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Rap is more than `crap'

I'm writing in response to a letter printed in Monday's Daily ("Article provides intense review of rap," 2/5/96). "Rap is crap?" What a witty piece of biting criticism! In reply I would like to offer perhaps a more intellectual critique.

Mad props to writer Eugene Bowen for representin' hip-hop and making suckers recognize that rap music is here to stay ("Hip-hop you don't stop," 2/2/96).

His story was a thoughtful and concise review of rap in '95, and more importantly, it made a meaningful point: Hip-hop has, and will continue to expand and diversify, despite attacks from various groups of "thought police." As mentioned in the article, the political pressure levied against the music may have shut down a few of its outlets, but hip-hop remains as strong as ever. For instance, "Gangsta's Paradise" by Coolio is a hard-core (not pop-oriented) rap song, and yet it was the number one video of 1995 on the alternative-dominated MTV. Not bad for an art form that is a favorite target of the morally superior.

As for our opinionated letter-writer, I suggest that if you don't like rap, don't listen to it and don't read articles about it. But understand: Hip-hop is indeed a legitimate art form. To label an entire category of music as "crap" is astonishingly unenlightened.

Finally, I would like to commend the Daily for giving a fair amount of coverage to rap music, and I trust this will continue with the new group of editors.

BRIAN MADDEN

ENGINEERING JUNIOR