Is Rap Music?

It's a question that's plagued music theorists since the inception of the genre, and we still struggle with it to this day... Nah, just kidding, pretty much every academic musician I know recognizes that rap is music, even if they don't personally like listening to it. So why is that such a controversial claim to the general public? Well, I'm no sociologist so I'm not sure I can answer that, but what I can do is look at the compositional arguments people make as to why it doesn't count, and put those arguments in the historical and systematic contexts they so desperately crave. So I did that! It's this video. You probably figured that out already, though.

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Last:    • Understanding Message In A Bottle  

LINKS:
Flow paper: http://www.mtosmt.org/issues/mto.09.1...
Patter Singing demo:    • I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major...  
Sprechgesang demo:    • How does Berg use Sprechgesang in Woz...  
PBS documentary:    • The Devil's Music   (NOTE: contains an instance of the N-word)

SCRIPT + SOURCES: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1E...

Huge thanks to our Elephant of the Month Club members:

Susan Jones
Jill Jones
Ron Jones
Howard Levine
Gabi Ghita
Kaylor Hodges
Elaine Pratt
Ken Arnold
Brian Etheredge
Josh King
Gene Lushtak
Tom
William (Bill) Boston
Khristofor Saraga
Nicolas Mendoza
Anton Smyk
Wolf Bennett
RAD Donato
Mitchell Fund
Dale Monks
Duck
Chris Prentice
Jack Carlson
Len Lanphar
Paul Ward
Benjamin DeLillo
Budjarn Lambeth
Branden Randall
Dov Zazkis
Jesse Russo
James Treacy Bagshaw
Christopher Lucas
Hendrik Payer
Thomas Morley
Abhijit Patel
Andrew Beals

And thanks as well to Henry Reich, Eugene Bulkin, Logan Jones, Abram Thiessen, Anna Work, Oliver, Jc Bq, Dialup Salesman, Adam Neely, nico, Justin Donnell, Michael Fieseler, Rick Lees, Ben LaRose, rhandhom1, Harold Gonzales, Marc Himmelberger, Chris Borland, StarsServant, jason black,Nick Olman, Dutreuilh Olivier, Davis Sprague, Justin Bronstein, Justin Aungst, David Roulston, Dave Mayer, Thomás, billy roberts, Elliot Burke, Alex Atanasyan, Joey Strandquist, Daniel Gilchrist, Amlor, Greg Borenstein, Tim S., Elias Simon, Paul Quine, Anamol Pundle, David Tocknell, Jerry D. Brown, blalo'u, Christopher Wright, Lauren Steely, Fabian, Nikolay Semyonov, Ohad Lutzky, Jon White, Eivind Vatshaug, Josiah R. Hazel, Kurtis Commanda, Bate Goiko, James A. Thornton, Jacob Friend, Benjamin Cooper, Kevin, Joe Galetti, Arnas, CodenaCrow, Sarah Spath, Skylar J Eckdahl, Kristian Bredenbeck, John Bejarano, Gerhard Blab, drunkwookiee64, Brian Dinger, SD, Revolution Harmony, Aa Markus, Paul Apicella, Pawel Sit, David Barker, Adam Wurstmann, Dave Wray, Shadow Kat, Adam Kent, Michael Alan Dorman, Caroline Simpson, Lee Rennie, Richard T. Anderson, Thomas Schryver, Angela Flierman, Matthis Knopf, Kelsey Freese, Peter Wells, Zion Suppasan, Dan Lizotte, Seth Keller, Mark Feaver, Tyler Lukasiewicz, Kevin Johnson, Brian McCue, Kevin Hellon, Stephan Broek, Richard Walker, Wú QióngYuǎn, Nathan Petchell, Blake Boyd, alex, Calvin Blitman, Magnus Guldbrandsen, Ross Relic, Stefan Strohmaier, Lilith Dawn, David Baker, Jonathan Beck, Dmitry Jemerov, Jason Foster, Ian Seymour, Brett Haines, christian madsen, Luke Rihn, Rob Holton, Devon Wilhelmy, Ben Horwood, Jaroslav fedorčák, Allen Edwards, Brandon Lanning, Ryan Nicholls, ml cohen, Brandon Hamele, Darzzr, Rodrigo Roman, Francois LaPlante, Matthew Fox, Paper Coelacanth, Britt Ratliff, Patrick James Morley, Koen Hoogendoorn, Tae Wook Kim, Eddie O'Rourke, Ryan, Timothy Field, Jon Bauman, Drew Mazurek, Jacob Luedecke, Vincent Sanders, Victor L., Tommaso Ghidetti, JJ Deman, Volker Wegert, Linus Abrahamson, Matthew Kallend, Patrick Callier, JH, Joshua Gleitze, Ben Zotto, Jan Macek, Trevor, Michael McCormick, Charles Gaskell, Sylvain Chevalier, Yuriy Honcharuk, Roger Grosse, David Hardin, Jeremy Zolner, Leon Saleh, Valentin Lupachev, Paul Koester, and Danny! Your support helps make 12tone even better!

Also, thanks to Jareth Arnold, Jade Tan-Holmes, Mark Sundaram, Sheryl Hosler, and Kim Harrison for proofreading the script to make sure this all makes sense hopefully!