From Blues to Rap: The Catastrophe of Police Brutality Addressed in Today’s Music
African American centric music such as jazz, blues, funk, and rap is rich with resistance and perseverance against societal and political inequality. Self-proclaimed bluesman and American intellect. Cornel West defines blues as about “overcoming...prevailing...but it's tragic-comic, there’s no triumph...The Blues is about catastrophe.” Compared to Georgia State University Political Science professor Lakeyta M. Bonnette’s definition of political rap, blues seems to lack the proposition of a solution to catastrophe that is incorporated into her definition. Political rap is a cultural site that we can use to survey the attitudes of African Americans. In the light of recent public discourse of police brutality against black bodies and the #BlackLivesMatter movement, many hip hop artists use their music platform to bring awareness to these issues. In this paper, I will examine Black Nationalism in relation to the catastrophe that is police brutality in America addressed
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Cole talks about how he wanted his performance on Letterman to be authentic since he wrote “Be Free” from such a “crazy place.” He admits that in preparation for his performance he watched videos and articles about the police brutality against blacks. He had a fear of being inauthentic to his audience as seen when he says “ I don’t know if I can go back to that [crazy] place.” However, “once the song started, [he] got emotional” and that fear is replaced with the “crazy place” sentiment that transcends into his singing. With his eyes tightly shut, J. Cole shouts and groans like the blue’s West explained, the “language of catastrophe.” “Be Free” was J. Cole’s voice in the “language of catastrophe” as a angry, conscious, resistant black man, who is in essence like Michael
Summary: Tate’s main argument he makes in How #BlackLivesMatter Changed Hip Hop and R&B, is that thanks to the #BlackLivesMatter movement, both twitter and hip hop are now two effective tools in providing a voice for the Black community, who's voices are silenced by White America. Tate argues because of “the communication revolution of #BlackLivesMatter, those once-voiceless masses no longer require rappers for their social-injustice priorities to be heard from the dogg house to the White House” (para. 3). He argues that the two main themes that have been present within Black lives throughout history and is still relevant today, is resistance with singing and fighting, or what Tate defines as SingFight. Tate explains the use of overt and covert SingFight songs as protest anthems throughout history, prompting racial justice movements including artists: Nina Simone, James Brown and Marvin
In this extremely controversial work, Glenn C. Altschuler takes aim on the government’s accusations, the prejudice from the police, and the affect that rock ’n’ roll made in America through the late forties and fifties. Glenn makes many accusations of his own through the way he shifts the momentum of the story from time to time. Through the years back then and now, music has caused many racial and gender controversies. In this book, Glenn explains all these problems and what rock did to start or get of them.
EJ Brown “was inspired by a photograph he saw of Ferguson police shooting victim Michael Brown dressed in his graduation gear, and felt that the image illustrated the contrast between the perception and reality of being an African American college graduate” he used this opportunity to shed some light and positivity against the stereotypical ideas held to black individuals through the use of graduation cap and gown and a criminal slate (Neuendorf, 1). After witnessing an unarmed black male be shot in the back by a police officer on the news, Brown felt he must express his anger through art to convey his message. He felt frustration towards how the media conveyed the blame onto the victims rather than the officers who committed the killing. Through how the media represents the information,
Ever since the shooting and death of Trayvon Martin, more shootings and deaths has occurred. Cases such as the Eric Garner case, Akai Gurley case, and John Crawford case has caused outrage from the African American community and Black Lives Matter movement. In order to combat the shootings and deaths of the people in the African American community, people have marched against police brutality in order to make a change in the world. Brad Knickerbocker, staff writer of csmonitor, states that: “Thousands of Americans marched and rallied in New York, Washington, Boston, San Francisco and other cities around the country Saturday, voting with their feet against police brutality – specifically in response to recent police killings in Cleveland, New York, and Ferguson, Missouri, that have wracked a nation still dealing with issues involving racial mistrust and mistreatment of black people at the hands of white police officers” (Knickerbocker). Due to many events that have occurred against black people, “thousands of Americans” marched and fight against police brutality.
“Long, hot summers” of rioting arose and many supporters of the African American movement were assassinated. However, these movements that mused stay ingrained in America’s history and pave way for an issue that continues to be the center of
As founder Alicia Garza states, #BLACKLIVESMATTER has moved from being just a social media hashtag to a social movement that is out in the streets. This research will provide insight on just how powerful this movement is both as a social media hashtag and an actual protest organizer. Many researchers are interested on the effects that police brutality has on the people and their communities. Few research the effects of one of the most controversial and widespread social justice movements has had on the youth of the country. This study will open up the discussion of the effects of this movement to a wider audience of higher academic knowledge.
