What music genre was the "rap" of the 70s before rap was even a thing?

[Anonymous]

Sorry for the weirdly worded question but I was wondering...

What were the youth of the 70s or 80s listening to before rap became a thing? What was cool to listen to back then?

[FunkyMonkee]

Rap didn't exist until the end of the disco era.

In the `70's, we were still doing psych but it was quickly becoming prog. A number of people discovered that they couldn't perform psych live so, a LOT of people went acoustic, which got us back into the country and folk realms! Things also started going glam pop after the psych era and that eventually became disco. By `76, a lot of mods had become punkers and we got punk rock. Around the same time, a lot of the glam people started getting into punk but in a different way that became new wave. By the early `80's new wave and synth pop kinda took over.

Also in the late `60's, electronic and avant garde was coming around and some of this phased into techno, and some became synth pop, too.

Reggae was also becoming popular in the early `70's and, by the late `70's, some of punks and new wave people got hold of it and turned it into a harder version of ska (in the `60's, it was called, blue beat).

There were a LOT of tech advancement in music in the `70's and not, psych bands COULD perform live but, not many did and most of it just ended up being new wave but, there were some psych purists popping up and the genre caught on big again around the mid `80's. In some cases, it still exists. What I'm listening to right now by The Bevis Frond was recorded at some point in the past 20 years!

Then, all of a sudden, in `86, rap reared its ugly, pointless, worthless, boring head and has pretty much destroyed music ever since!

[bamesjond0069]

A lot of "rap" fell under other genres for example a rock band that "rapped" some lyrics or pop or any number of other normal genres. Then "hip hop" became a category. Only after "hip hop" culturally became more focused did the label "rap" come about.

[Astarlessnightsky]

Rock and Metal.

Queen, ACDC, Led Zeppelin, The Who, The Doors, and later Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden,...

[hahahmm]

Everything with a story. Folk music, country music, blues.

Think of childhood rhymes that kids sing to each other.. these songs have been passed down, unaltered for 100s of years. Oral history of the little people.

[OlderAndWiser]

Actually, white rap music was invented in 1977:

https://youtu.be/EtnJhGupgnA

[Anonymous]

Real music, rock, metal, progressive rock. Even jazz fusion was big in the 70s.

[Havthrills]

It was called Hip-hop. Started in the late 70s. Kind of like soft rap.

[In_Trance]

How can it be a genre if it was before it was a thing?
Your question doesn't even make sense

[Owasso]

Disco. A song like Rapture, from Blondie is a good example of that.

[sage2021]

Rock-'n'-roll forever!!

[BlueScorpio]

Groove, funk, rock, soul

[AndrésC64]

Rock, pop rock, pop, southern rock

[Fuentes]

Jazz/blues and Rock

[wittymilf]

Poetry

[ChillaxingLove]

Disco

[jimmy2]

There was none

[jimmy2]

I take that back Mr Cool wa the first one