Gene Simmons, a co-foudner the rock group KISS, once again expressed his displeasure with rap music being included in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Appearing on the Legends N Leaders podcast, Simmons said that rap music has no place in the Rock Hall.
“The fact, for instance, that Iron Maiden is not in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, when they can sell out stadiums, and Grandmaster Flash is,” Simmons said. “Ice Cube and I had a back and forth. He’s a bright guy, and I respect what he’s done. It’s not my music. I don’t come from the ghetto. It doesn’t speak my language.”
”I said in print many times: hip-hop does not belong in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. Nor does opera, [and] symphony orchestras,” Simmons continued. “How come the New York Philharmonic doesn’t get the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction? ‘Cuz it’s called the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame.”
“I just wanna know when Led Zeppelin’s gonna be in the Hip-Hop Hall Of Fame. ‘Oh, you can’t do that.’ ‘Oh, really?’”
ICE CUBE SAYS HIP-HOP REPRESENTS THE ‘SPIRIT’ OF ROCK & ROLL
Simmons said that Ice Cube argued that rap music embodies “the spirit of Rock & Roll.”
”I respect Gene Simmons, but I think he’s wrong on this, because rock ’n’ roll is not an instrument. And it’s not singing. Rock ’n’ roll is a spirit,” Cube said to The New York Times in 2016. “N.W.A is probably more rock ’n’ roll than a lot of the people that he thinks belong there over hip-hop. We had the same spirit as punk rock, the same as the blues.”
SIMMONS SAYS RAP MUSIC IS MOSTLY VERBAL
Simmons also described rap music as being primarily a verbal art form.
“Music has labels because it describes an approach. By and large, rap and hip-hop is a spoken-word art. You put beats in back of it, and somebody comes up with a musical phrase, but it’s verbal,” said Simmons.“There are some melodies, but by and large it’s a verbal thing—it’s rhyming and all that. And I know [rapper] Eminem can [rap quickly]. I wish him more success. But I really don’t give a f**k. It just doesn’t speak to me. With the genius of being able to put words and music and arrange it, it’s much more complex.”
In a 2016 interview with Rolling Stone, Simmons said he was “looking forward to the death of rap.”
“I’m looking forward to music coming back to lyrics and melody, instead of just talking. A song, as far as I’m concerned, is by definition lyric and melody … or just melody,” he said at the time. “”Rap will die. Next year, 10 years from now, at some point, and then something else will come along. And all that is good and healthy.”
When N.W.A was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Ice Cube and M.C. Ren called out Simmons in their acceptance speeches.
“I want to say to Mr. Gene Simmons, hip-hop is here forever,” M.C. Ren said. “Get used to it!”