Ben Westhoff: evaluation

Transcript context

…In your account, why hasn’t it exhausted itself? If it has relatively few dimensions of musical talent — well maintaining the beat, choosing the music to go behind what you’re rapping — why is it still so fresh and vital? Well, there’s a lot more to it, too. There’s a lot of live music on hip-hop albums, for example, and it certainly is a complex art form. I think the simplicity, though, is part of its appeal because anyone can be a rapper, for example. Rapping is such a thing anyone can pick up and try, so there’s not a high barrier of entry. People with really interesting things to say can just start doing it and get their music out there. So it’s almost like a garage inventor phenomenon. You can do it without needing approval from too many other people, very few veto points. You’ll get a lot of creativity, so it just mobilizes more creativity. Would you accept that hypothesis?…

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