Gene Simmons criticized the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame for inducting rap artists.
In a recent episode of the Legends N Leaders podcast, the 75-year-old KISS bassist had some choice words about hip-hop and its place in 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 at the 37-minute, 50-second mark in the video linked here. “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.”
He continued, “I said in print many times: hip-hop does not belong in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, nor does opera, [and] symphony orchestras. 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.”
Simmons recalls that Ice Cube rebutted that the award is for acts whose music is in “the spirit of rock.”
“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?’”
Simmons went on to characterize rap as primarily verbal.
“Music has labels because it describes an approach. By and large, rap, 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,” he explained. “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. I really don’t give a fuck. 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.”
The aging rock star’s take on hip-hop is hardly new. He made similar comments in a 2016 interview with Rolling Stone, saying 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 asked if he likes the genre at all, he answered, “I don’t have the cultural background to appreciate being a gangster. Of course that’s not what it’s all about, but that’s where it comes from. That’s the heart and soul of it. It came from the streets.”
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