This youtube video is a selection from "Late Night with Jimmy Fallon" where Justin Timberlake, Jimmy Fallon, and The Roots take us through the evolution of rap. The preform a medley of rap songs beginning with The Sugarhill Gang all the way to Jay-Z.
Things to think about: What audience does this video appeal to? What audience do the commenters think it appeals too? What implications does this have for the society's view of rap? How is race involved in what the commenters feel? What type of people are the commenters? What disagreements and arguments are seen in the comments? Does mirroring the image on youtube a valid and legitimate way to avoid copyright?
Things to think about: What audience does this video appeal to? What audience do the commenters think it appeals too? What implications does this have for the society's view of rap? How is race involved in what the commenters feel? What type of people are the commenters? What disagreements and arguments are seen in the comments? Does mirroring the image on youtube a valid and legitimate way to avoid copyright?
16 comments:
First off, I LOVED IT! I knew JT was talented. I did not know Jimmy could sing that well. The way each song led into the next was perfect. Justin's impression of Snoop Dogg was great. This was of course aimed toward younger people. I did remember a couple of the older songs.
A large portion of the comments I read were very positive. They loved it also. In the positive comments, I could not tell any difference. They were all just people that liked the performance.
I did see a couple that were negative. Of those few, I did see a mention of race. Which does make me wonder is Rap only for the black community? By the very few comments I saw, those few, in my opinion do think that Rap is only for the black community. Which would bring up the question. Is Country music only for white people? Darrius Rutger is doing pretty darn well in country music right now. I saw one post that said, Rap use to have a message, and now it's just about the money. That's the way things go. If someone can make a buck off something, they are going to do it. It is the way things evolve. Supply and demand.
Well, in my opinion the video can appeal to anyone. I don't even really like rap much but I definitely enjoyed this video. Definitely good entertainment and the transitions were solid. I liked the idea behind it and in my opinion it definitely showed the --digression? of rap.
The commenters didn't really seem to be a specific audience, just a bunch of people who for the most part enjoyed the video. There were some comments on how they included too many white rappers, inferring that rap is more for black people. I personally think those generalizations are dumb but hey. I'm kind of neutral.
This was so amazing! Loved it. I was pretty surprised with Jimmy Fallon's performance, I expected him to start laughing in the middle of the performance since I can't recall an SNL skit where he kept a straight face throughout the whole thing.
Someone had said the first rap song they did wasn't the first rap song. I think the purpose of this remix wasn't to go through every single rap song in the order it was created in, but to show the evolution of rap through a certain set of songs. Every song they used represented a group of songs from that generational era, so it didn't matter if the first song was the first rap song ever created.
And in response to what Rick was saying on whether Rap is only for the black community, I thought it was very important that JT and Jimmy put artists like Eminem in their remix to show how much rap has really expanded from a specific community to include a wide group of people.
Very solid video, a great choice of songs and smooth transitions really worked well. I don't think there are many issues of race with this video, it seems very positive and open minded in that sense. There were quite a few people who either had a problem with the song selection or how they think rap is heading in a bad direction. The idea that mirroring the video would allow it to avoid copyrights is ridiculous, I would think that if NBC cared about this being up on youtube, that they would be able to take it down without a problem.
I thought this video was extremely entertaining. I really enjoyed watching it. The way Justin Timberlake and Jimmy Fallon made it seem like it was completely impromptu when clearly it had to have been well rehearsed was great. In reading all the comments, it seemed like the majority of people loved it and had no problems with it. I don't think that the issue of race should even be involved in this. I would not have even thought of it except from reading the few comments about it. My appreciation of Justin Timberlake's talent has grown even more after watching this and his performance on SNL.
From Rick "First off, I LOVED IT! I knew JT was talented. I did not know Jimmy could sing that well. The way each song led into the next was perfect. Justin's impression of Snoop Dogg was great." My thoughts exactly! I was really impressed. Like Megan, I am not a -huge- rap fan and didn't seem very interested in the title of the video, but it was really well put together; Justin and Jimmy did a fabulous job. Because of that, I think this could appeal to any audience. I know I really enjoyed it, and my 50 year old, jazz loving dad (who was listening in) also love it. I believe it is more of a history lesson and about the evolution of rap more so than about the music itself, which makes it more appealing to a variety of people. Although, considering how old some of the music is, younger kids might not find it as interesting, since they probably don't know most of the music when it came out. A lot of people mention that it is "white-centric". Although, there are many people who point out that basically everyone besides eminem and the beastie boys (both who deserve it) is black. In the beginning people do disagree about what song is by who; another major disagreement was if it was "white-centric" or not. I also found it interesting that a bunch of people commented on how it shows that rap is getting worse over time.
How have I never seen this video before? It rules. I'm not a huge rap fan at all, but I really like this video. It really does go through the evolution of rap. I would agree definitely that a lot of rap is getting worse as time goes on, it is changing, and I'm not a fan of the direction most rappers are headed. I think this video can appeal to all crowds because it goes through all periods of rap and even if you weren't a fan of the music it everyone knew who people like snoop dogg were. A lot of young people would mostlikely be the audience though because it has a lot of rap from current and not as many adults know of the rap from today--which means i think a lot of the commenters are probably young people too.
