Thanks for that, I'll peruse the link But immediate reflex is that putting "rap" and jazz improvisation into the same sentence is absurd.
Why absurd? In both cases there is creative improvisation going on, although in different forms.
Because I don't believe anger is "creative improvisation", while jazz very much is. The minimal effort needed to make one's anger rhyme doesn't quite jump the threshold.
1. You can certainly have angry creative improvisation. I'm not sure why you think anger cannot be creative. For that matter, I see no reason jazz cannot come from anger. And I can say both from personal experience and from seeing work from others that anger can lead to creativity.
2. You are operating under the assumption that rap = anger. That's just not true. I don't listen to rap, but I can easily see that not all rap is brought about from anger.
To give some evidence of this point, I looked up the best selling rap singles of all time, to get an idea of what the most popular rap songs are like. I briefly played each song on youtube (like I said, I don't listen to rap, so I wasn't familiar with most of them), with lyrics. This is not a list full of nothing but angry songs by any stretch. 12 Top-Selling Rap Singles Of All Time
So if your argument is that rap is not music because it comes from anger, that is pretty clearly untrue. Nothing requires rap to be based on anger.
If that is your argument, it would also seem to mean that most extreme heavy metal is not music, because it is clearly an angry style of music.
Of course, something else you seem to be overlooking is that while the music and/or lyrics of a song might be intentionally made to inspire or resonate with anger, that doesn't mean the songs have to be made by someone's anger. It is possible to write a song which inspires emotions that were not at all felt in the creating of the song.
3. Your statement about the minimal effort in making anger rhyme seems like it could apply to all lyrics, and further, to all rhyming poetry. Or is it somehow easier to make rhymes about anger than it is to make rhymes about other emotions?
Again --- can you think of any music, or any creative art form at all, that is made simply out of anger? I can't.
That's not what anger does. What it does is swing fists and shoot guns and break things. There's nothing in that that can be called "creative" .
And on #2, if you "don't listen to it" how can you go ahead and define it?
Sorry I won't bother with that link. I have no desire to go to that place. But again, that's a reaction I wouldn't have to opera or "Country" or Muzak or Justin Bieber, none of which I fancy but all of which actually are music whether I like it or not. The thing is -- neither Opera nor Country nor Muzak nor any other legitimate music exist to piss you off or to crow about how big your dick is. Fuck that.
Gotta go. Things to do.
That I don't listen to rap doesn't mean I have never heard rap, or that I can't go listen to any rap songs (which I did). It means I don't choose to listen to rap when I'm picking music to listen to for enjoyment. Despite not liking rap, not choosing to listen to it when I want to hear something I enjoy, I still know that not all rap is based on anger.
You also seem to be thinking of emotions as the same thing as creativity. Instead, I think that emotions may inspire creativity. Anger doesn't turn into a song, or a poem, or a painting, directly; anger inspires someone to create whatever art they may use as an outlet, just as sadness, love, or joy might inspire them. No creative art form is made out of an emotion. They are inspired by emotion. And, yes, I can certainly think of creative art that was inspired by anger. I have, in fact, created art myself that was inspired by anger, not to mention depression, or hatred, or fear, or any of the more "negative" emotions.
If you won't go to the link (which, by the way, only gives a list of the highest selling rap singles, it doesn't actually play the music), let me just say that the songs listed, and the lyrics to those songs, are not all about anger. Not even close. So your argument that rap comes purely from anger was untrue.
And now we're into a purely subjective discussion of what "legitimate" music is. Admittedly, what constitutes music is already a somewhat subjective thing, but it seems to me that you are using a personal definition which is not the norm. It reminds me of my own person definition of "sport": I only think of something as a sport if there is a direct competition between at least 2 players, where one can affect the outcome of the other. To me, golf is not a sport. Many of the Olympic competitions are not sport. They are competitions. I know that is my own personal definition, and not widely accepted.
I'm also curious of your take on a more "angry" style of music than rap, such as death metal. Is that, too, not music because it comes from anger? I've certainly heard people call it noise and not music before.
I fully agree with you that golf is not a sport, and neither is car racing. Not at all a bad analogy to our discussion.
I really don't know anything about "death metal" lyrics although I guess the name gives me an indication. I don't listen to that shit, because the music itself has already repulsed me, so I never got near what the lyrics are about, if they have a theme in common at all. No idea.
IOW if it's all just testosteronic force with no subtlety, which is what I infer is the case from the sound (in both "death metal" and "rap"), then I'm outta there. If it sounds as if its entire point is nothing more than to overpower (rather than engage) the listener, then it's worthless. And no, that can't be defined as music. It's more like rape.