Music, or whatever, for the masses

A few months ago—not on-line, so I can't link to it—I wrote, "The next stage in music: Asian rappers. Within five years." Well, I was off by...about five years. In today's New York Times: Slim Shady, Watch It: Asian Rapper's Got It. (Their title, not mine.) His name is Jin, he's Chinese-American, and he's been on BET and an MTV tour. And he seems to be holding his own pretty darn well both...um, musically? Lyrically? Performance-ly?...against more established rappers, and against ethnic insults. ("You wanna say I'm Chinese/Sonny here's a reminder/Check your Timbs/They probably say made in China"—"Timbs" being Timberland shoes, which I gather have street cred.)



I, personally, know next to nothing about rap, or rap culture (whatever that is), and I don't see myself buying his album or anything; but I think it's pretty darn cool.



Note: I'm not dissing rap by being unsure that it's music; as I said, I know next to nothing about it, certainly not enough to diss it. But when I think "music," I think instruments and singing, not spoken-word performances. It clearly is a form of performance; as far as I can tell, it involves music; but it's not, in my opinion, music per se.