Pretty fly for a 'white' guy!

(i like that song)

haha

Eh, could Tennessee Ernie Ford's "16 Tons" be considered "old rap"?

I find modern music genres even more confusing than games' genres - I'm a simple guy, I can understand Classic, or Rock, but "mild core techno pop glamour ska" is something a way outside of my comprehension. Simple, 16 colours pallete. 

As for old working songs, aren't they, actually, more tied to military marches and songs? They have rhythm (Ok, marches are for pacing) at least.

Actually, "16 tons" was sung, not chanted, and IIRC, he had a full band behind him.

When I started this quiz, I was wondering if anyone would bring up "Hot Rod Lincoln" from the mid 1950s, and Gregorian Chant from the 11th and 12th centuries.

I think Illuana did me one better when he mentioned the "evolution of quick speak and work songs sung by slaves" but I have to wonder if perhaps those work songs were really chants (I could not find any reference to them in Wikipedia, but then, perhaps my search algorithms were lacking).

A musician friend of mine in our local Orchestra defined it as Rhyme spoken to a rhythmic accompaniment.

Ehm... Why band is a problem? We need someone performing solo?

And what is "chanting" in this context? same 16 tonnes, Johnny Cash style? Inkspot's Maybe (parts of)?

Not sure about that, but Red's Until We have faces from iTunes had some vocal part in it, similar to one of Halo's tracks (yeah-yeah, my jury-rigged musical education, even if I was singing in our military chorus ).

I definitely lack any knowledge on the subject to discuss it. All I know, I can't listen to modern incarnations, even on languages I don't know.

Tennessee Ernie Ford's repertoire was classified as "Country" music, which is what I should have said earlier.

None of these are chants. Chants are spoken (not restricted to a musical score). While Johnny Cash did change from musical voice to spoken voice in parts of his songs ("My name is Sue" as one example), it was done for emphasis and did not change the song from the "Country" genre to Rap. I don't remember the Inkspots very well, and don't remember any pieces where they didn't simply sing their pieces. (Oh, oh. I just looked up "The Ink Spots" in Wikipedia. The Ink Spots I was thinking of was the original one, from the 1930s and 1940s. Wikipedia continues to say "Since the Ink Spots disbanded in 1954, there have been well over 100 vocal groups calling themselves "the Ink Spots" without any right to the name".)  However, Rap is not restricted to a single speaker, nor is vocal accompaniment excluded from Rap.

Of course, any number can cross genres. And if you look at the evolution of Jazz over the last century and a half, you can see the evolution of Jazz, with the creation of new types of Jazz growing out of the older, branching on and on. Examples are the Scat style of Ella Fitzgerald and the orchestrated style of George Gershwin ("American in Paris", and "Rhapsody in Blue"). One of the elementary characteristics of Jazz is to evolve through experimentation. Rap is considered by some to be one of the more current evolutions of Jazz.

I don't know if there is any problem with a band as a backup, but my musician friend's definition does say any accompaniment should be rhythmic. Again, the characteristics of Jazz comes in, allowing latitude in experimentation, so a full band or musical voice accompaniment would not be disallowed.

Drat. another double post.

So chant and country doesn't mix?

Than what defines rap and where is the border between rap and any close genre, if such exists? If memory serves, Linkin Park had "duet" (Numb?) with some rapper, was that version of a song "rap" or only rapper's part was?

Okay, Armstrong, Kiss to build a dream on?

This is going to smear my jazz-loving friend to pieces, because he can't stand rap.