--- Jim Devine <jdevine03 at gmail.com> wrote:
> on the subject of rap, we should remember Sturgeon's
> Revelation, i.e.,
> that: "Ninety percent of everything is crud." That
> is, only about 10
> percent of any genre is worth it. I think for some
> genres, it's only
> 5%. But the point remains that it's a mistake to
> reject an entire
> genre based on a cursory study.
I do not think that anyone here really suggested it - I do not want to speak for others, but the point I tried to raise was the use of cultural products as a form of assault. The fact that a hoodlum in a Ford Explorer is blasting this shit all over the neighborhood is no more an indictment of the genre than, say, a hoodluum in the SS uniform blasting the 5th all over the concentration camp is an indictment of Beethoven. In both cases music has been used instrumentally, so to speak, as an instrument of authoritarian aggression.
The emphasis of the critique should thus focus on the hoodlums in both cases, not the musical genres. In fact focus on music alone is a diversion from the aggressive behavior and its social-institutional context, which is the real issue.
Wojtek
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