Zappa.com

Some of the material I've heard makes me think that Frank was rapper before rap music existed, at least in the main stream. At least, he provided some inspiration. Cases in point, the YCDTOSA version of Dumb All Over, or even as far back as the I'm the Slime poem..."Your mind is totally controlled. It has been stuffed into my mold, and you will do as you are told, until the rights to you are sold." What do you think? HAs any rap artist ever cited Frank as an influence?

Maybe this thread betray how little I know about rap...

Go further back to the original "Trouble Every Day"....but he's hardly the original rapper nonetheless.

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Nah, Well might have been one of them. Look into Pigmeat Markham, Dolemite, Blowfly,Gil Scott-Heron, Fatback Band.

Frank definitely was either on to rapping or inadvertently rapping, he even went as far as to call that song style "Speak Music".

I think that was what I had for supper last Saturday, at a BBQ restaurant.

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Stay with me flagrantly and we'll have ecstasy for all eternity.

yeah, dumb all over comes off as corney to me. his rapping is not good.

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Who's this dude with his hair straight back?
His new white socks, 'n his pants all black
His T-shirts rolled His watch is gold
A '55 Chevy that his brother just stoled

Oh dear no.

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You gotta give the people something good to read, on a Sunday

I agree neither chronologically nor musically.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHPikUPlRD8
Blondie - Rapture
Even Blondie was a Rapping 1981

The Slime lyric sound More Like Poetry
More Poerty please

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Arf you out of your fucking mind.

Rapping (also known as emceeing, MCing, spitting (bars), or just rhyming) is the rhythmic spoken delivery of rhymes, wordplay, and poetry. Rapping is a primary ingredient in hip hop music, but the phenomenon predates hip hop culture by centuries.

Sounds to me like FZ was definitely rapping on sveral songs according to its definition, and as FZ said it was "Speak Music".

Case closed, next question?

Why are Rappers not Credited as Poets then

It got to be common sense That people rapped before Scratch records.

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Arf you out of your fucking mind.

Aren't they?

old question. and it's as stupid as it ever was.

what's the point of asking it?

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"bit of nostalgia for the old folks."

Well, he did sometimes wish he wasn't white.

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Stay with me flagrantly and we'll have ecstasy for all eternity.

sometimes? I'd say once.

(he never repeated that line, in any of the subsequent versions of 'trouble every day.')

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"bit of nostalgia for the old folks."

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"bit of nostalgia for the old folks."

No real point in asking it. I could have just made it a comment instead, to the effect that I noticed how some of his songs remind me of rap in a way. I find it nifty, and I wonder how unique, unusual or influential that was in his time.

M.C. FZ


BBBBBOOOOOOYYYYYYYYYIIIIEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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BANNED and FAT

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but the lyrics say there's a whole lot of times he wishes he was black. so that would mean more than once

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Who's this dude with his hair straight back?
His new white socks, 'n his pants all black
His T-shirts rolled His watch is gold
A '55 Chevy that his brother just stoled

Good job Lumpy

Bob Marshall: I remember in an interview around the late Seventies, you brought up the concept of "sprechstimme", a German term.
Frank Zappa: A speech-song. That means, instead of singing all the pitches of the song, you half speak it, you half sing it. It's a technique that was attributed to Schoenberg who used it in a piece called "Pierrot Lunaire". And the way it was written was: all the pitches for the soprano to sing, the ones that she was supposed to half speak, had X's on the stems. But I don't think he invented it because this is a type of vocal styling that has been used in Blues. It's also been used in other types of ethnic music. You can find it in Bulgarian music where, instead of exactly singing the note, you imply the pitch of the note, but you're really talking it. It's in between.
Bob Marshall: You started doing your talking stuff around that time when you were talking about that concept?
Frank Zappa: The first album had "sprechstimme" on it.


Well there it is...

You can be a real grumpy bastard sometimes can't you. This guy has only just joined the forum this month, why are you being such a prick?

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The way I see it Barry, this should be a very dynamite show.

What about "Dina-Moe-Humm"

"Dina-Moe watched from the edge of her bed......"

That sounds like some basic rap to me.

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"Why do people say "Grow some balls"? Balls are weak and sensitive! If you really wanna get tough, grow a vagina! Those things take a pounding"! -- Betty White

Thanks for the support. In hindsight, I felt that my question was a bit naive-sounding so I didn't mind re-stating it when he posted that response.

And what about Nanook Rubs It?
It has interesting ingredients such as the back-up singers repeating the lead singer words and a few accelerated parts:

"Well right about that time, people
A fur trapper
Who was strictly from commercial (Strictly commercial)
Had the unmedicated audacity to jump up from behind my igaloo (Peek-a-boo Woo-ooo-ooo)
And he started in to whippin' on my fav'rite baby seal
With a lead-filled snow shoe
I said
With a lead (Lead)
Filled (Lead-Filled)
A lead-filled snow shoe (Snow Shoe)
He said: peek-a-boo (Peek-a-boo)
With a lead (Lead)
Filled (Lead-Filled)
With a lead-filled snow shoe (Snow Shoe)
He said: peek-a-boo (Peek-a-boo)", and so on...

Although in my wildest dreams I admit that 0.01% of Zappa's works may have been influenced by precursors of rap,
a chain reaction coming from one or two Zappa songs up to Public Enemy is a bit hard to believe.
A few spoken words on music does not make someone a rapper, it is a necessary condition but not sufficient IMO.