Blogs


ABOUT ME


  • » Name: Amanda Bassa
  • » Location: VA
  • » Member Since: 09/21/07
  • » Bio: student, future change maker, and everything you wouldn't expect me to be.
  • » Contact Me:
  • » Syndicate: RSS RSS

MY RECENT POSTS



MY CALENDAR


  January 2008  
S M T W T F S
    1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30 31    
« Dec Mar »

MY TAGS


2007 • aids • album sales • art • barack obama • basketball • beijing olympics • bill clinton • bush • china • college • cops • crime • d.c. • darfur • dc • dead prez • deonte rawlings • displacement • dmv • downloading • drugs • e-thuggery • election • endorsement • ernie paniccioli • excessive force • films • florida • free • frosty freeze • gangs • gentrification • go go • go-go • google • heroin • hillary clinton • hip hop • hip hop honors • hiv • hype • illegal downloading • immortal technique • injustice • irv gotti • jay-z • judah • justice • kanye west • lil wayne • longevity • m1 platoon • mafia • mainstream • mark ronson • marky • mary read • media • mixtapes • music • myspace • n-word • nandomcflyy • nas • new york • o'reilly • obama • old school • olympics • oprah • parenting • police brutality • politics • positivity • radio • reggae • rock steady crew • rock the bells • russia • sampling • sean bell • sean taylor • sex • shootings • soundtracks • supernatural • television • terrorism • tibet • tv • tyra banks • underground • vh1 • virginia tech • wale • war • x.o.

MY FAVORITES




The Undisputed Truth

Is R&B the Rap of 2008?


January 09, 2008 | Tags: Radio

So as you may have figured out by now, I did quite a bit of traveling during this holiday season. Most of it was just lots of little mini road trips with my mother to go visit family I haven’t seen in a while and whatnot, which led to the need to listen to the sanitized crap that floods the radio airwaves of America. Now, I expected a good handful of “hang my head in shame” type moments and a bit of pointless ranting about how this is probably the reason why young children seem to have so many issues these days, but something else happened.

Something unexpected. Something odd. Something I’ve never before noticed in my time on this planet.

…An abundance of singing?!

Maybe I just never paid enough attention because I was never really fed up enough with radio rap to focus on anything else that it shares the airwaves with until recently, but there were a whole hell of a lot of actual melodic sounds coming out of the speakers while I was making my way across the highways of the Eastern half of the country. Suddenly the self proclaimed “hip hop and R&B” stations seemed like they should flip the order and call themselves “R&B and hip hop” stations – if you stand by the theory that they list them in order of descending priority, of course. Which I always did, considering that there’s straight R&B/soul stations but never in my life have I seen a strictly rap station…so if you ask me, the rap element of these “hip hop and R&B” stations should automatically take more precedence since these seem to be the only stations that it gets play on*.

That’s not the point though. From Chris Brown, to Ne-Yo, to The Dream**, I thought the singing would never stop. I mean don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate their music. Chris Brown can actually put on a decent live show, or at least that’s what my TV leads me to believe. I just kept waiting around for the rap, and it never seemed to happen. Or I’d get one or two songs, and then back to the lovey-dovey singing. It wasn’t even just one station either! Am I the only one that noticed this? Am I just late on things? If I’m not merely hallucinating this phenomenon, then am I going to be hearing a lot more actual singing this year on my trips to hell (better known as Pennsylvania) with my mother?

This could take some getting used to.

 

 

 

 

*Save for those “top 100” type pop-ish stations that seem to think that playing some Common right before they throw on some Fall Out Boy followed by Britney’s latest shit-tastic single makes a whole lot of sense. Let’s leave those out of this argument though - they’re a headache for a different day.

 

**And all the other ones that I can't remember, since after a while they all start sounding the same anyway. Yeah, seriously. They do. It doesn't help that Snoop Dogg wants to sound like T-Pain now, either. Oh, and don't think that I forgot about the female singers, either - they were unavoidable on the radio, too. I just happen to think that the guys have the catchier material these days so I thought of them first.


The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the writer and not necessarily those of HipHopDX.com or Cheri Media Group.

0 Comments