To Rap Or Not

Wrap it or not

Adult Radio has almost always shied away from rap music. It embraced the hip hop culture at first but as rap became more aggressive and vulgar, Adult Radio left it by the side of the road. Now, With real adult R & B/soul singers  becoming more sparse and hip hop becoming the dominant urban music base the question is being asked , why isn’t adult radio playing rap?

In the beginning, There was hip hop with it’s story telling and fun beats, usually a rap over an already hit song: Sugarhill Gang’s “Rappers Delight” over Chic’s “Good Time”, Or Rob Base’s “It Take Two” over James Brown’s “ Think (about it)” Or Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five “Genius Rap” which used Tom Tom Club “Genius Of Love”.  The music was filiamar and the raps were fun and relatable.

In the late 80’s came NWA, The group lead by Easy E and Dr. Dre which Featured Ice Cube and Mc Yella.  The raps went from “My party is better than your party” to “F*ck the police and Suck My D*ck” as soon several group followed with more vulgar lyrics and misogamy. The fastest growing music genre received a virus and there was no way to clean it up. Some artist still made adult friendly rap. MC Hammer “You Can’t Touch This”, Paperboy “Ditty”, Young M.C. “Bust A Move”

When 2Pac and Snoop Dogg arrived even profanity became cool. These artists were so smooth and, cool that listening to them sometimes the listeners forgot that every five words was laced with profanity. Nortious B.I.G, Dr, Dre Busta Rhymes and Ludacris continued to record songs that kids and adult both enjoyed.

Can You Dance, The new rap artists are one dance move to the next. A rush of dance moves quickly became rap hits. “The Chicken Noodle Soup”,” Lean wit it Rock With It”, “Stanky Leg”, “The Dougie”, “The jerk”, “The Halle Berry” are hit rap songs with dance craze behind them. This leaves little room for true message rap,which hip hop started out as. Remember those rich songs like “The Massage” “It’s Like That” “Dear Mama” and “If I Ruled The World”.

So Where does this leave us? I actually grew up to rap music. I jump ship when NWA, Easy-e, Boogie Down Production, Ice Cube and Gangstar arrived. Every now and then a Rap song would transcend it genre and have everyone listening. Kanye  West “Gold Digger”, Nortious B.I.G. “One More Chance” Big Pun “Still Not A Player”. Bottom Line Mega E Radio will have some rap neatly surrounding the true package the awesome R&B Soul music.