Musical Tastes, Or I Hate Rap Music
I am not sure how but I ended up reading a piece the other day called “Everything Except Country and Rap:” What You Really Mean. Basically, a lot of people don’t like country music and also don’t like rap music (or Hip Hop… if they’re different I don’t care), but, the author says, this is less about the music and more about the context.
In general, I am very keen on context: it matters a lot. But it’s difficult. For one thing it is a reasonably complex endeavour to make a contextual argument. I think it requires a fair amount of thought to even understand the basic starting point, i.e. that what one intends to say, what one says and what one means are distinct concepts. And then you have to remember that the text itself is a context: one can’t ignore the nature of whatever one is contextualising. This a context of my response to Laura’s argument.
The other two contexts that I can think of are very important too. Unlike Laura and her friends I have never pretended to like “everything”. I am cautious when it comes to listening to music. This is even true of music I know: liking a greatest hits album isn’t going to make me listen to the rest of their music.
I mean, sure, I have sometimes adventured through Youtube with groups like Kollektivet (a retired comedy act from Norway who did songs, often parodies… which, of course, I don’t realise are parodies) or White Denim (they did the version of I Just Checked in to See What Condition My Condition was In that appears in Fargo) but that’s rare. Mostly, since the demise of U Choose 40 (a defunct show from a defunct channel, i.e. C4) any music I hear that I haven’t heard before is in other media. This is not the behaviour of the stereotypical music fan, and does it even qualify as the behaviour of a music fan? (Note, if I am at home and not watching television I am listening to music.)
The third context is possibly that I am extremely over the broad application of American discourses to NZ contexts. We are not America. We aren’t American. We are consumers of American media because we’re victims of American cultural imperialism as much as anyone else, though. Thus the third context, if it isn’t overness, is that I am not approaching Laura’s article from an American context. I am, in fact, approaching it from an NZ context.
Hopefully putting these contexts together adds up to something interesting to read. If it doesn’t? Well, I can’t help that. Not really. I mean, maybe, I could write better but if I could, I would, right? Similarly, maybe I could take a different angle? But that wouldn’t be authentic… and I am big on authenticity. All I know is that I have lingered too long on this sentiment: time to quote the blasted article!
Why is that [liking country] so bad? Because it represents something that anyone looking to maintain or elevate their class status doesn’t want to associate themselves with. To admit you like country music is admitting you like something inherently and purely working class, which jeopardises your status as middle class. There’s a real anxiety in this, and country music is an immediate “flashpoint,” in Hubbs’ words, for this internal struggle of outward presentation.
Hubbs is an author whose book articulated Laura’s critique and in doing so opened up Laura’s thinking. The way I read Laura’s article is that the major thing was seeing words on page noting that “everything but country and rap” was at heart about.¹ I didn’t start with that quote, though, because I think this longer one works better.
I don’t really think that the above logic applies in NZ. I mean, sure, there is the outright wrong notion of a classless society but that’s not it. I think, in NZ, what we have instead is “Oh, yeah, that’s right, this is the sort of thing that makes Americans think ‘hillbilly’ or ‘redneck’”. That is, we understand the associations that Americans make but our associations have the intervening logic of “this is how an American makes this association.”
Now, just because I think this doesn’t mean I am right. It could be that we have started relying so strongly on American media for children’s programming that there is no longer or soon will be no puzzlement at Plankton’s once-bizarre pride in being “college educated” (in NZ, college is literally just a synonym for high school). If so children will be effectively be growing up in America, receiving an effectively purely American cultural education. Alternatively, I could just be plain wrong to start with but, obviously, I don’t think I am.
If you believe that I am right, the contexts that rap and country have in NZ is different to the contexts that rap and country have in the US. Specifically, the contexts are American music forms. Hence, Laura’s reasoning, which I find convincing, collapses. So, why do I hate rap music?
I have listened to very few rap “songs” for most of their duration, let alone their entirety. For the most part this happens when they’re inescapable… such as when my peers play it while I am in a space I need to be in. (A problem also associated with much contemporary music, which I also don’t listen to and usually don’t like much.) The only real exception is Eminem’s Stan which was in U Choose 40 and had an entirely too different music video and a couple of the music pieces associated with Men In Black (including the Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme). The issue with rap is the sound: the slower it is and the more rhythmic-lyrical its feel… the more songy it seems… the better. This of course rather seems to defeat the point of rap: it’s meant to be different. Hence, things like Stan seem appear to my unfamiliar palette unusual… and it isn’t like I even like those all that much.
It really is the sound. To me rap is a bit like listening to Staying Alive being sung but the music in the background is, say, When the Levee Breaks: the rapped stuff never sounds right. It’s not the non-discernible words problem either. There are songs like Lullaby where it is difficult to hear the words which I like no worries and there are foreign language songs which I like (several Japanese Digimon songs, for instance) despite understanding nothing (except any English lines). Hell, I listen to Knulle and Pule quite regularly even though I rather doubt I’d like the thing if it was in English (and certainly not if it was the same song). Sometimes I think this is a shame because the underlying music is okay, but sometimes that just isn’t my thing either.
The interesting thing though is that music is funny: listen to a genre enough and you’ll start liking it. Or it melts your brain. I’m not willing to find out which is the case for me and rap because it’s such a poor experience listening to the first one. And I am certainly not about to change how I listen to music to do this for any genre, even ones I have not preconceived notions about. And I don’t care if you think I should.
When I think about Laura’s article, it seems to work on the notion that people behave in normative fashions. One might privately like country (I don’t know if I do per se but I am partial to many Johnny Cash songs) but one wouldn’t listen to it in public because of how one knows other people react. I agree with this notion, but accept that some people aren’t like that. To them the music they like is the music other people can know they like. And I don’t think Laura disagrees. I think Laura’s case is limited to, “We have to think about how the societal narratives surrounding the media we consumer affects how we perceive that media.” I think that point generalises to her discussion about Americans and my theories about listening to music in NZ.
And because I am sure you’re wondering… the sound track in Iron Fist is a big reason I don’t like it very much. Luke Cage had a much better one. (Which reminds me, to be honest, if there are two African-American characters in a movie, I tend to believe that rap will feature noticeably in the soundtrack, especially in the credits. That might be true or it might be bollocks but it seems to be true.)
¹ ““Everything but country and rap” at its core is a class issue. I just needed someone else to say it, and it confirmed why it had been bugging me.”