:rofl: You're as funny as HHBH!!

All that says to me is that it has lost touch with its origins. In that sense, rap too is dead. And with all the glorification of violence, pimping, pushing, killing and prison life it has preached to young black men, maybe that's a good thing.

Then rap better get back to that because I see it as responsible for a whole lost generation of blacks. Whites too but not as severely.

I would really love for you to elaborate on what was funny about that post. Seriously, please enlighten me.

I think the obvious point being missed here is race. Both punk and heavy metal are subgenres that evolved from white youths. In the past, mosh pits could be hostile environments for someone with the wrong pigmentation.

Rap evolved from black youths who felt shut out from white society, and the music continues to be the chosen vehicle of expression for non white immigrants in many western nations. Take the rise of Grime music in London.

I love both genres, that being said, they both suck musically, and have done their fair share of damage to the decline of music in western society.

Punk rock is generally simplistic and easy to play rock music consisting of eighth and sixteenth note drives. When Green Day & the Offspring went mainstream it lowered the talent bar for what is acceptable for mainstream rock. They spawned a generation of **** bands, that can not hold a candle to the Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac, The Rolling Stones, the Eagles ect.

Rap music is based on sampling beats, which severely restricts your artistic creativity. Sure there are creative geniuses out there like Dr. Dre, but for far too long the music been hijacked by talentless douchebags who rely on image and worn out gangster lingo to sell their records.

Would anyone care to argue that Lil Wayne can hold a candle to Curtis Mayfield?

I disagree. Unless you're referring to the skinheads but I saw them beating up whites far more than I saw them beating up anyone else. Punk is very anti-racist. Can't say about metal for certain but the majority of metalheads are not racially motivated. I have friends that are punks and friends that are metalheads and I would say they are more critical of each other than either faction is towards blacks. Metal is more ambivalent towards race but punk is outwardly anti-racist. The very first hardcore band was black.

There are huge numbers of white kids into rap and hip-hop.

Green Day couldn't hold a candle to a real punk band. The other bands you mention also did their share of lowering the bar. None of them were exactly Mozart, Stravinsky, Miles or Bird. Every after-school band I played in in high school did "Train Kept A-Rollin'" a la Aerosmith (who ripped off the Yarbirds version) but none of us ever did it like Tiny Bradshaw and couldn't if we had wanted to. It was far too complex. It's incredible how much you have to know about your instrument to play jazz and (real) R&B. Until I took up double bass, I had no idea. The more you learn, the more you realize there is to know. It seems like there's no end in sight.

I wish rap would get back to the jazz and beat poetry but it is not going to happen.

Curtis Mayfield was a genius. For that matter, so was Percy Mayfield--give him a listen some time.

Panic wasn't black.

That you actually think I was putting down working people. I'm talking about people who conform just to conform. Who never question anything and when they do it's the wrong questions. Who watch Idol religiously and can't wait to see the winner when he or she goes on tour. Who can't listen to ANYTHING unconventional because they can't process anything different. They don't want anything different.

People who have few if any books in their houses and who use the internet for nothing but porn and social networking. Who believe there's a god who gives a f-uck about them, who proclaim themselves Catholic or Protestant but who don't have a clue what's in the bible except for what their clergyman tells them.

Or those people who don't care about anything except themselves, who want life to be a big f-ucking party. As long as they have their party time they don't give s-hit what's going on in the world.

People who stare at their TV screens for hours when they could be doing ANYTHING ELSE.

It doesn't matter what class they occupy or what their education level is. They are the everyday people who don't want any real change. They are the pathetic, self-pitying whiners who cry, "We're always helping people in other countries, when's someone gonna help me???"

They like rap because it's something they can do without being bothered to learn an instrument.

They want routine, they want to be told what to do, what to believe, what to eat, how to dress, what to drive. It's easier than figuring it out for themselves.

If you or you're family fall into that, well, then I guess it was directed at you. But not because you work. I work too.

It was Bad Brains. Get the documentary "American Hardcore" and all the hardcore bands they interview--all the biggies--say it was Bad Brains.

I've honestly never seen it. Does Black Flag say that even though they formed before Bad Brains?

Well they were highly influential, but then they also site the Canadian band, DOA as well as being influential too. I heard they had reputation as being (one of the) best Punk band during that era. The Bad Brains were a Jazz fusion band before they were Punk and were a Reggae band when they stopped. The point is they were musician - myth-busting that Punk was only music for those who don't know how to play they instruments.