Rap isThe New Rock and Roll ? Kanye Believe It?

Introduction

This post from Seven Days In on the Glastonbury Festival of 2015 has been getting a lot of traction so I thought I would share it on Vocal. It has my thoughts on Rap, Rock, and Kanye West. It was written in 2015 so some bits may be out of date, but you may still find it interesting.

Seven Days In Glastonbury

It's the last day of Glastonbury and the person who has got the most publicity out of this is Kanye West. Before I started Kanye West never bothered me either, some people enjoyed the set others didn't, He continually self-promotes and part of his spiel for this performance was that Rap is the new Rock and Roll and therefore he was the biggest Rock Star in the world. Well, there's a classic of moving the goalposts into the next county to fit your argument ....

Before the festival, I was continually moved to laughter by the idiots who wanted Kanye West removed from the bill, probably because he's not "Rock" enough. The thing is Glastonbury is not a "Rock" Festival, it is a festival, in fact probably the biggest festival in the world. People don't go for the acts, they go because it's Glastonbury, and there is so much on, that if you don't like something there will be something around the corner that you do like. If you work out what you get for the cost of your ticket, you probably are a very good deal. Complaining about Kanye West is like complaining that Harrods stocks Tibetan Yak's Milk Cheese in gold laminated wrapping. I made that up but you know what I mean. The Eavis Family could have sold tickets for the festival five times over, it is a huge financial success and that's what you have to remember. So it's pointless complaining about Glastonbury because it's gone beyond criticism. If you want a more grassroots festival , there are thousands around the country: Here are five:

Green Man

Eden

Festival Number 6

WOMAD

Cropredy

..and that is barely scratching the surface...there are half a dozen happening on Tyneside this year and lots more throughout the country.

Any back to Kanye West positing that Rap is the new Rock and roll. It isn't. When someone says A is the new B they are immediately on the defensive implying their new product is inferior to the old product, you hear it all the time in film, writing, and music, and the nearest example of that being true was Bruce Springsteen being described as the new Bob Dylan. Rock and Roll has developed essentially as melody-based over, usually, a 4/4 time signature evolving from blues and folk music.

Rap is different in that it is not sung, it is spoken or shouted over a rhythm. If you wanted you could say that Rap is music for those who choose not to sing. This is no bad thing. It's a development of spoken word poetry with roots in the fifties Beat Poets developed through the sixties and becoming its own form utilized across all cultures. Pop Will Eat Itself and Eminem are examples of white rap, then you have Goldie Lookin' Chain, Welsh Charver Rap, as well as the roots rappers such as Wu-Tang Clan, NWA, Fugees, Wyclef Jean.

I've just dropped a sprinkling of names showing that Rap is not the new Rock and Roll it is its own beast and it's all the better for it. You get the odd cross-pollination such as Aerosmith's "Walk This Way" especially the reboot with Run DMC, or the sanitized but fun "Ant Rap" by Adam and The Ants, but I'd rather Kanye had declared himself the King of Rap because he can never take the crown from Elvis.

Thank you for your time.