Heartfelt Rap Music

[Donnadogsoth]

Does this exist? A rap music that evokes tears, wistfulness, joy, romantic love, beauty, the uplift of emotion?

Rap, to my experience, connotes belligerence, callousness, "toughness," power, greed.

Go ahead and blow away my preconceptions.

Recommendations are appreciated.

[Algeh]

I haven't listened to rap music in decades (I pretty much just listen to a little bubble of folk music of now that I've "graduated" from listening to pop radio by no longer riding a school bus), but I seem to remember Arrested Development having a lot of songs about social issues back in the 90s, and various other rap groups having songs like that too (I'm lucky I remember even one group name by now).

I also know that specifically Christian rap is/was a thing, albeit a thing I know nothing about at all. I would assume that some of it would be pretty joyous based on my sense of what themes are common in a lot of non-rap Christian music. You might look into that specifically if it matches your interests and see if my assumption is accurate or not.

[JoshL]

There is tons of it, of course. The first things that come to mind are Spose (Nobody, Knocking on Wood), "who's gonna take the weight" by Gang Starr, a fair amount of Run DMC (Hard Times was an anthem for me for a while) and a surprising amount of Tupac. Stuff like Arrested Development or Us3 might be a good place to start too.

Blackalicious' Deception is a great song, but more against the attitudes you describe than being uplifing.

And if you want to go straight up nerdcore, mc chris' "Never Give Up" is what you'd expect from a Galaxy Quest reference.

[Knaight]

There's a great deal of it. Lupe Fiasco, Brother Ali, Prozak, The Crest, so on and so forth. There's even explicit jargon for it (e.g. positive tip).

With that said - you contrast heartfelt with belligerent, and that's ridiculous. Anger can be heartfelt, and hostility towards the subjects of anger can get belligerent. There's a lot of rap that fits in that category. The Coup produces almost entirely heartfelt work; it's still often angry.

[S_A_M I AM]

Based on how you're talking, you're after something of a limited range of what constitutes "Heartfelt" music but yes, and there's a heck of lot of it.

Stay Human by Michael Franti. This is probably a good entry point and it's one of the only coherent rap concept albums I've been exposed to so I'd recomend the whole thing.


Weightless Wings I'm recommending because it's probably much closer to what you're thinking of as "Traditional" rap given that it's a brag rap. But with a delivery and framing you might find more palatable. (Also a couple more songs on that album that you might get something out of.)

There were a couple of very popular and memeticly sad songs from the last couple of years that would demonstrate that the kind of tone you respect is actually fairly mainstream. This is my guess at the best of them. (I'm Not Racist is pandering, unhelpful garbage though.)

And everybody else in the thread can probably give you a dozen more examples.

[Donnadogsoth]

There's a great deal of it. Lupe Fiasco, Brother Ali, Prozak, The Crest, so on and so forth. There's even explicit jargon for it (e.g. positive tip).

With that said - you contrast heartfelt with belligerent, and that's ridiculous. Anger can be heartfelt, and hostility towards the subjects of anger can get belligerent. There's a lot of rap that fits in that category. The Coup produces almost entirely heartfelt work; it's still often angry.

Yes, I suppose; hopefully one can understand what I meant by my post proper.

[Donnadogsoth]

Based on how you're talking, you're after something of a limited range of what constitutes "Heartfelt" music but yes, and there's a heck of lot of it.

Stay Human by Michael Franti. This is probably a good entry point and it's one of the only coherent rap concept albums I've been exposed to so I'd recomend the whole thing.


Weightless Wings I'm recommending because it's probably much closer to what you're thinking of as "Traditional" rap given that it's a brag rap. But with a delivery and framing you might find more palatable. (Also a couple more songs on that album that you might get something out of.)

There were a couple of very popular and memeticly sad songs from the last couple of years that would demonstrate that the kind of tone you respect is actually fairly mainstream. This is my guess at the best of them. (I'm Not Racist is pandering, unhelpful garbage though.)

And everybody else in the thread can probably give you a dozen more examples.

The Joyner Lucas song was worthwhile, thank you.

[S_A_M I AM]

Yes, I suppose; hopefully one can understand what I meant by my post proper.

To come off as a little dismissive and confrontational? (Mostly a joke. Promise.)

[Donnadogsoth]

To come off as a little dismissive and confrontational? (Mostly a joke. Promise.)

Kind of like a lot of rap music?

[fingers waving in face, knocks off your baseball cap]