1) Most Hip Hop and Rap songs give me a screaming headache. And before you even go there, I don't even care what the race, ethnicity, national origin, or what have you, of absolutely any given Hip Hop performer, or that of any of his, her, or their fans, etc., might actually be. I just don't. Because it's entirely beside the point to begin with. In fact, I'm a connoisseur of almost every type of music, but I personally find Hip Hop to be particularly discordant, derivative, and just plain disturbing in most cases. And that's it. That's all there is to it, plain and simple.
2) I am sick to death of all the mindless hand gestures and the goofy shoulder shrugging that most Hip Hop performers tend to shamelessly parrot and propagate. What the hell does all that mean anyway? No, no! Forget it! I really don't want to know, because quite frankly, it looks D-U-M-B dumb, and that type of groupthink behavior often has the effect of instantly reducing the so-called "individual" modeling such absurd body language to the decidedly unglamorous level of uncouth caveman.
3) And seriously, what's with the cock-eyed ball cap routine, the goofy looking baggy pants, the ridiculously oversized belts (if one is worn at all), and all that shamelessly garish "bling" adornment? I mean, did the English language really need a brand new word for "tacky?"
4) I am way past the point of being infinitely revolted by the often violent, filthy lyrics, and the degrading and therefore downright depressing ideas and imagery that tend to be invoked by this particular style of so-called "music."
5) Whether most folks realize it or not, the F-word is still classified as a vulgarity in the English language, and slipping such foul terms into every other word or phrase in a given Rap song doesn't really change that fact. In other words, frequent swearing doesn't actually do much more than make the practitioner look and sound particularly simple, poorly educated, and thus, downright low class.
6) I can't stand the phrase, "In da house." Yes, I know what it means, but as a longtime ESL/EFL teacher, I tend to despise intentionally misspelled and/or mispronounced words and catchphrases. Thus, supposedly "clever" little pop cultural sound bites like that often just come off as really asinine to me when people attempt to use them in everyday conversation. Worse yet, it's especially disturbing when non-native English speakers model such blatantly erroneous lingo, as if talking that way were actually a good example of proper colloquial English (which it clearly is not).
7) Likewise, the goofy looking misspelled and pathetically shortened pseudonym style names of many Hip Hop stars are sometimes interesting and even quite creative, but... come to think of it, not all that much, really. No. Uh-uh. So by all means, somebody please tell me how on Earth looking and sounding illiterate ever got to be considered cool. Nah. You know what? Never mind. I don't even want to know.
8) The term "gangsta" is just plain grotesque. It's pathetic and downright annoying. Because simply put; being a gangster is, in fact, not something that one should actually aspire to become. Psst! If you happen to have been born within just the past few decades, and you haven't quite figured that one out yet, you might want to do a little reading up on the subject. Seriously, folks; in most cases, gangsters are bad. Sure, Al Capone was definitely "living large" for a good long while, but he also ended up in prison, and although he may not have technically died from syphilis, well... yuck! Just yuck. I mean, if the mere idea of being forcibly incarcerated for any appreciable length of time, or the hopefully sobering notion that having unprotected promiscuous sex might mean that one could very well end up contracting even just one of the many venereal diseases, if either of those sad outcomes don't sound absolutely atrocious to you already, then dudes, and dudettes, I really don't know what to tell you.
And last but certainly not least:
9) Likewise, the term, "bitch," used in reference to women in general is abhorrent and just plain wrong. Wrong with a capital W. In fact, "bitch" isn't just a bad thing to call members of the fairer sex, it's also a terribly inappropriate label to arbitrarily slap on anyone who may simply not be deemed an "alpha male." If anyone is not yet abundantly clear on this particular subject, please kindly crack open the nearest English language dictionary to confirm that this term (when not applied to female canines, aka dogs) is very much a vulgar, and therefore wrong, expression to use in most cases.
10) It's really not a good idea to call pretty much anyone that isn't actually a canine, a "dog." In fact, just read the Merriam-Webster definition of the word dog, and hopefully you'll be able to readily see that it's almost always in extremely poor taste to call someone, any human being really, a "dawg."
And there you have it. If you're offended, well... okay, I guess. More power to ya. Be offended. See if I care, dude. After all, your lousy excuse for "music" offended me first. So there, doggone it! And as I always say, "Ah, being offended! It's the most fun that the human race ever had. Until early mankind learned what defense was to begin with, that is."
