Pop music
A dose of rap
Marcus Berkmann
It's now about seven years since the first rap record somehow slithered into the singles chart. We all sneered. 'It's a craze,' we said. 'It's too limited, it'll never catch on.' Completely wrong, of course, just as previous generations were wrong about electric light, The Jazz Singer and the career of Bob Monkhouse. What's remark- able is that, without any noticeable artistic progression from those primitive early records, rap, with the help of its later mutation hip-hop, has hijacked the main- stream. It's cool, it's everywhere, it's one of those things we're all supposed to like. Trouble is, no one over 20 who isn't a rock critic (and therefore paid to like it) can stand it for a moment.
Not perhaps that we give in to such prejudices, when rap presents such a sure- fire opportunity to make huge sums of money. When all you are doing is talking over a pre-recorded rhythm track (itself knocked together on a cheap synthesiser in 15 minutes), you are hardly extending the boundaries of popular music, but you certainly are making enough to put down a sizeable deposit on that villa in the Cap d'Antibes we were talking about last month. What makes rap such an alluring investment is that musical talent is not required. Indeed, it's almost a liability. What's more important is having some- thing to say. Whether people want to hear it is less vital: with your words channelled through the impenetrable patios of the streets, it's unlikely anyone will understand it anyway. There are solid reasons, of course, why you may not feel you're necessarily the right person to undertake this admittedly risky attempt at pop stardom. For one thing, you are neither poor nor a resident of the less salubrious suburbs of New York, Chicago or South London. For another, you probably lack a certain fun- damental blackness that generally comes in useful on these occasions. And perhaps crucially, it is the rare stockbroker that makes any sort of impression on the British singles chart. But remember the Beastie Boys. They were white, Jewish and rich, and they made a mint.
It helps, though, if you look the part. Odd sproutings of facial hair are useful, as for some reason they lend you a certain underprivileged air. The baseball cap goes without saying, although a coloured beret skilfully evokes New York gang warfare and so supplies instant musical credibility. (Be careful, though, if you wear it in New York itself; if kidnapped, try pretending that you're part of a radical French accor- dion collective.) Next you must decide what it is you want to say. Rock critics rove rap and hip-hop because all the things that are difficult to describe (music) are rendered irrelevant, leaving behind only the things that rock critics really love writing about (lyrics, clothes, the relevance and validity of the artist's stance in the post-industrial land- scape of Thatcher's Britain). Your theme, therefore, must be a good one. The Beastie Boys' message was, in essence, Let's Stay Up Late, Behave Badly And Really Annoy Our Parents (they succeeded). Black rap- pers tend to fall into two distinct camps. The New York group Public Enemy repre- sent the gritty, urban It's-Tough-On-The- Streets-Man tradition, recording songs with titles like 'Terminator X To The Edge of Panic' and 'Black Steel In The House Of Chaos'. These boys are cross, and they want you to know it. The solo artist LL Cool J, meanwhile, is of the softer, more romantic No-That's-Not-A-Cucumber-In- My-Trousers school of rap (his name is an abbreviation of 'Ladies Love Cool Jay').
'What do you mean, contempt of court?' There is certainly room for other material: stockbroking is just one of many subjects as yet uncovered.
'LL Cool J' is, you may have noticed, a rather silly name, and that is the final constituent in your new personality. Most rappers, I suspect, are really called Tim, but hide instead behind curious nicknames, such as those chosen by the members of Full Force: Curt-t-t, Paul Anthony, Shy Shy, B-Fine, Baby Gerry and Bowlegged Lou. I myself have changed my name by deed poll to Markie B, and my first record should be out any week now, a rap on the iniquities of VAT and Schedule 2 National Insurance payments. See you on Top of the Pops.
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