As I was driving around last night, listening to Hieroglyphics: Third Eye Vision, it occured to me that Shakespeare would have really liked hip hop. I mean, he probably wouldn't have listened to it. He lived in the 16th century. He would have called it noise. But in principle, he should have really liked it. He would have dug hip hop's emphasis on rhymes and beats, as that's how he wrote all of his plays/poetry. Much like hip hop culture, Shakespeare created his own lexicon, reworked the language and reinvented it's usage. He was the first to use a noun as a verb (ie. to elbow someone). Hip hop also relies heavily on metaphor and symbolic language, moreso than almost any form of music.

In any case, while I appreciate what Shakespeare has done for the language, I'm really not a big fan of his works. So I was thinking, what would some authors I like be listening to? What would Lewis Carroll (Alice in Wonderland) be into? Trip Hop perhaps? Would Frank Herbert (Dune) like Radiohead? I think he might. And how would they feel about the various references to their works in music since their death?

So any thoughts on which dead people would like which modern bands/genres?

Shakespeare also happened to have contributed over 5,000 words to the English language, basically eventing New English and taking us out of Olde English. If not for Shakespeare we'd probably still be talking like The Cantabury Tales.

But, I dig. He's not my favourite, either. I'm much more of an Edgar Allen Poe kind of person. But, I have to say that "O happy dagger!" Is one of my favourite qoutes ever. I mean, what does he mean by that? Is it supposed to be self-sardonic or something? I just find it comical.

Okay, so I see what you're saying. Would he dig Hip Hop? I figure, if Shakespeare were around today he'd definitely appreciate Hip Hop for the roots of it. For the fact that Hip Hop (and I'm dating back even through jazz history) has really molded and been consistently at the forefront of Western music. Just about all popular musically genres stem from Hip Hop. Even Rock and Roll. And since genres like Punk Rock stem from Rock and Roll is all really goes back to Hip Hop and if you really want to be specific jazz.

But, I figure when you say Hip Hop you're referring to African American music. In which case jazz is implied, too. Jazz, swing, bop, etc... It's all Hip Hop and it's all there. So, I figure Shakespeare being a linguistic pioneer would appreciate Hip Hop as musicially pioneering. Or something to that effect. You know what I mean.

As far as Lewis Carrol (real name: Charles Dodgson) goes I imagine that the rumours he experimented so heavily with opiates and psychedelic mushrooms are true. In which case, I fancy he'd probably been into psych-rock of course. RadioHead is psych-rock. I'm a big RadioHead fan, myself. And Alice In Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass is the first book I ever read. Plus The Hunting Of The Snark, but that's a whole nother story. I own the 13th copy.

Interesting.

Cheers,
Lost

Are the Hieros big in PA? I wasn't aware that anyone outside of Cal even knew about them. I'm a pretty big hip-hopper myself. Yeah. Well.

Cool. There's not much Hip Hop action on this board.

Cheers,
Lost

quote:

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Originally posted by LostCause:
But, I figure when you say Hip Hop you're referring to African American music. In which case jazz is implied, too. Jazz, swing, bop, etc... It's all Hip Hop and it's all there.

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lost,
it is an insult to refer to all black music as "hip hop". i'm not even black, i'm just a music lover. hip hop is crap, and to put jazz, r&b, country, soul, gospel, and rock and roll into the hip hop category is horrible and unproductive.

in my opinion, hip hop and rap is all about stealing from real musicians and pretending you have talent. this is demeaning to real musicians who actually write and/or play music on some sort of instrument. not to mention it is one of the newer forms of "music" to come out, and does not deserve to be the representative force for all black styles of music, though admittedly it is a combination of all these styles, the sum is definitely not equal to it's parts.

I'd agree that it's wrong to group all "black music" into one category. when i said hip hop, i meant what is commonly accepted as hip hop (though not neccissarily the cookie cutter tripe that gets radio/tv play), not r&b, funk, jazz, etc.

Time progresses, and the arguement that hip hop is crap because they don't use "real instruments" falls short. You could say that classical music isn't real music because they're just using notes, scales, and structures that someone else developed. Music has never been about finding completely new sounds (you'd run out real quick, there's only so much that the human ear can register), but about how one arranges these sounds. And anyone who says that a turntable is not a "real instrument" has never had the pleasure of trying to use one and producing nothing but cacophony.

When i said shakespeare would dig hip hop, i was mostly talking about the use of language, the lexicon expansion, etc. but he would certainly also appreciate the form for it's roots and pioneering spirit.

As to whether Hieros are big in PA, i have no idea, i'm not really into the hip hop scene. i'm just a lover of good music, whatever the genre. but i think they are more or less nationally recognized (as well they should be). and i would think del's involvement in gorillaz (he does the rapping for the song clint eastwood, which was the first single off the album, as well as rock the house, which is also a wonderful track) has probably drawn attention to his previous projects.

And poe would like tool.

"Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, and life to everything."
-Plato