Does anybody else think that rap music kind of sucks live?

[Randy Lahey]

Does anybody else think that rap music kind of sucks live? It sounds much better on your stereo. I've been to a few rap shows and they were pretty boring. For whatever reason, rap doesn't work live.

Edited September 11, 2013 by Randy Lahey

[magisme]

Most of the time you're right. I've seen some killer live rap shows, though. GZA's Liquid Swords shows were great. Fugees were great. DMX, interestingly enough, great.

A lot of rappers rap in a kind of laid back, don't give a fuck style. If they were to repeat that during live shows, you wouldn't hear a word they say. So they crank the mic up and the rapper shouts into it, and it all gets fucked up.

Jay-Z and Busta were pretty good live, too.

[wasted]

only seen PE and Disposable Heroes of Hipocrasy. There seemed to be less theatre or moments for the crowd to cheer. No solos. I saw Eminem live show on tv and it was more like a rock show or Alice Cooper show. he had visuals and set ups for each song.

[classicguns4life]

I think it depends how much you actually enjoy their catalogue. I've seen rap shows many times where if you don't know the songs, it all starts to sound the same and you might be lost. There isn't really that redeeming quality that rock shows have where "well the guitarist was great!" But if you like the stuff, its pretty much like seeing a regular rock show.

I saw Donald Glover with his Childish Gambino crew and they were great live. Then again, they had one album and the people in the audience really knew it well. So its just like seeing a regular band, as they are going through a catalogue you enjoy, while also ranting or throwing their own little personalities into the show.

I also have a friend that saw Jay Z and Kanye West and they thought the show was amazing. It was very much a theatrical performance from what I was told, but otherwise it was similar to a rock show I'd see at Madison Square Garden. They run through a bunch of songs from both of them that the crowd eats up. Aside from the fact that its categorized under "rap/hip hop", I don't really see how its that much different, especially if the songs have a heavily musical sense to them that makes them different.

[Guest Len B'stard]

Because the emphasis is on the wrong thing, if the emphasis was on the DJ like its supposed to be and the MC was an after-thought then the musicality would shine through but as it is what you're effectively left with is a backing track for some guy to shout his lungs for 90 mins, its never gonna go well.

Some rappers are amazing at it. There's a lot of audience participation required with hip hop too which makes it a reciprocal thing, to go to a hip hop show with this rock band fan mentality where you're gonna stare up at em and go 'OK, entertain me' is never gonna work.

A hip hop show is like a party and the DJ plays the tunes, the MC presides over the proceedings and how good or bad a party is is dependent on how good the party-goers are, as long as the musics good.

[J Dog]

I think another thing is the actual physical act of rapping for an hour or hour and a half. Most don't have the breathe control to rap and flow that long non stop. It's not as controlled as the studio. So you end up getting those 2 random back up guys swinging hand towels around shouting parts of the song and jumping in finishing lines. Just doesn't sound good. I know some people who recently saw Lil Wayne, 2 Chainz, and T.I and said it was one of the worst shows they've been too. They did say TI was good. But some, I've seen Snoop live, are great at it. And it's just like a good rock show. The Up in Smoke Tour dvd is a great example of how it's done right.

[Guest Len B'stard]

The best shows i seen are rap shows, the coolest audiences, no grief, everyone respects everyones space, no one kicking off, just people having a good time. And funnily enough, it's at those rap shows that security was heaviest, searching you before you go in and blah blah blah. And then your average rock show, there's always some pissed up twat lookin' for aggro, some dickhead who fancies himself a hardnut and all this...and in those gigs you just stroll right in.

[eye2eye]

Ok audience is one thing music is another. I just can't listen to rap live especially when they use all that backing tracks.

[Snake-Pit]

I like these performances;

So no, I don't think what the thread titles says, in fact, I think the opposite.

[Roush]

Jay-Z's Unplugged was awesome.

[CheapJon]

This does not suck. It rocks harder than most metal/rock bands performing today worldwide.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lomkul1fFvw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzv2bhr9gy8

[Coma16]

So you end up getting those 2 random back up guys swinging hand towels around shouting parts of the song and jumping in finishing lines.

