What is your view on Rap Music?

I know some people Love it and some people Loath it.
I for one love it. I don't know, i suppose it's just the way i grew up in Canada and listened to it.
So what do you think?
 
Do you think it's just all mumbling or "Retards attempting Poetry"?
 Be as critical as you like. 

Music is like candy.
You always throw away the rappers.

As you already know, I don't like it. The lyrics sound so infantile and silly. It's all about "bitches", wealth, power and respect whilst dissing other rappers. I may be stereotpying here but there's always an ounce of truth in stereoptypes.

Depends what kind of rap you mean. If you mean REAL rap, the stuff released "back in the day" that had some actual meaning to it and had awesome rhythm and great beats and was made by skilled musicians, then I like it very much.
 
If you mean the sorry excuse for music that most people consider rap today, complete with meaningless lyrics bout dem bitchez and/or hoez, autotune and da bling bling, that stuff is trash and should be eradicated from memory.

Only rap soundtrack I think I actually liked was Madworld's. Other than that. I don't like it.

The subject of the lyrics, whatever they may be, don't put me off. But the actual vocals. The voices just irritate me. 
  
Personally, if I could just take out all the lyrics and just had the beat, I would be totally fine with that. I like drum and bass stuff, and that's how I picture rap. D&B with lyrics.

I would prefer to listen to spoken word rather than Rap, or rather, "commercial rap". I love the work that Saul Williams does, his spoken word work far exceeds his hip-hop work. 
 
As far as I know, with all this commericial "image" that rap has, I don't know what Rap means or what it is supposed to represent. It doesn't help that it crosses paths with Hip-Hop all the time, I can't tell between the two.

" As you already know, I don't like it. The lyrics sound so infantile and silly. It's all about "bitches", wealth, power and respect whilst dissing other rappers. I may be stereotpying here but there's always an ounce of truth in stereoptypes. "

Oh boy, this isn't gonna go down very well. This site is filled with metal heads who think other genres of music is crap for no good reason, so mostly everybody is going to say that rap is crap.

Like everything else there is good hip-hop and bad hip-hop.

Mostly the stuff that isn't radio freidnly hip-pop shit and all that anoyying as new rap music that is all the same money hoes shit. I like most of the Canadian rap music and the american east coast and other underground rap music. Like Army Of The Pharaohs, Jedi Mind Tricks and Styles Of Beyond. They all got soul yo.

It's not rap, it's hip hop.

" It's not rap, it's hip hop. "

Tupac is the shit. Everyone else just wishes they were as good as he was.

90's rap... Awesome. Today's rap, complete garbage. Everything is about how awesome they are because they have a ginormous house, gold teeth, ho's n bitches and so on. Also, most "rappers" of today are more RnB than anything else. In that case, it's all about "baby girl" and "fine" and "da club". That's on top of the rapper crap.

It's definitely more skillful than most other genres of music. We've all heard of rap fights, but when was the last time you saw a rock-off outside Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny? I'm not insulting their awesomeness, just saying that it doesn't happen as often in rock.

I can't stand it. To me it's not music. It just sounds like a bunch of drunk apes yelling at each other while they fight over a microphone.

A Lot of it is complete garbage. I'm really tired of the rap that plays nowadays. They use computers and Soundboards so badly that it feels randomly generated. I only like a select few rappers who actually try to do something cool. Common isn't so bad in my opinion, neither is Raphael Saadiq. but i guess i can't really classify him as a rap artist. Here's a example of what rap is to sum up. 

Fort Minor are the only band i listen too in that genre, because the things that they mostly wright about are intelligent and relevant that mostly because of Mike shinoda. other than that the bands which i used to like no longer record and have been replaced with all this commercial shit, when we will people realise that they are listening to the same shitty song over and over again? 

" It's definitely more skillful than most other genres of music. We've all heard of rap fights, but when was the last time you saw a rock-off outside Tenacious D and the Pick of Destiny? I'm not insulting their awesomeness, just saying that it doesn't happen as often in rock. "

Im also Canadian and i grew up listening to rap music, as well as metal, punk, heavy metal, instrumental haha pretty much the works. All i have to say on the subject is that each music makes me feel a different way. Rap music, especially lil wayne who raps about being the shit, i love to listen to a song like "3peat" before i go hang out with a new chick because it helps me get my swagger on if you know what im saying. Like it makes you feel like the shit and who cares what other ppl think, if the chick likes you awesome if not then fuck it, other girls out there. Other rappers like eminem kind of help me get my armor on, because generally people are douche bags and listening to a song like "still dont give a fuck" by eminem helps me deal with assholes.  Back in my hockey days i loved listening to heavy metal before a game because of how it makes you feel, so aggressive and intense. Just my point of view, accept each type of music for what it is and enjoy it if you want, i dont hate on jazz music because i dont listen to it, to each his own.

I grew up with hip-hop, and I pretty much agree with the sentiment that the finest examples of the genre were produced back in the day, while most of what is marketed as "hip-hop" now really doesn't fit the bill.  
I'm reminded of an interview that Terrance Howard did on NPR about his role in "Hustle & Flow."  He said two things that really stood out and summed up today's rap music:
1. He was glad to learn that his character in the movie couldn't really rap that well, which most can't.
2. He mentioned that his character would basically sell anything that he could to make a dollar (drugs, woman, music) which seems to be the mindset of these "artists."  It's basically the same old drugs being sold by a different fool on a different corner.

I love some rap, and hate some, and then I'm in the middle about some of it 

Most of the stuff you hear on the radio is complete garbage, but there are still several good rappers left.

" Like everything else there is good hip-hop and bad hip-hop. "

Its better than a bunch of dudes screaming out random shiit and head banging...
 
*runs*

It sucks.
 
To be fair, most metal sucks, too.

Shit.

" Tupac is the shit. Everyone else just wishes they were as good as he was. "

Its what I grew up on. I love it but in recent years it has been on the decline. It seems like it is going through it glam rock phase. Cats like Saul Williams, Shad, and K'naan give me some hope in the coming years of hip hop.

Nearly all of it is pretty awful to me (I enjoy some Eminem, though). Whenever I happen to venture onto MuchMusic or something, it's always some pretty terrible and ridiculous rap song. But that's just me.

" @baconbits33: I'm not claiming to be an expert (far from it), just stating my opinion. "

" It sucks.  To be fair, most metal sucks, too. "

" Tupac is the shit. Everyone else just wishes they were as good as he was. "

" In my opinion, rap is music. Music is art. Art cannot be defined as good or bad because it is a form of human expression.  I enjoy rap because it makes me feel good when I listen to it.    SIMPLE "

Some rap music is okay if the lyrics are good.

" @Adamantium said:

" Tupac is the shit. Everyone else just wishes they were as good as he was. "

Biggie Smalls is better than Tupac :) "

There are very very few "Rap" songs I can listen to and I meen only listen to it, I still wouldn't enjoy it.

" @baconbits33:   Take notice of the "far from it" part. It explains a lot. "

" @Absurd said:

" @Adamantium said:

" Tupac is the shit. Everyone else just wishes they were as good as he was. "

Biggie Smalls is better than Tupac :) "

Lolz! Haha thx dude. I haven't had a good laugh today, until that! "

I don't understand how everybody is judging rap based on the leading mainstream artists...if I judged rock and metal by those same standards it would be complete shit too.  Take a step back and examine your arguments from time to time.  I like some rap.