>>127736795
>The roots of rap music, according to wikipedia, are "African griot tradition,[7] certain vocal styles of blues[8] and jazz,[9] (...)" (which all have melodies as defining characteristics). So would you still reduce the core of the genre to "beats and spoken rhyme"?
The roots of rap being in genres that have melodies doesn't make it have melodies itself. I was describing rap as a genre not being melodic because in most cases they don't have singers. They rap, as the name says, so they don't sing.
>Are you saying that no rapper (hip-hopper would be a better term) has ever written a melody for a track? Or that the vast majority of them haven't? Because to me it's the opposite: I can't think of a hip-hop song without a melody, as simple as it may be. Do you have an example of a hip-hop song without any melody?
If they don't sing, but rap, where could the melody be? Is it in the instruments? But they don't play instruments either. So where's the melody? In the samples used to build some kind of melodic background, right? But those are not their music, they're cultural quotations, collages, stuff taken from others' creations, so that the track doesn't sound too bland or vacuous
>Isn't that too subjective? How could you tell if it expressed a feeling or not?
If you listen to an Eminem track, what kind of feeling does it express? Most of the time he's angrily spitting rhymes, whining about his life, occasionally taking the piss at some other celebrities. What he did was mostly entertainment. I've never heard him sing an actual song or melody. Same for Jay-Z, I don't think he can sing. Now, of course, there are non-musical manifestations that can trigger feelings too. Someone can tell you something and get you pissed off or happy. That doesn't make it music either. But if someone sings and this lifts your mood up, that's likely to be music.