"Fat white people love the hip hops." <---interesting, whatever that comment means.
"no one in the audience was black. how ironic" --this is suggesting that it is geared towards white people.
I love this more and more every time I watch it!!! They're just having an absolute blast up there, and so is the audience, and this is what music is really about. Or at least it use to be; now there's the whole issue of money thrown in there that I think Rick mentioned. But I still think all of the positive reviews and the good comments on here come from the fact that Justin and Jimmy were using the music for the way it was originally intended- enjoyment and good entertainment. That being said, I think this video can appeal to anyone who enjoys music. Just as Emily said, her "jazz-loving dad" enjoyed it too; which is great, because it would seem he has an appreciation for music in general. That's why I really think this was done. It's unfortunate that race has to be an issue with this, but it's always something.
Actually, I do not know what's going on while I was watching this video. Rap, for Americans, is a very popular musical style. But fro Chinese, rap only occupies a little part of Chinese music. I am not familiar with this part. And I do not like it.
As a "foreigner", I think this video is kind funny. Jimmy Fallon, who is in a suit and looks like very formal, acts as a popstar. I think it is funny. But these two guys coordinate very well that I love this new "song". And almost every comment is positive. People love this kind of remix.
I loved this video!! It's really amazing. Jimmy Fallon and Justin Timberlake did a great job mixing all those "old-Rap" and "new-Rap" songs, and putting them all together. Even if I didn't know couple of first songs in the video, I enjoyed it so much.
Most of the comments on this video were positive, and almost everybody liked it. Some of the negative comments were talking if Rap music is just for black community and how most of the audience was white population. I personaly dissagree because I am a fan of Rap music, and why would it have anything to do with races. Today, you listen to kind of music that you enjoy listening, and there's no rules. Other comment was about first song from this video not being a first Rap song. I don't think that was the point of this video, the last song wasn't the newest Rap song either. Its great that they tried to make some kind of hierarchical order, and they really did a great job.
I'm pretty sure that I follow the crowd when I say that I loved this video! I watched it over and over again. I might be a little biased since I was one of those teenage girls who grew up wanting to marry Justin Timberlake. But nevertheless, this clip was entertaining. All the commenters seem to think so as well.
The documentary Scratch said that "hip-hop" and "rap" are two different genres and I agree. I acknowledge the idea that "rap" is heading steadily downhill. The songs are starting to sound the same and the content isn't changing but I don't necessaily believe that "hip-hop" is declining. The title, therefore, comes into play. Excluding some of the clips that these two use, I would say that they are focusing on the "History of Hip Hop"
Group 2 also asked whether "mirroring an image onto Youtube is a valid and legitimate way to avoid copyright" and I would say that it is. SceneRequest isn't making any kind of profit from posting this clip on Youtube; it's merely for entertainment purposes. Copyright shouldn't be an issue.
I really enjoyed the video. Great idea and very humorous. Shows how far rap has come.
I do feel like maybe they left out a few key artists and songs. I realize it is a very difficult task to capture "The History of Rap"into such a small category, but it seemed like they went through the older and most prominent artists very quickly. I like how they hit both the east coast and west coast. But they did not include any prominent southern "rappers". Maybe the video should have been titled the "History of Hip Hop", instead of rap.
I, like most others, enjoyed this remix video. I believe that this video has mass appeal and had no intended audience. The response of the YouTube viewers mirrored that of the audience in the video, which was a positive one. This clip seems to be viewed as one that was made solely for entertainment purposes. However, one could also view this clip as a social commentary on the genre of rap. Many view rap as a genre that is declining in quality. This more modern songs had a very different sound than the ones towards the beginning. And because of that some people can view this history of rap as a devolution of rap.
This video reminds me a lot of the evolution of dance, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMH0bHeiRNg, in that they both use remix to progress through the generations of either rap or dance. The video was very entertaining and showed how rap truly has changed. I also like how dd33 said "I do feel like maybe they left out a few key artists and songs." I think there were a few more key influential songs that could have been played to make it a more complete history.
The comments were pretty much all about how the viewers enjoyed the video. There were also a few stray comments asking what the titles of some of the songs were. Overall I agree with the comments that this was a great entertaining video.
What I really appreciated throughout the viewers comments is how many of them would suggest their favorite part of the video, which would pertain to a certain song they liked. Instead of the usual "stealing ideas" bashing we normally see, it was a nice change to hear people that enjoyed the remix art behind it. I thought this was an amazing video also, partially because it reminded me of seeing JT live :)
I also loved this video. Some people claimed that some of the songs played weren't rap and that soulja boy sucks, which both may be true, but i still found this completely entertaining and well written out. And i agree with briewillits when it comes to people enjoying the remix. I just wanna hear someone who didn't like it and if they would say things similar to the opposers of last weeks blog. Oh and sorry for posting so late =)
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