Hi kids, do you like violence?

I listen to hip hop to all the time. And more than just that, I think about hip hop all the time. About whether producers are more important than MCs. About whether it’s wrong for me to nod my head to violent and discriminatory lyrics. About whether Soulja Boy is destroying rap or saving it.

I hope that this blog will provide a forum for me to document some of these thoughts – and, hopefully, to hear some of yours. The approach I will take in this blog will be different from sites like rapbasement and allhiphop in that this is not a news site. I feel no compulsion to discuss the latest, greatest acts. I will simply air my thoughts on whatever rap is on my mind and in my ears.

This blog will look at hip hop through a critical and thoughtful lens, not an academic one. I am not a music theorist, and even if I were I don’t think theory is the best way to understand hip hop. To me, hip hop grapples with challenges that few other musical genres have approached. It must make turn repetition into an asset, not a drawback. It must reconcile the speaking voice with the sounds of musical instruments. And it must do all of this with the limited tools that are available to most producers and MCs.

Hip hop is largely a novel phenomenon, and the traditional devices of musical theorists offer little insight into its real meaning. A new set of tools and ideas is necessary. To begin uncovering these tools and ideas is precisely the goal of this blog.