The Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards blasted Rap and Rock in a recent interview with the New York Daily News.
“Rap—so many words, so little said,” The Rolling Stones member says.
“What rap did that was impressive was to show there are so many tone-deaf people out there,” Richards continues. “All they need is a drum beat and somebody yelling over it and they’re happy. There’s an enormous market for people who can’t tell one note from another.”
This is not the first time Richards has spoken against the genre.
“Hip Hop leaves me cold,” he said in a 2007 interview with Rolling Stone. “But there are some people out there who think it’s the meaning of life…I don’t wanna be yelled at. I wanna be sung to. I never really understood why somebody would want to have some gangster from LA poking his fingers in your face. As I say, it don’t grab me. I mean, the rhythms are boring. They’re all done on computers.”
Elsewhere in the interview, the guitarist also dismisses Rock music and specifically Heavy Metal groups Black Sabbath and Metallica, calling them “great jokes.”
“It sounds like a dull thud to me,” he says. “For most bands, getting the syncopation is beyond them. It’s endless thudding away, with no bounce, no lift, no syncopation.”
well 90% of the “rap” sales are to white males. GO FIGURE
You made up that bullshit.
“You made up that bullshit.”
lol you serious? what demographic/consumers do you think is main ones responsible for all the rappers to go multi-platinum? it damn sure ain’t blacks that helped em or kanye sell 9 mill. c’mon son, don’t be naive.
That means you have gotten old…….just like your parents and grandparents used to say about the music you make
His opinion although an ignorant one. I’m sorry But Hip you can create more sounds and versatility through production. Anyone who dismisses production cause its not live doesn’t know shit. Because it takes time to craft a good song beat and melody. If it was that easy the Hundreds of thousands of Producers and Hip Hop artists would make it. So STFU comment on your own Overrated music.
He’s entitled to his opinion. If he’s going off of what is being released today then he is absolutely correct, hip hop is embarrassing right now. The fact that artists such as Nicki Minaj and countless other garbage acts are thriving only proves his point.
well said you old junkie. if you wanna keep it all the way real send some money to muddy waters and all the old blues musicians cuz you stole all they shit to become famous
You sound stupid. Everytime the Stones covered an old song they paid the artist in full. The Stones are also responsible for putting actual black blues on British TV before anyone else did and as a result Blues did better in the UK than in the US. Keith Richards was also responsible for putting together a film about Chuck Berry, he’s also played for free with acts like Jerry Lee Lewis & Scotty Moore
He has.
ignorance is bliss.
No one should listen to the hate coming from Keith Richard’s mouth.
Rap Sucks!
I’ve heard elders say that hip hop is not music. I agree that there are musical elements that hip hop lacks but its always been more of an art form an oral tradition of poems an storytelling (Griot) dating back to ancient Africa ..One mans noise is another mans music… Peace
Damn that was well said
the same tone def people his people only buy music lol. I catered a concert for the Stones they are a bunch of old womenizers and drug addicts who play guitar. there isnt much of a difference between them and any other homeless white male. called functioning addicts with supremacy issues let him pop shit it’s what the world is made of popping shit
I didn’t know burger king catered stones concerts. Gotta get me a job at bk now.
This is a great copy and paste job from the rolling stone article covering the same thing.
Bitch u want singing go to r&b…or get so e drake….and tell that drum shit to premo..petee rock…marley marl…havoc
Uhhh yeah…coz you don’t at all sound like the kind of retard he’s trying to make us all out to be. Way it go for defending great hip hop that’s not at all a reflection of what he’s saying
Well done to Ungrateful Ninja. couldn’t have said it better myself brother. Thats Keiths opinion. We still love Hiphop. i really dont care what an old guitarist has to say about the Art.
I mean you could say rock is just someone yelling over some guitars… But I have respect for all music genres so I won’t go there.
He right nobody want to get yell at
If this white old murdafucker think its easy to rap like tech nine or yell like arcade fire,then he is a complete joke,don’t know much about rock,but if you hear some rappers rap,you’d know its some real art shit going on…e.g the song “speedom” em,teck and kaliko were fucking great
Fuck tech nine And these weird ass Rappers from downsouth they aint shit
This morons said fuck tech n9ne? dont do it it will destroy your pussy damn O_O
This junkie is an addict And might have Been on coke during the interview… Nobody listen these junkies
Rap is music made by people with absolutely zero musical talent. Plain and simple. They can’t play any musical instruments, therefore it must not be considered real music, just noise. Unless of course you call rhyming bitch with ditch to be talent.
Under what Planet r u from? Ever heard of group such as the roots? Do u realize questlove of the said group is a multi – instrumentalist? Do u realise how many have degrees? Well, y am I not surprised at ur ignorance?
my respect for kieth richards just went to zero. thats exactly what older people said about rock music back in his hay day. thank god black people invent the music and white people like him only copy it.
dudes right, rap is trash right now….
