Talib Kweli has responded to statements Gene Simmons made in Rolling Stone that were published Thursday (March 17) in which the Kiss singer said he is “looking forward to the death of Rap.”
“Would it be unfair of me to say I’m looking forward to the death @genesimmons or nah? Chuck Berry shits on Kiss,” Talib Kweli wrote on Twitter yesterday (March 18).
Prior to the Brooklyn, New York rapper’s comment, Simmons responded to the overall backlash he was receiving for his Rolling Stone comments, which included him bashing several other genres of music, including Rock and Roll.
“Apparently pointing out that everything is cyclical – even music – is “controversial”. People are very easily offended,” Simmons wrote on Twitter.
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Talib Kweli didn’t buy Simmons’ response.
“Pointing out everything is ‘cyclical’ is different than ‘looking forward’ to things dying. Do better Gene,” Kweli wrote on Twitter.
Kweli then posted lyrics from “Hip Hop Lives,”the title track from KRS-One & Marley Marl’s 2007 album: “Hip means to know / It’s a form of intelligence / To be hip is to be up-date and relevant / Hop is a form of movement / You can’t just observe a hop / You got to hop up and do it / Hip and hop is more than music / Hip is the knowledge, hop is the movement / Hip and hop is intelligent movement.”
(The original post in this thread was published March 17, 2016. It is as follows.)
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Gene Simmons, who has long been critical of Rap, has again dissed the genre.
“I am looking forward to the death of Rap,” the Kiss singer says during an interview with Rolling Stone. “I’m looking forward to music coming back to lyrics and melody, instead of just talking. A song, as far as I’m concerned, is by definition lyric and melody … or just melody.”
In 2014, Simmons complained about the induction of Rap acts into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
“You’ve got Grandmaster Flash in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?” the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member said at the time of 2007 inductees Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five. “Run-DMC in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? You’re killing me. That doesn’t mean those aren’t good artists. But they don’t play guitar. They sample and they talk. Not even sing.”
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In the new interview with Rolling Stone, Simmons also predicts the end of Rap.
“Rap will die,” he says. “Next year, 10 years from now, at some point, and then something else will come along. And all that is good and healthy.
“I don’t have the cultural background to appreciate being a gangster,” Simmons adds elsewhere in the interview. “Of course that’s not what it’s all about, but that’s where it comes from. That’s the heart and soul of it. It came from the streets.”