LOL so true - the "posse" hahahah

[Estranged Reality]

I know what you're saying and it's often the case when guys like Em, Jay-Z, et al tour and use hype men to sing half their verses and/or use backing tracks. It's understandable why they do this - they'd be winded too fast otherwise - but this doesn't always translate very well to a live atmosphere. It all depends though, I've seen some great rap performances, Kanye is an example of a guy who usually brings something interesting to the table live.

[Black Sabbath]

This does not suck. It rocks harder than most metal/rock bands performing today worldwide.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lomkul1fFvw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzv2bhr9gy8

I saw Kendrick and Wiz Khalifa at the Made In America festival and I thought Wiz's performance blew Kendrick out of the water, honestly. Not that Kendrick was bad, but Wiz was just a really good performer, I thought.

[J Dog]

I took a shot at Good Kid Maad City in the Eminem thread for having weak beats like most of hip hop, but Backseat Freestyle and Maad City have absolute killer beats. The outro of Maad City is just too good.

[Randy Lahey]

I'll put it this way. Would you be interested in buying live rap albums from your favorite rappers?

[Guest Len B'stard]

Isn't that kinda what mixtapes are in the purest sense, a recording of what the DJ played on a given night but just without taping the fuckin' audience and just having the shit plugged into his equipment and taping it like that? Like a DJ would do their set and they'd get a recording taken off of it?

Edited September 11, 2013 by sugaraylen

[Randy Lahey]

DJ's spinning records can be cool live. But the rappers rapping over top usually sucks. I'd rather just listen to the album at a party.

[Guest Len B'stard]

I see what you mean sort of. Thats kinda a bit of it's charm though I mean, it was a cornerstone of rap for a while, these haphazard recordings made at a party or a park or of some battle somewhere, a lot of the early documentation of certain battles was done that way. Thing about rap is, live albums don't really fit the character of rap. Live belongs live and recordings fit the studio mould more. One could argue live albums are kinda stupid as a concept. I mean it's not something I personally subscribe to but there it is.

[Val22]

To me rap music sucks all the time! I don't know how long this shit is going to last, but for me it's outlasted it's 15 minutes of fame.

Rap was the thing that killed MTV. Once they started playing rap videos, everything else went away. Wasn't it supposed to be a all rock music channel? What happened with that?

The Headbangers' ball and how MTV always played every GNR video all the time.

Now no rock bands get the time of day and does MTV even play videos anymore?

[Randy Lahey]

Rock music is played out. It's been boring as hell since the 90's.

[Dan H.]

Sometimes.

I think you just like bad music, Randy.

[Randy Lahey]

Sometimes.

I think you just like bad music, Randy.

Oh no, the hipster is attacking my musical taste!

[dalsh327]

To me rap music sucks all the time! I don't know how long this shit is going to last, but for me it's outlasted it's 15 minutes of fame.

Rap was the thing that killed MTV. Once they started playing rap videos, everything else went away. Wasn't it supposed to be a all rock music channel? What happened with that?

The Headbangers' ball and how MTV always played every GNR video all the time.

Now no rock bands get the time of day and does MTV even play videos anymore?

They were getting real advertisers backing shows like Real World and Spring Break, and some game shows I can't remember anymore. Mike Judge managed to play videos on Beavis and Butthead.

What bothered me was when they started adding more music video channels, but almost all of them had a TV series on each of them. At least Palladia shows concerts.

Videos are irrelevant to most artists, but every now and then, some of them are worth watching.

MTV was never supposed to be one genre, and it wasn't in the beginning. It was the executives excluding R&B bands and Yetnikoff lost his fucking mind when they wouldn't play Michael Jackson. They did play Prince , but it was only because they were Warner Brothers owned. They played a LOT of Rod Stewart, if you take a look at the list of first year videos, it was a lot of new wave bands, Billy Joel, Rod Stewart, Elton John, John Mellencamp, and Tom Petty.

[Dan H.]

Sometimes.

I think you just like bad music, Randy.

Oh no, the hipster is attacking my musical taste!

How am I a hipster? Because you like bad music?