good thing for conservatives. My hat is off, in this case, to Tim for standing up for a coherent and sensible perspective when the fools like Shapiro were re-writing the same old tripe.

There are shitty commenters everywhere, so I don't blame Tim for them, but check this one from commenter olddog55:

When Juliard, Berkley School of Music, Boston College of Music, etc, start offering advanced degrees in "rap", I might consider it to be music. Until then, to me, it's nothing more then jungle drums.