Political Commentator Ben Shapiro Catches Heat for Saying Rap Isn’t Music

Shapiro was thoroughly ridiculed for his half-baked assessment.

View this video on YouTube

youtube.com

Not that it matters, but Ben Shapiro thinks that the biggest genre in the world isn't music.

On his latest episode of The Ben Shapiro Show, the political commentator had a conversation with Zuby. During their discussion, Shapiro tried to convince the rapper that hip-hop isn't music.

Ben Shapiro says rap music isn’t really music pic.twitter.com/4UZ4dnh0aR

— adam22 (@adam22) September 15, 2019

"In my view, and in the view of my music theorist father who went to music school, there are three elements to music. There is harmony, there is melody and there is rhythm," Shapiro said about 30 minutes into their conversation. "Rap only fulfills one of these, the rhythm section. There's not a lot of melody and there's not a lot of harmony. And thus, effectively, it is basically spoken rhythm. It's not actually a form of music. It's a form of rhythmic speaking. Thus, beyond the objectivity of me just not enjoying rap all that much, what I've said before is that rap is not music."

It's not the first time he's made the statement.

Fact: rap isn't music. And if you think it is, you're stupid.

Despite openly admitting that he knows little about the genre, Shapiro continued to speak about things he doesn't understand. This led him to rehash the same, age-old falsehoods about hip-hop resulting in comments that sound like a horrible Tipper Gore impersonation.

"From the outside, when I listen to hip-hop, I don't hear a bunch of family-oriented messages," Shapiro added. "In fact, I hear a lot of messages that are degrading to women, I hear messages that push violence, that are disparaging to the police. I hear messages that treat relationships between men and women as something disposable and glorify mistreatment of women."

"The art form overall, which not only has an impact on not just black young people but is disproportionately listened to by white young people," Shapiro said. "I don't particularly like a lot of the messages I hear."

Because the internet has nothing but time, Shapiro was thoroughly ridiculed for his half-baked assessment.

Ben Shapiro saying "rap music isn't really music" in the nerdiest white-guy voice imaginable is just begging to be sampled in a million rap songs.

— Steven Hyden (@Steven_Hyden) September 16, 2019

This fool @benshapiro: “…there are three elements to music. There is harmony, there is melody and there is rhythm…Rap only fulfills one of these, the rhythm section…it’s not music."

This is false. It has all 3. Just because you don’t like rap, doesn’t mean it isn’t music. https://t.co/Y4W991h022

— Ahmed Baba (@AhmedBaba_) September 16, 2019

This analysis of rap music by @benshapiro is beyond idiotic. My man @MrChuckD would destroy his thesis in under 60 seconds. Poor Ben should watch Ice T’s @FINALLEVEL documentary on rap music. https://t.co/uy45i9TBFE

— rolandsmartin (@rolandsmartin) September 16, 2019

While im on the subject @benshapiro there has never been a genre more unfluential to ever other genre of music than rap music. Pop radio is full of rap influenced songs right now , country music is now influenced by rap music . Every genre is trying to take pieces of rap now

— Jelly Roll (@JellyRoll615) September 15, 2019

I have NO idea who dude is.... https://t.co/lCLvf3B2Ny

— ICE T (@FINALLEVEL) September 16, 2019

I don’t care what Ben Shapiro says about anything most specifically rap music. https://t.co/ArPGNxAAfI

— Juice (@jerdinthegreat) September 16, 2019

Latest in Music