Rite but this coming from ex drug addict go od somewhere and give Chuck berry his respect he deserve junkie
He’s given Chuck respect many times. Google them together and check out the video(s).
Agree
Talking against rap on Hip Hop DX bunch of Oxymorons
Word, his description is 100% on point for todays music but not an accurate depiction of the entire genre. This was the general sentiment back in the 80s when hip hop was fresh, brand new. That sentiment from outsiders is what sparked hip hop into the greatest genre of music we know, it inspired emcees to be lyrically and production wise on point. It lite a fire because as a culture it was backed up against a wall and created gems for years. Hip hop now has gotten too comfortable, spoiled and uninspired. Maybe more people outside the genre should trash it to motivate cats to be great again
I would agree with that assesment.
And we care about some old druggie’s opinion for what reason?
P.S. If a black dude was caught with 1/1,000,000th of the amount of drugs Keith Richards did in a night, he would be locked up and the key would be thrown the fxck away. #whitecrackheadsmatter
Grandpa Keith is lost again. Somebody help him cross the street to the old folks home again!
Keith right. You can’t always get what you want. But in this case he is right.
Go ask the poets from the 1900s and before about what genre most closely resembles poetry. You’ll only get one answer…hip-hop. No other genre touches the complexity and density of the rhyme structure while dropping tales with moral or entertainment value. That’s why we love it.
Biased opinion much? Personally i think if a lot of poets had to choose one it would be a lot of folk such as Bob Dylan and Townes Van Zant. But then again a lot of you rap guys just pidgeonhole yourselves into that one genre and probly have no clue who TVZ is. Classic songwriters like these focused more on not just the content but tying it all together without droping 4 bars and moving on to the next subject. Sure there is a lot of hip hop that has great content, but theres no artist that can tie a song together like someone like Dylan could. Plus, not only was Dylan a great songwriter, he completely changed music and is the sole performer to make it ok for folk artist to use electric. Keith is right.
Good comments about Dylan. . . . Yep. There’s definitely solid rap out there, shame of it is that a lot of it jus’ does not end up getting enough airplay. And dissing Keith for expressing his opinion ain’t making the bad rap any better, either [ referring to the more caustic comments here ]. If I were a producer —- and I am not —- I would say the following : ” Pay more attention to creating staggered rhythms, better syncopation, contrapunctal lines. . . . . make the rap more musical WITHOUT giving up the raw energy that gives it that catchy edge.” But yah, I’m jus a bassist. . .What do i know. . . .
Aight bruh, go ahead and show me where these guys use triple-syllable rhymes and the internal rhyme structure used by rappers. Storytelling? I could give you that…but you clearly have no understanding of the technical aspect of rap. You probably base your opinion on what you hear on the radio. Wake up! That stuff is put out there for you guys used to all the basic stuff and can’t tell a simile from a metaphor.
Nas is like dylan get a grip
Maybe you’re tone deaf because you were too busy sticking needles in your arm, dip shit? Nevertheless, all Rolling Stones have done for anyone is produce loose grannies and 1 note wonders over and over and over and over and over and over and get praised as one of the greatest bands in the world.
Just because people want to look at your turds don’t make them any less of a turd.
Its amazing how ” legendary” musicians can sound like they have no musical knowledge at times. In all these years you’ve never listened anything besides the radio? Every person I hear say something negative about any genre usually gets all that knowledge from the top 40 songs…its similar to people thinking cause they read the times or watched the news they are getting an unbiased view of all the facts…
dude go f**k your grey
Hair off lookinq for
Attention go do your own music and makr it witowt tone
Fuck this crackead wannabe black culture vulture. Rolling Stones is trash. Fuck these lame ass fake rebels.
F that junkie cunt
Shut up mudblood
Rock music got all of its inspiration from Blues. Music that was formulated by black people. Rap is modern day poetry. Keith can’t stay on beat.
Well he’s supposed to feel that way. Same as his parents probably thought about him and the stones and the Classic Rock era so I take no offense. It’s just a different world today and also each generation or era usually has that disconnect regarding (Music, clothes, love etc.) He could’ve done his research though…because these days artists incorporate so many rhythm samples and often perform with a Live backing band (Roots, Nas, Jay z Tidal concert etc) so we are not “Tone Def”….He’s still thinking that its 1985 and kids are back spinning on card board….please be updated and Informed before you comment Sir Keith.
“these days artists incorporate so many rhythm samples” yeah but hes probably one of those musical elitist that thinks its “cheating” if we sample music and not use actual instruments or that its “unoriginal” and “stealing” if we sample music and not create it from scratch with instruments. i wouldn’t be surprised if he thinks that rap it takes no talent to “talk fast” and rhyme words over a beat. so yeah, its definitely a generational thing where the older generation views the newer generation’s music as degenerate art.
I wonder if you would say that same thing about Run DMC and Jam Master Jay who somehow being toned def heard the record called them to do a collaboration and relaunched The Rolling Stones career literally.
Join the discussion with all i need