Rap: Fighing for its right to entry

Last week, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame unveiled what may be the worst list of nominees in its history for the class of 2008. Madonna, the Beastie Boys, John Mellencamp, Donna Summer, Leonard Cohen, Chic, The Ventures and the Dave Clark Five highlight a decidedly non-rock list of artists that has some critics reaching a boiling point. " This year's ballot shows that the Hall has skipped over the seminal 1970s for the worthless '80s," says Roger Friedman of Fox News. "The committee has chosen dance music over rock. They've all but ignored the pioneers who influenced the genre in favor of non sequiturs." And Fred Mills of Harp Magazine agrees, saying that " with today's announcement of nominees for the 2008 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame it becomes clear we've reached a tipping point from which a permanent downhill slide in quality seems all but inevitable."

Even though I will agree that this year's list is not up-to-snuff and has some glaring omissions (The Stooges, Tom Waits, The Cure, Metallica, etc.), what surprises me is how many of these critics feel that rap artists are not worthy of being inducted into the Hall. "The Beastie Boys... Well, rap is a bit closer to rock than disco," says Bob Lefsetz, "but who's a bigger innovator... The Beasties or Alice Cooper?" And Friedman agrees with the genres worthiness. "Afrika Bambaataa and the Beastie Boys: Are they kidding? Even the latter must be laughing. They had one big hit, 'You've Got to Fight for Your Right to Party.' The former, while I'm sure quite lovely, is a record-scratcher with a great name. Each of these belongs in a Rap Hall of Fame."

What these critics seem to fail to understand, however, is that without black music, there would be no rock and roll, period. It's a genre that blossomed from the R&B, blues, and boogie woogie music of the '30s and '40s, and all rap is is a continuation of the same black music tradition that fathered rock and roll in the first place.

None of these critics had any qualms when blues artists were being inducted into the hall. After all, without the likes of Robert Johnson, B.B. King, Muddy Waters and others, there would be no Rolling Stones, no Hendrix, no Clapton, and no Led Zeppelin, all of which took the blues and added rock and roll's rebellious nature and guitar pyrotechnics to make it palpable to a white audience.

These same critics also have no problems with Motown artists being inducted, artists who took black R&B and made it more commercially viable to a wider audience by bringing pop melodies, hooks and carefully crated arrangements to the forefront, thus creating one of the most successful labels in music history. Nor do they have any problems with soul artists, who took gospel music and made it secular and commercial by adding some grit, some horns, some funk, and some Hokum blues-style lyrics.

James Brown, the Godfather of Soul, the Hardest Working Man in Show Business, was a no-brainer first balloter, a man who single-handedly created funk and fathered hip-hop by creating such classic, bare-bones grooves as "Say it Loud (I'm Black and I'm Proud)," "Sex Machine," and "The Payback." Brown is such an influence on hip hop that rappers and MCs are still mining his massive cannon of grooves to this day. Not only that, but there were no controversies when other funk pioneers, from Sly and the Family Stone to Parliament/Funkadelic, were inducted, despite relying on grooves, bass, and scratch guitar as much, if not more, than rap and hip hop.

Yet as soon as rap artists are eligible for induction, it seems like it's the sign of the apocalypse for most critics (it took Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five three tries to get in, and that was not without some controversy). Maybe it's because, while other black styles of music were direct influences to rock artists or adapted to the confines of the rock and roll landscape of the 60s and 70s, rap music has not only crossed over into the white audience, but it is single-handedly wiping rock music off of the radar in terms of popularity, and that may have some rock critics running scared. But without rock music, there would be no hip-hop, period. In fact, the music of many Hall inductees, from James Brown and Michael Jackson to Stevie Wonder and Funkadelic, has been used as samples for some of hip hop's biggest hits, and without these grooves (especially when it comes to James Brown and P-Funk), there would be no rap. The Beastie Boys, one of the eligible inductees of the 08 class, are a perfect example of a rap group who owe its debts to rock music. Its breakthrough album, Licensed to Ill, used several Zeppelin samples as the basis for their jams, and its biggest hit, "(You Gotta) Fight for Your Right (to Party)," is driven by heavily-distorted electric guitar and a solo from Kerry King of Slayer. And their most critically acclaimed album, Paul's Boutique, samples everyone from James Brown, The Eagles, Sly & the Family Stone and Johnny Cash to Pink Floyd, Elvis Costello, ZZ Top and The Beatles. And one of rap's first pioneers, Run-D.M.C., even recognized the similarities of rock and rap with its cover of "Walk This Way," which both crossed rap over to the mainstream and took Aerosmith's career of life support. Even today, Kanye West is recording with some of rock's biggest names (John Mayer and Chris Martin of Coldplay), and Jay-Z is an advocate of quite a few bands, even jamming onstage with Phish at one of their last concerts in NYC, and has sampled his fair share of rock artists, from The Doors and Kraftwerk to Talking Heads and Jimi Hendrix.

Rap music has also left a permanent mark on rock music that cannot be erased. Some of the earliest alternative rock groups, such as Red Hot Chili Peppers, Fishbone and Faith No More, took the rhymes of hip hop and added punk rock's aggression and the grooves of funk to create a revolutionary sound. Rage Against the Machine took the political agro-rap of NWA and Public Enemy and added a Zeppelin-esque guitar firepower to create one of the biggest rock groups of the 90s, which spawned other immensely popular (though critically disdained) rock groups like Limp Bizkit and Korn. Pop megastars Madonna, Rod Stewart and Michael Jackson have also added rap and hip hop elements to their music, and The Beatles have gotten into the sampling act by creating the mash-up album Love for its Cirque de Soleil show. Even Elton John has stated that he wants to make a hip hop-flavored record sometime in the near future.

In the end, though, the one thing that makes a concept like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame so tricky is that music is subjective, and is solely based on people's opinions as to what they think great music (or "rock music") is. It's not like sports where you can look at stats to of determine who should definitely be enshrined, although one could look at the number of albums that an artist has sold or the amount #1 singles that they've achieved, but that would leave you with a hall filled with Backstreet Boys' and Vanilla Ice's. And "rock and roll" itself is a loose term, with the earliest definition being black music that has crossed over into the mainstream (which, going by that definition, would legitimize any rap artist's entry to the hall), white music that has crossed over into the R&B charts, and music that's made for teenagers (which would legitimize Madonna's entry as well, even though she isn't exactly rock. I mean, what teenage girl in the 80s wasn't wearing spandex, Capri pants and beads and crosses like their idol?). So without a concrete definition, it makes it even harder to determine which artists should be categorized as "rock" artists, and thus should be enshrined into it's Hall. Which essentially means that one is left to look at influence of an artist's music on popular culture, and since one man's trash is another's treasure, there are few acts that everyone can universally agree are influential to the history of music (with The Beatles being the closest, imo). But for me, rock and roll music is essentially popular music in any form, and since rap has not only influenced rock music and vice versa, but is currently the most popular form of music out there today (and has been for decades), its artists should not have to justify its place in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and Grandmaster Flash, the Beastie Boys and other future Hall of Famers should be welcomed with open arms.

— Jason Shoff