“Rap Genius Co-Founder Mahbod Moghadam tells me “Google wants to index all of text. But what’s more interesting is to try to explain all of text, anything that lends itself to line-by-line analysis.” While a lofty ambition, the bootstrapped startup site is off to a good start, receiving several million unique visitors a month.” – Josh Constine
via
Rap Genius Plans to Explain The Meaning Of Rock, Poetry and The Bible | TechCrunch.
This is just a quick post but I couldn’t resist commenting on this. The great thing about Quora is that there’s a conversation going about any topic you can think of. People share information and communicate in addition to helping people understand certain subjects. I will become very wary of an Internet that tries take that one step further and explain everything to me. Critical reading is part of the SAT for a reason – its a critical life skill.
I think Rap Genius is a cool idea. I think some rap lyrics are indecipherable. Unfortunately, I think an online repository of explanations about any and all texts is a mistake. The article mocks annoying ad-based lyrics sites; while they’re not the best sites, if you’re looking up lyrics to sing along they work just fine. My favorite site, LetsSingIt.com does rely on unreliable fans to put up the lyrics but that has lead to a strong community of music fans sharing their idea of the lyrics and rating and discussing music together.
Maybe my fears are too late – the Internet is an all-access 411 to any topic you can bring to mind. I guess I don’t want sites like Rap Genius to think for people too. Explanations (most likely from a few dedicated people willing to update the RG Wiki, like on the Wikipedia itself) are a far cry from a simple exchange of facts.
If you read Harold Bloom’s critical essays on Shakespeare, that is typically thought of as enhancing your own thoughts on the plays… but rap genius is considered as “doing the thinking for you”?
Is it because Shakespeare is old and rap is new? Or because Shakespeare is white and a lot of rappers are black?
Rap Genius is a critical conversation about rap – it doesn’t do the thinking for you, it proviides the context for critical thought (also, anyone can become a member of the community!)
I actually do think that sites and texts like CliffNotes are allowing students to get away with not doing the critical thinking themselves. Harold Bloom’s essays on the other hand are critical commentary from various scholars on what they think about the plays. You have to understand the essays themselves before you get anything out of them! While I understand your point, Bloom and RapGenius are not exactly the same thing.
What makes me the most wary of RapGenius is the way the site both wants to replace bad lyrics Websites and also wants to branch into other subjects besides just rap. People intentionally search for Sparknotes for “critical” commentary on books. I don’t think a simple search for lyrics should give a casual web browser a full length interpretation of the song. I think they should remain separate. As for getting into other subjects, I think the same principle applies. A search for an analysis is not the same as a search for the text. I like that they’re not coupled – but then again, I may be in the minority.
My main point is that I’m not against RapGenius itself. I’m against the future intent in the article I read. Rap lyrics can be confusing and I’m glad people are having a conversation about what it all means. I guess I want to look up lyrics and an explanation separately.
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Brilliant article, i’ve just posted this to FB. The current hip hop artists just don’t kick it with as much feeling as old school Hip Hop guys.