But then again, jazz people always thought rock was lazy and lacked creativity and were frustrated that people could get famous strumming the same three chords and “making noise”.
I’d say rap was never my thing. But in my college years, I’d crank up Nuthin’ But A G Thing and starting singing “it’s like this and like that and like this and uh”. I couldn’t get the hook from OPP by Naghty by Nature (the actual correct spelling gets filtered - ha)out of my head. Heck I watched the Humpty Dance video enough times to get almost all those lyrics down. Those songs were catchy and fun and/or cutting edge.
Nowadays the creativity is largely on a computer, finding the right samples, beats and lyrics, and effects to put together the right hooks. It’s different - but it isnt necessarily not creative. I don’t particularly care for it - the lyrics and poetry feels authentic but the music part totally lacks humanity to me. But I have my biases from how I absorbed music in my formative years.
Rap has been front and center for 30 years now and may soon get old. Maybe something new will come along, or maybe guitar rock will become fresh again. There have been some rock elements to mainstream songs from Olivia Rodrigo and Billie Eilish, who have had massive popularity, so it isn’t out of the question that a new Beatles or Nirvana could change the landscape again. Ideally (to me) stripping away the computers and auto tune and being more raw. But the old people don’t usually have a say in which way art evolves.
