Re: Kind of Hip-Hop
Erik Gaderlund
Fri, 17 Apr 1998 01:47:22 -0700
>
>Jim Kerr wrote:
>
> They all pick up on the Last Poets/Gil Scott Heron vibe (these are the
>first artists to fuse Jazz with Rap).
>
(denise)
>I beg to differ here just a lil' bit. I'm a bit biased, being a spoken
>word artist, and feel that the Last Poets and Gil Scott Heron are in a
>slightly different genre. There is a difference between spoken word and
>rap. Spoken word (IMO) generally tends to be 'translatable' on paper
>without the music. It tends to be lyrically stronger than basic rap. So a
>spoken word track could easily be written as a book of poetry. And
>rhyming is not 'mandatory'--as it is with most rap songs. This is not to
>imply that there aren't good solid wrap rap lyrics that wouldn't qualify
>as solid poetry (without musical enhancement). I think Guru's
>'Jazzmatazz' fits the AJ category well. As to the Last Poets and Gil
>Scott Heron being the 'firsts'....I dunno know about that. What about the
>Beat poets of the 50s and 60s......they were speaking over Coltrane,
>Davis, Monk and others.......AJ has been around a long time.....just that
>no one was calling it that then....
>
A modern turn is UFO's 'Poetry And All That Jazz' off their Brownswood
selftitled album. I has UFO backing up a Jack Kerouac who's poem itself
has its own beats.
erik g