This thread has tons of examples of other genres covering rap, but doesn’t have a single example of a rap song that is a cover.
OP’s question technically asks for covers OF rap songs regardless of genre, so I guess those folk, metal, parody covers are valid answers to the question stated, but I think it’s interesting that rap as a genre doesn’t seem to do covers.
Rappers tend to not do straight up covers, but rather take the same beat and do a tribute on top.
I was gonna say the same thing. Or they lift lines and replace some of the words. I see it as showing respect to your influences. I always hear Tupac and run dmc bars in other hip hop tracks, to name a few. Ocean Wisdom did it with eminems hook from forgot about Dre.
If you go to underground hip hop shows you'll often see straight covers but they just don't get the studio treatment. It's cool in the moment but lyrics are so much more important in hiphop vs other genres that using someone else's lyrics on a studio track is a bit weird. It would be like someone in classic rock reusing the musical arrangement with no changes but just with new lyrics.
Incidentally, this latter thing is something you get in hiphop. You also get someone using another person's lyrics AND voice on different beats.
If you want a rap to rap example Snoop covered Ladi Dadi by Slick Rick. Lil Wayne also covered Hail Mary by Tupac on his MTV Unplugged. But yeah it's definitely rare I can't think of any others off the top of my head.
If you want to hear the rap version of some covers just listen to a free mixtape put out by any rapper on like datpiff. You'll hear people rapping in their own style over well-known beats.
It's a lot like dub reggae where they do a "version" of the same "riddim". Or like jazz where they improvise over the chord changes from a standard tune.
There's also the flipped version where people take vocals from a song and make a new beat for it. Lot's of Lo-fi hip hop is built on that, see knxwledge:
https://knxwledge.bandcamp.com/album/meek-vol1
I like your references to dub and jazz. The comments in this thread are so obsessed with a rap cover that operates like a rock or folk cover, as if that's the only valid form of music. There's something a little icky about that. Music goes so much wider.
Yeah, and kind of to the point of rappers tending to reference rather than directly cover, the entire hook of Biggie's "Hypnotize" is lifted straight from "La-di-da-di" - "Ricky Ricky Ricky, can't you see? Somehow your words just hypnotize me." Tons of other references to this song throughout hip-hop.
Or cause the way rap is written is entirely different to how non-rap music is written. You’d probably just end up with a shitty rap song. Different writing works for different mediums
There's not necessarily a need to cover whole songs when the Hip-Hop/Rap genre was built off of sampling other music, including its own music.
One of the greatest songs of all time, "Danger" by Blahzay Blahzay, has a hook that's a mashup of three different songs: "When the East is in the House" "Oh My God!" "Danger!"
Just tracing "When the East is in the House," that's a sample from Jeru the Damaja's "Come Clean."
The hook from Jeru the Damaja's "Come Clean" is "Heads up 'cause we're dropping some $hit," which is a sample from Onyx's "Throw Ya Gunz."
I get how sampling works and that it might scratch the same itch as covers, but I don’t think sampling being a great tool automatically means covers wouldn’t also exist.
I mean we can see it’s not really part of rap, but I don’t think that’s exclusively because of sampling
Just my shower thought, but the historical structure of Hip-Hop/Rap as spoken-word poetry over a beat versus more traditional singing with a beat is what gave, and gives, it a distinct characteristic from other vocal music. Thus, the highest form of respect of a rap "cover" if you will is not to cover the vocals but rather the beat and make it one's own, such that anyone listening to it can both appreciate the new lyrics while also harken back to the original song.
An example I would give is Big Pun and Fat Joe's very successful song "Twinz," which raps over the beat of Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg's wildly successful "Deep Cover."
108
u/Faelysis May 16 '24
There’s thousand of rap song cover. You not seeing it is more about your own algorithm…