Mountain Surfing

Rap music has been around longer than we thought. In the arts everything is recycled (many times stolen and recycled). We have had bell bottoms make a return in fashion, the bringing back of muscle cars on the road, big haired metal bands making come backs in concert and Neo-soul music which is...new soul music. Of course many are aware that the Hip hop culture and its music started in the boogie down Bronx in the 70's but the style or monotonous melody delivery may have been grand fathered even further back. The likes of social movement groups such as the Last Poets who released a Billboard Charting album in the 1970's, rhythmic vocals precedes the combining of lyrics over DJ breaks by delivering a lyrical flow of poetry to the beat of ethnic drums and instrumentation. The style which resembles closely the current Def Jam Poetry series or other earlier African American poets is not far off the beat of rap. You can link traces of both to the African Griots oral tradition.

Years ago rap music was considered a fad to vanish like the cabbage patch kids. The genre of rap music has thoroughly spread throughout the entire world and not only reaches, but affects and relates to every culture. Many countries histories are connected and deeply rooted in some influence of music, and the gap may be bridged closer.

Music is studied and broken down. Many composers and musicians learn to write scores of music by dissecting, studying and analyzing music of other composers and musicians. Music theory is derived from the analysis of common practices of that music's time and genre. Typical elements that are analyzed in music is it's form, such as intros and cadences, harmonies, rhythm patterns, tempo changes tonality or atonality and melody which are all present in rapping. JackDazey's highly educated world renowned professor tells the class that Rap is not music because it does not contain a melody. Rap is certainly not musically dissonant as the likes of Pierre Schaeffer's Mosque Concrte, whose genius attempt at innovated music technology was difficult to notate on paper like traditional classical music, but it may resemble more the expressionistic era as that of music theorist Arnold Schoenberg. Schoenberg's Sprechstimme is singing in a restricted way to maintain a constant pitch unlike the ups and downs melodic contour most melodies would have when they are played or sung. An example of this would be in Schoenberg's Gurre-Lieder or later works by Pierrot Lunaire.

Rap can be notated the same as Schoenberg did for Sprechstimme. However, rap actually has inflection in its speech delivery. This is relative to some exotic scales in which a micro tonality exist like Burmese or Indonesian music. Today's rappers like 50 cent and Ja Rule have distinctive melodic flow. Groups like Bone Thugs and Harmony are actually harmonizing in their rap flow. Rappers like Nelly are practically borderline singing or sprechgesang-ing. Not to mention, the entire above named have been Grammy nominated.

It is always said "to know where you are going, you must know where you are from." Rap is today's urban music. Its techniques are deeply rooted for over 100 years in American music. History serves as a blueprint that has been forged for us to learn from. Does this mean that Germany is the birthplace of rap music? Not quite, though Schoenberg is Austrian he is a well known early American composer, but it puts an end to the debate for historians or ignorant professors on whether the fad of rap is indeed at all music. In a world in which music is a huge part of every one's life, many cultures have been influenced by and incorporate rap into their own native language and music. Billions of profitable dollars have been earned from rap, it is not only grandfathered in as a style of music to last, but worthy of and honorary degree in which the success of hip hop can now afford to buy.

Copyright 2008 Rubin Einstein reprint leaving author and original article intact

Rubin Einstein is an independent writer for music and entertainment industry news and events. He guest blogs at http://blog.jackdazey.com

Politico - Fox News announced that after 12 years, Alan Colmes will be leaving the top-rated "Hannity & Colmes" at the end of the year.

Madden 09 may be the best madden to date. It has tons of new features and great graphics. My favorite new feature is the "My skill". It has you take 4 test one for Offensive Running, Offensive Passing, Rush Defense, and Pass Defense. Each test test your skill in that area in a neon like field. It give you a rank for each skill called your "Madden IQ".

Then when you play a game it sets the difficulty level to how you did in the test. The best part is if in a game you did great running the ball but bad defending the pass your next game when you run the ball the difficulty will be turned up and next time you are defending the pass the difficulty will go down.

Another new feature is the "EA Rewind". This lets you "rewind" or replay a certain number of plays each game. This feature is more for the people who are new to the game. One thing I noticed while playing this game is they finally got rid of John Maddens annoying voice.=D. Sorry John but 19 years of commentary is enough. John is being replaced with Tom Hammond and Cris Collinsworth who are annoying also but what announcer isn't. Hell there still better then John. Another feature I like about this game is the "rivalry games".

Many maddens before this one have had rivalry games but the difference is that in this game all rivalry(and playoff in dynasty mode) are harder to play. So now Tom Brady can't exactly just plow his way threw the Jets he will have to use some skill. There are also some new Online features. You can now make a "league" which can hold up to 32 players, be password protected and so on.

In a league you can set up a season and even have playoff games against each other. The controls are great the highlight stick is back and better then ever. If there was anything I could change about this game it would be some kind of online fantasy draft. Overall it is a good game and I give it a 8.5 out of 10.

Please message me at razzjets94@aol.com for questions on the game or to request a review for a different game.

Reuters - Any efforts by the United States to be transparent about plans to deploy pieces of its missile defense shield in Eastern Europe would not entirely placate Russia, the country's foreign minister said on Sunday.