Pynchon & rap

[jbor]

> What the O'Jays and Harold Melvin & the
> Blue Notes (I'd add Curtis Mayfield and many others) --  known as
> singers because they sing, as opposed to rappers who rap, i.e. talk
> -- have to do with rap music I'd like to hear

Perhaps you should listen to the songs again then. There's quite a bit of
"rap, i.e. talk" going on in and around the lyrical and musical structures
of the Blue Notes, Lou Rawls, The O'Jays etc, just as most, if not all,
contemporary rap artists also "sing" and compose "song". (eg. Outkast's
*Stankonia*)

You admit that they "pass along influences" and then say they're "vastly
different" all in the one breath!

I'm not sure now whether the point you are trying to make is that rap is an
inferior musical style, that Pynchon believes rap is inferior (on the basis
that he doesn't "directly" announce that it isn't inferior), or that you
don't like rap music. I suspect that you actually believe that the latter
proposition confirms the first two.

best