The police shooting of Michael Brown and the unrest in Ferguson that followed was the first major protest that I followed closely on the news. I watched as police officers that looked like soldiers violently interrupted marches in Ferguson, and around the country. Then, I watched the collapse of Ferguson, Missouri’s unjust system of policing. At the time, I remember thinking that the voice of those that refused to remain silent against a racist institution invoked a progressive movement into the future. From that point forward, I understood that it was the voice of the people that would change unjust governmental practices.
In a time where sampling is a staple of hip-hop and other predominant, modern genres, it is not unreasonable for an artist to take ownership of past artifacts, even those which once were oppressed or used for oppression, as a way to reclaim the artifact itself, to subvert it, or otherwise reconstitute meaning. When we examine remixing and sampling in pop music in an academic way, we must consider how it is consumed by and therefore affects a non-academic audience. Understanding the audience is foundational to communication, after all. Radio listeners will not necessarily know where sampled pieces originate from, let alone their original contexts. And those effects should be further examined in the future.
Dr. Dyson presents the problem of misogyny and the exploitation of minority groups in rap music in a way that still makes the artist accountable, while reminding us that these exploitations have always been in western society. Dr. Dyson is saying that rap music is not all equal and can push unhealthy ideas about the relationship between men and women. Yet there is still a culture value within the music that many people within the the African American community can connect with, even if that connection is a sad reflection on the current status of affairs. For example, many rap songs glorify prison, which is a sad example of the disproportional effect that prison has within the black community. Some black men grow up thinking that is where they belong because so many in their family’s have ended there for crimes that are common among everyone but are most punishable on blacks.
In Living for the City, Donna Murch argues that the Black Panther Party started with a study group in Oakland, California. She explains how a small city with a recent history of African American settlement produced such compelling and influential forms of Black Power politics. During the time of historical and political struggle in California 's system of public college, black southern traveling workers formed the BPP. In “Jim Crow’s Counterculture”, Lawson argues that the Great Migration and World War II changed the blues music from the thinking and behavior of younger people who want to be different from the rest of society to one that celebrated the work attitude and the war effort as ways to claim “American citizenship”.
For African Americans, jazz music, has always had a political undercurrent. Slave songs spoke of the “Israelites” enslaved by the Egyptians, such as in Go Down Moses, symbolising their own yearning for freedom. However, it took time for the assertion of the political message to develop in a more discernible way. Jazz’s status as a form of entertainment had effectively subdued the message for many years, because of the ostracisation of those involved and because of the early popularity of the white swing bands. The majority of jazz musicians were not political activists, rarely explicitly political in their work, however, they often expressed their political ideals, sometimes more subtley other times more overtly through their music.
The effects of violence and racial oppression in New Orleans New Orleans is one of the most multi-faceted cities in the United States. It is unmanageable to seize all of its physiognomies in literature or film, let alone a specific piece of literature or film. The African influence of jazz funerals, the birthplace of musicians such as Louis Armstrong and bands like Hot 8 have all culminated in a single city, creating one of the most dynamic cities in this country. However, along with the originality and vivacity of New Orleans, there is violence and chaos. This essay is therefore going to focus on Sakakeeny and how he explains this reality of violence in the artistic and buoyant New Orleans through detailed examples from his book, Roll with
According to “The Washington Post”, Last year 963 African Americans were shot and killed by police. Ever since the 1960s Africans has been fighting for equality; in the Eric Garner case and Michael Brown, it demonstrated how White police officers abuse and misuse their power towards African Americans. Since the increase of police brutality communities has had marches, rallies, and even the Black Lives Matters movements as a response to show that Polices’ abuse of power is unacceptable. The Black Lives Matter movement was created after radical discrimination it is a political movement to inform and protect Black Lives. (Wesley Lowery.
Cole follows every pain filled verse with a hook that vastly differs in emotion. His voice has lost all of it’s resent filled fury and the listeners are left with whimpers of defeat. He cries “All we wanna do is take the chains off... All we wanna do is be free”, over and over again. The only notable change throughout the song comes during the third verse when J.cole seems to calm down.
During that time police brutality was exist and police used to force black people extremely and physically. In “THE POLITICAL, ECONOMIC, SOCIAL, AND CULTURAL TENSIONS IN GANGSTA RAP,” David Canton states that “While the video had shocked most white Americans, African Americans in Los Angeles were not surprised” (p:245). This excerpt clearly shows that the story of the rap video was common to the black people because the video was about protest against brutality and it was their own story. The video shocked white people because in the video black people raised their strong voice against