I don't especially like hip hop - mostly because the content is usually unappealing (and content matters to me more than to most).
I like hip-hop musically, but dislike the content, and I get the sense that lots of people have this problem. I get around this by searching for hip-hop with incomprehensible lyrics or ideology I like. There is good rationalist hip-hop out there. Try Baba Brinkman, sample here. I'm not trying to convince anyone to like hip-hop, I'm just saying it's out there.
Try Baba Brinkman, sample here.
I like it. The background music track sucks me in and the content more than makes up for the slightly-not-fitting words. ;)
Edit: Am I correct in assuming that his example is a little less distinctly hip-hop than, say, Unnamed's examples. I'm no judge of hip-hop it just felt like Brinkman was putting the emphasis on the key points that fit the rhyme and rhythm of the music.
This guy is more making a statement "I'm a dominant male. Look how I can put the emphasis on the parts that don't really fit in context or flow part...
**Note: I'm not a poet. I hardly ever write poetry, and when I do, it's usually because I've stayed up all night. However, this seemed like a very appropriate poem for Less Wrong. Not sure if it's appropriate as a top-level post. Someone please tell me if not.**
Imagine
The first man
Who held a stick in rough hands
And drew lines on a cold stone wall
Imagine when the others looked
When they said, I see the antelope
I see it.
Later on their children's children
Would build temples, and sing songs
To their many-faced gods.
Stone idols, empty staring eyes
Offerings laid on a cold stone altar
And left to rot.
Yet later still there would be steamships
And trains, and numbers to measure the stars
Small suns ignited in the desert
One man's first step on an airless plain
Now we look backwards
At the ones who came before us
Who lived, and swiftly died.
The first man's flesh is in all of us now
And for his and his children's sake
We imagine a world with no more death
And we see ourselves reflected
In the silicon eyes
Of our final creation