What music genre is better at expressing an artist's individuality:rock or hip-hop?

[piloting]

Personally I think the former is b/c despite both having that generic sort of voice at times the way hip-hop is much easier to make,less labor intensive and for it seems more lucrative makes me think that hip-hop easily gives in to corporate mass-market appeal greed and thus lower quality then the more apparent variation of rock.Don't play the "best stuff is underground" card with me either.Ask yourself just what actually leaves the underground more often and see the light of day more often,anyways?.

[jesse_custer]

All you had to do was say "I like rock more than rap" and be done with it.

Someone close the thread.

[piloting]

All you had to do was say "I like rock more than rap" and be done with it.

Someone close the thread.

Actually that's just how I how I feel not what I think.Rap before the mid 2000's actually does sound very diverse.I'm asking for the opinions of others.My main purpose wasn't to implictly say one is better then the other.

[The Amazing Quilava]

Actually that's just how I how I feel not what I think.Rap before the mid 2000's actually does sound very diverse.I'm asking for the opinions of others.My main purpose wasn't to implictly say one is better then the other.

Though you stated your opinion in a rather truculent phrasing, I believe this is why he said what he did.

[Mr. Holmes]

Lyrically, they're even. But I think rock can be more spiritual/artistic.

Case in point: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja3LG...eature=related

[The Amazing Quilava]

Hip-Hop kind of has more flow imo, and that gives me the reason to find it more expressive.
But that's just my opinion.

[The Black Guardian]

Rock is much more varied, thus the individuality.

[dupersuper]

Lyrically, they're even. But I think rock can be more spiritual/artistic.

Case in point: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ja3LG...eature=related

Dare I click on the blind youtube link?

[DennyK]

Aren't genre and individuality diametrically opposite?

[Bonemachine]

The title of this thread is one of the most ridiculous questions I've ever heard in my life. It's like asking, "What kind of cheese is better at pleasing the buds of taste, havarti or vermont cheddar?"

[Bonemachine]

Lyrically, they're even. But I think rock can be more spiritual/artistic.

Even more ridiculous than the OP.

[TShark82]

Fair question,id say Rock.

[Melanieshaman]

I'm going to say rock... singing seems to me to be a lot more expressive and emotional that "saying" the lyrics. Even using different tone of voice only goes so far.

[Mormel]

I'm going to say rock... singing seems to me to be a lot more expressive and emotional that "saying" the lyrics. Even using different tone of voice only goes so far.

I'm unfamiliar with underground hiphop, having listened mostly to chart rap, but even based on those artists, I'd say that flow and metre vary widely from one MC to the next. Among the more unusual commercially successful rappers in terms of flow, I'd name Nelly, Missy Elliot, and Busta Rhymes.

I was listening to some De La Soul and A Tribe Called Quest from the early 90s, and they seemed to be doing a different thing when compared to predecessors of a more 'old-school' style of rapping like KRS-ONE and MC Shan. The cadence was a lot more playful and experimental.

I believe that rap being more close to 'talking' (though, I would rather say that it's closer to reciting poetry), gives it a character that's more 'down-to-Earth', closer to how one would verbally express one's emotions in everyday conversation, whereas singing is bound to more set conventions, using the voice as a musical instrument. I think neither is better than the other at expressing emotions, although I would say that it rarely seems to happen that a rapper conveys anything other than happiness or anger in their verses; rarely sadness or despair, etc. Protest raps/social commentary tend to have an angry tone rather than a sad one, and when the social commentary documents a sad story, the MC usually takes on the role of moralising all-knowing narrator, instead of conveying dismay/sadness/dread in their voice.
So I could agree that the emotional spectrum, in commercial hiphop at least, is not utilised as exhaustively as in rock music.