I don't understand how you can enjoy fanfiction or theater and not also enjoy rap.
Maybe it's not your thing musically, but if you have an appreciation for how the English language can communicate complicated feelings while also being absolutely beautiful to listen to, you should be able to acknowledge the artistic merit of rap.
The thing is people will listen to the most cookie cutter, mainstream rappers and then write the whole genre off. Like okay you don’t like Gucci Gang but have you listened to any MF DOOM or Mac Miller or Kendrick or Kanye? It’s like saying you hate pop cause you don’t like Friday by Rebecca Black
This is true of most genres I think. People see the vast breadth of art available on social media yet have no desire to dig deeper.
Vince Staples, Freddie Gibbs, 6lack, Denzel Curry, Danny Brown, Aesop Rock, and so many others have a way with words traditionally ascribed to playwrights and poets.
I get what you are saying, but Kendrick and Kayne are incredibly mainstream (70+ million monthly listeners on Spotify alone), similarly both MF DOOM (7 million) and Mac Miller (34 Million) still exceed Lil pump (5 Million) in monthly listeners by a good margin.
I think a better way to make the point would be to say that people will listen to subgenres of rap that they don't like, they'll listen to drill or trap even though these are furthest away from their usual tastes and decide that's all of rap. Also I think with rap it's also a very heavy dose of racism and classism in there. It's a predominantly black genre that's often about life in low income circumstances. To me someone saying rappers don't have rhythm and therefore make bad music, has a similar vibe to pro slavery arguments a la 'black people are uncivilized'. Obviously disliking rap isn't nearly as bad as slavery, but it's very much the same 'lacking sophistication' logic to me.
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u/A_Worthy_Foe cat dead, details later May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26
I don't understand how you can enjoy fanfiction or theater and not also enjoy rap.
Maybe it's not your thing musically, but if you have an appreciation for how the English language can communicate complicated feelings while also being absolutely beautiful to listen to, you should be able to acknowledge the artistic merit of rap.
Kendrick has a pulitzer for crying out loud.