I haven't much to say about the whole rap debate. Just that I'm shocked at what it's come to. What started out as a complaint (legitimate or not) about question content quickly spiraled out of control into an all out brawl, first on the quality of modern music and then the socio-political implications of believing something to be music or not, respecting said music, etc. First, TRASH is by its very nature trashy. If you don't respect it as academic knowledge or as culture or whatever, all the more reason to include it. Perhaps there should have been less rap and more other TRASH, too, but of course there should be rap. It's modern, it's popular, it doesn't normally have arias or a long cello cadenza somewhere 2/3rds through, etc. Second, Rap is not only not dead, but it is in fact something that normal people with normal lives listen to (and weird people with weird lives, etc). Acting white, acting black or acting purple, it's on top-40 stations everywhere. Four of the ten songs that my local top 40 station cycles through throughout the day (without including an 11th selection, g-d forbid!) are rap songs. Something tells me, they would not be doing this if people weren't still listening to rap. I dunno, seems simple enough to me. The station itself covers a major urban area, suburban areas and rural populations. While I'm sure that not everyone in the area is listening, I'm also sure that it's not just white-folk or black-folk or whatever. Rap is still quite popular across the board. It's still quite marketable. It's still incredibly profitable. What I think is true is that people are not _just_ listening to rap or whatever other type of music it is they like. Happily, a lot of people are listening to rap, hip-hop, R&B, teeny-bopper stuff, punk and everything else with various combinations of each genre. I guess now that I've rambled on ad naseum, I should get to some sort of a point. Basically, rap, and most other popular modern music, spans different economic backgrounds, culture, race, religion and all those other demographic thingies. People listen to it, but listening to it does not define who these people are. Their actions and beliefs do that. Music is in the end, just music, and unless someone is a rap artist, I doubt that rap is the only thing that defines their lives. Even then, surely rap artists, like any other artists, have lives outside the recording studios. (Look at Shaq for instance ;-) ) As for more representation for gays and lesbians, write a question or two. If they're decent, maybe they'll get included. But I'd bet you, if you looked around a bit, you'd find that gays and lesbians are real people too :-) They even listen to rap on occasion! Things like this should not be devisive, especially things like college bowl which really is just for fun. I mean come on. It's just trivia afterall! Listen to rap, don't listen to rap. Date a member of the same sex or not. Do whatever the hell you want, as long as you're not hurting yourself or anyone else by doing so. In the end, just try to have a little fun. Even if it means listening to Tiny Tim sing "Tiptoe through the Tulips." You _are_ allowed to do this. Even if you are not a 70 year old woman with grey hair dyed blue. That's the whole fun of it! -Barbara (disclaimer: sorry if none of that made sense :-) )
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