The act of talking over a beat. The beat is usually around the same tempo as a rock song and is almost always computer generated, rarely is it spun from vinyl at a concert and even
rarer is it produced by an actual percussion instrument. Rap started out as a form of
lyrial poetry emphasizing the daily struggles of of life in the American urban society. Rap in the last 15 years, unfortunately, has broken down into a musical genre that has taken it's already limited creativity potential and dropped to an
all time low level of
ingenuity and creativity in its popular form. For example, Sean "Puffy"
Combs and his partner in
mediocracy "
Mace" proved in the 90's that it is possible to make a success in Rap music without even being able to get past the 1st round of a local Rapping competition. A sad example of where Rap music is today is that many Rap Producers of this generation, such as
Timbaland and others, produce music for a "Gangsta" Rapper on month and then Produce the same style of beats for Britney Spears the next month. Popular Rap however is not the only genre at fault. Rap,
Rock and Pop music are all plagued with the dominance of Record Companies and the
force feeding of music to the public as documented in the recent proven instances of Record Companies paying money to large radio station DJ's to play certain artists' records more than others and sometimes even saturating the listening audience with the same song over and over again which when they are drunk at the club suddenly comes on and everybody goes, "Hey I know this song!" And suddenly the beat and delivery that you knew was shit the first 5 times you heard it on the radio, suddenly relates to you because your drunk and it's familiar.
Puff Daddy sold a million records and even admitted he was a
terrible rapper, which he was, further embarrassing the genre and lowering its
credibility as a form of music.
