What Is Rap Music - My Thoughts On This Age Old Question

What is rap music?  This question gets steamrolled over and over again, with so many different answers that one can't even begin to put together the correct answer.  Is there a correct answer?  Or is it all in the eyes, or should I say ears, of the beholder?  I guess that's what the question really is, to me anyway.

So what is it?  Some people see it as a form of expression.  If you can spit a few bars over some hot rap beats and express a particular topic, then you have the answer.  Some others feel that as long as you have a bounce to the overall track, even if the lyrics aren't all there, you still have an answer to that age old question, "what is rap music?".

So on that note, I'll probably get blasted by some for this, and maybe not so much by others, which proves my basis, that it's all in the ears of the listener and their own personal definition.  So with that, I'll begin to share mine as well.  My answer is this (and no, not a Merriam Webster's definition of sorts, but my own mental thesis if you will of this question):

To me, it is indeed a form of expression first of all.  I'd like to word it as "street poetry".  To me, there has to be lyrical content involved that catches my ear, whether I like the track or not.  So already, my thoughts on "what is rap music?" is that if it's a bouncy club type song and there really aren't any lyrics other than some chanting and yelling, that's not rap to me.  I'd probably just call it crunk music or club music of some sort.  Rap to me is lyrical... it makes you sit back, it makes you think, it makes you feel like you were there... again, "street poetry".  When you hear some deep lyrics from Nas for example, especially his older work, you embody the words he's spittin' onto the mic as though you were there.  The lyrics on "I Gave You Power" are powerful!  To hear that track will have you like "DAMN".  It is creative, it is lyrical, and it screams to me what rap is all about!

What is rap music trying to bring to the table that's different from every other genre of music?  I think it's the fact that you don't have to sing to still create a hot song!  Think about it!  All other genres pretty much take lyrics and sing them.  R&B music sings the words.  Pop music sings the lyrics too.  Country music, rock music, alternative, they all sing the words.  Rap however, doesn't have to have anything in singing form (though nowadays there's a bit more of singing than not) in order to get the point across.  It is great lyrical poetry, whether expressing the thug life of the streets, a cheating girlfriend or boyfriend's impact to you, or just taking an object like a knife and personifying it as though it is a living, breathing life telling you how it lives and it's perspective on things.

There are so many rap artists that are coming out now in the underground, and those that have already made it.  Yet to me, it's sad that the underground seems to have a better lyrical grasp on things with tracks on mixtapes that make you sit back and think, while the mainstream music industry is pretty much a dancefest now with more singing and dancing beats than what rap used to be.  So what is rap music?  To me, it is extinction, or at least, on the brink of it if more lyrical kats don't add to the mainstream game.  Keep rap alive, and its culture strong!  And that doesn't mean just to keep positive lyrical rap alive, but rap in general... the creativity, the "street poetry" feel, the hot hip hop beats that make great rap tracks, every living powerful thing that rap has stood for since its conception, birth, and peak of the 90's.  Rap has to be preserved, kept in tact, and resurrected into this generation and the next generation after us.  The greats, the pioneers have to be kept alive through their lyrics and wordplay, if it stands a chance of surviving.

Before I sign off of this impacting entry, I have one question:  What is rap music to you?