Rapping came from a long list of artists starting from Afrika Bambaataa “the Godfather” and Clive Campbell “DJ Kool Herc” to Dwayne Michael Carter Jr. “Lil Wayne.” Yet these hip hop artists are affecting the way people perceive African Americans as a “lower class group of people” in many ways. From the music they sing to the way that they dress and political influence, more people are looking over African Americans and finding another missing link to success. More African Americans are missing opportunities to succeed in life, because of what rappers sing, and majority of it is degrading to African Americans by heavily focusing on sex and abusive behaviors. These kind of stereotypes the African American group as being a lower than Caucasians. Lil Wayne is the best musician in our era, but his music shows no respect and consistency for young girls, including other rappers as well.
They try to express struggles that are going on in their own lives, and what they see around them. These kids who are living in poor cities, which West describes as “chocolate cities”, they are mad at society for dealing them the hand that they were dealt. They have expressed themselves through music which has become a cultural phenomenon. Turning to DuBois’ chapter “The Sorrow Songs” in The Souls of Black Folk, his writing about the music from slaves is very similar to the way our Hip Hop and Rap music culture came to arise. Obviously, slaves were slaves, and the people who made Rap music, were free, but only to an extent.
This collective group of men that fought so hard to maintain their dignity somehow has evolved to a common hoodlum without any sense of reason. Films such as Menace to Society, Boyz N Da Hood, and South Central are there to give a description of how life is in the Ghetto. Producers such as the Hughes Brothers and John Singleton were given a graphic description to raise awareness in minority communities. Somehow it has since been glorified into a way of life. Music videos have contributed to the depiction as well.
Those were positive rappers who wanted to have an effect on people’s lives. However in the late 90s leading up to the current day rappers, rap music has definitely changed. Rappers today only rap about women, sex, drugs, and violence. Anderson and Stewart state “Some commentators have criticized rap for its lack of traditional Eurocentric musical characteristics” (Anderson & Stewart, 316). Today’s rap music downgrades women in many different ways which has an impact on the African American community.
Tupac, on the other hand, had the same problem with his music. He had to pay close attention to his music since rap was very stereotypical from a white person’s perspective. They viewed it as “pure black music” and rappers had a large portion of profanity in their music as they still do today. The students discussed how Shakur was singing against violence of the black community and how the black women were degraded. They thought this was a very positive deed Tupac did, even with
Rap lyrics today is very degrading, the lyrics encourages a disrespectful response to our young women and sway our young men into domestic abuse, alcohol abuse and drug use. Most people, older men and women are totally against the derogatory language used in these lyrics. Armstrong (2001) conducted a content analysis of 490 rap songs from 1987 to 1993, in which 22% contained lyrics featuring violence against women including assault, rape and murder. His study classified rap songs into different categories in which rappers either pride themselves on sex acts appearing to harm women, justify other acts of violence, warn women who challenge male domination that they will be assaulted, and/or seem to invite male violence against women (Armstrong, 2001). Weitzer and Kubrin (2009) conducted a follow-up study analyzing the portrayal of women in 403 rap songs through a content analysis, in which themes of derogatory naming and shaming of women; sexual objectification of women; distrust of women; legitimation of violence against women; and celebration of prostitution and pimping appeared at the greatest frequency.
Some of which were poverty, racism, and peer pressures. They began combining beats and words together to form hip hop. Unintentionally, they took the oral tradition which their ancestors passed on. Hip hop is often thought to be just a combination of curses and electronic beats labeled “music.” Society has adopted a negative perception on the message which hip hop artists send to its audiences. Hip Hop is not solely about sex, drugs and money.
Jeff Chang first started talking about the stereotypes that were accompanied by the new music genre. Because of this art from people of color were seen in a bad light. Since hip hop had a huge effect on people that lived in the ghettos. Rap groups started to take the roles of activist like the group N.W.A, who made a song called “Fuck tha Police”.
Stapleton tells us that many believe the concern over sexual violence is not as big a concern of racial problems. Stapleton throws us the idea that many hip-hop artists felt that hip-hop was being considered objectionable because white youth were consuming it. Stapleton uses this to reveal where a large amount of criticism is coming from in both racial and genre issues. Stapleton brings up a gathering of hip-hop artists and rappers showing us that serious discussions were being had about the genre and the changes in it. We see in Stapleton’s words how hip-hop has become a dangerous genre and how responsibility lies in the artists, managers, record companies, and parents when it comes to the music.
Back then, when I hear “Hip Hop”, I associated it with egoistic rappers and gang violence. It was my least favorite music genre because rap artists only rap about their shopping list and other meaningless topics. It came to the point where I asked, “What is Hip Hop?” I was so curious that I decided to use it as an English research topic. From that point on, my opinion on Hip Hop changed completely due to the fact that there’s more to it. As I researched on what Hip Hop is, I found out that it isn’t just a music genre, but a massive culture that originated within the Bronx during the 1970s.