Because the lyrics of many rap songs tell stories of an artist’s personal experience of their everyday lives growing up, urban youth can relate and connect to the lyrics because they see and experience very similar things. Listening to the artist’s lyrics about their own experiences can teach the listeners to not make stupid mistakes and if they continue to follow the right paths, they can achieve more and be successful like the rappers. Hip-Hop literacies can be applied in and outside of the classroom. Students can identify themselves through Hip-Hop culture. In the article, “You Don’t Have to Claim Her”, the author and English teacher Lauren Leigh Kelly, explains that women of all ages can use Hip-Hop to identify themselves despite the genre …show more content…
And while that is true, the artist’s intent was not to glorify drugs, sex, and violence, but to just write songs about those topics to express what they see and give insight into what a day to day life is like growing up in their communities ("Hip-Hop and Rap Music" para 10). And although many songs were filled with negative sayings, there are many songs that contradict that statement. As previously stated, many rap artists that have written songs with positive messages. For example artists such as Public Enemy seen that they could use their platform to uplift the black community and talk about other important topics. In Public Enemy’s song “Give It Up,” the group stated “I never did represent doing dumb shit, some gangsta lying - I’d rather diss Presidents” (Public Enemy). Public Enemy went on to influence other Hip Hop artists such as X Clan, Prophets of Rage, Paris, Rage Against the Machine, Kendrick Lamar and many more. Students or anyone for that matter can take what they learn from those lyrics and apply them to their own lives. Many teachers and professors are implementing Hip-Hop into their curriculums as a way to get their students engaged in class and get a better understanding of what they are
The article “Hip Hop Planet” by James McBride is about how hip hop is not his favorite type of music but, it needs to be heard. McBride shows us this by explaining that he avoided hip hop most of his life. In the article McBride says that he basically ignored “the most important cultural event in my lifetime.” James informs us that hip hop has influenced the world globally and that it has become a phenomenon. Furthermore, McBride made clear that he eventually realized that hip hop is much more than just music, it has a message.
Hip Hop was the wildfire that started in the South Bronx and whose flames leapt up around the world crying out for change. James McBride’s Hip Hop Planet focuses on his personal interactions with the development of Hip Hop culture and his changing interpretations of the world wide movement. Many of his encounters and mentions in the text concern young black males and his writing follows an evolution in the representation of this specific social group. He initially portrays them as arrogant, poor, and uneducated but eventually develops their image to include the positive effects of their culture in an attempt to negate their historical misrepresentation.
In her essay “hip hop’s betrayal of black women,” Jennifer McLune implies that “(h)ip-hop owes its success to the ideology of women-hating” (193). She does not agree with Kevin Powell’s article that hip-hop does not mean to “offend” black women, but instead artists are only letting out their temper throughout their music. McLune feels infuriated that many artists in hip hop (including black men) rap about their community and downgrade their own women. In the hip-hop genre, sexism is mainly used, not only by black men but also by many other race hip-hop artists. Artists assume that women-hating in their rap songs will be accepted by women, but do not realize that it is affecting all women.
Very similarly to rhythm and blues, rock and roll and the Civil Rights Movement inspired hip hop in a variety of different ways, as African American artists worked to find a space for themselves in the music industry. Not many people find a correlation between African Americans and Rock and Roll, but there’s surprisingly a deep history, and it’s not just white people who developed this specific genre, but there was African American-centered and ghetto-centered versions of rock and roll. “There are enough similarities between, for instance, rock & roll and commercial rap, especially rock rap, to make a case for critically engaging them as interracial arenas where black and white youths, among others, put forward messages and advanced ideals that have been not only informed by the Civil Rights Movement and the Hip Hop Movement, respectively, but in turn, even if only implicitly, have influenced the rhetoric, politics, and aesthetics of these movements” (Rabaka 99). There was a strong transition from this type of “rock rap” music being labeled as ghetto music, into universal music that people of all races and ethnicities would listen to.
From the exasperation of their felling from boasting how famous they are or how much money they have. Mcbride state that the genre has become dominated by the rapper who brag about their lives of crime. Mcbribe also shows that hip-hop star 50 cent trumpets his sexual exploits and boasts that he has been shot nine times. You see that hip-hop is now a way to exploit and boast about them self. Eventually, McBride shows that most rap songs are mostly walking advertisement for car clothes and liquor.
Hip Hop is seen as something inspiring, but most people see it as a way to speak out the truth about a problem. As in “Hip Hop planet” being able say the truth can sometimes worsen any situation because sometimes what we say can promote violence and whatever happens after is not in our control. The essay is about how hip hop has changed into speaking out the issues that need to be taken care of in order to maintain a proper society. McBride talked about how rappers use violent lyrics to degrade women and gays and because of this it shows how the music has evolved into something entirely different that no one would have ever expected to have changed. In James McBride's essay “Hip Hop Planet,” he argues that hip hop has a negative influence on American Culture despite people thinking of it as inspirational and how people live through different experiences in life despite of your race.
The block parties, graffiti art, rapping, disc jockeying and diverse forms of dancing built Hip Hop by the black youth. They expressed their feelings, thoughts, but most importantly the problems they had to face, which were related to their race, gender and social positions. The rights that were given to black people during and after the Civil Rights Movement left the following generations at a lack of how to continue the fight for black rights. Hip Hop gave them this platform and with the usage of black nationalism, Hip Hop can explore the challenges that confront American-Americans in the post-Civil Rights Movement era. In the 1990’s Hip Hop lived its prime, sub genres started to appear and famous groups, MCs led the whole community, providing a voice to a group of people trying to deliver their message.
The author also provides examples of her own personal experiences of hip-hop which creates a casual mood and comes across as a story. In the first paragraph, Walker explains how kids these days are able to “spit out names of recording artists…..tell you about the songs they like and the clothes they want to buy. They’ll tell you about the indisputable zones
Once they became a succesfull rappers, they talk about overcoming obstacles and rising to the top. This message can give hope to many youths across America. For example Snoop Dogg and Notorious B, are rappers that had a hard and terrible past, full of struggles and drugs. But with Hip-hop they find a way to rise, and rap about their past and struggles.
Nowadays, everyone wears the identity with pride. The genre was a testament to triumphing over hardships, to having enough confidence in oneself not to let the world drag you down, and to rising above the struggle, even when things seem hopeless. Violence in rap did not begin as an affective agent that threatened to harm America 's youth; rather, it was the outcry of an already-existing problem from youth whose world views have been shaped by the inequalities and prejudice they have experienced. The relentless wave of heroic new rappers arriving on the scene formed the golden age of hip hop in the 1980s, a newfound voice which rose from the impoverished ghettos during the 1980s and inspiring a generation of black youth to fight the police brutality they faced on a daily basis.
The Impact of Hip-Hop Ever since its birth in the 1970s in West Bronx, Hip Hop has been known as “Gangsta” music and most commonly associated with black culture. Since its creation it has become a fast growing genre of music and has growing fame all over the world. The popularity of it has increased to all races, age and gender. However the growing popularity of hip hop has come with several controversies among scholars. Some scholars argue that the growing popularity of the genre is very helpful to low income families who can use this as their outlet into going to Universities, on the other side some believe associating the genre to black culture is bad for the culture as a whole and they should not be associated together.
Hip-hop culture has been the topic of various academic, social, and political discourses. Rap music, in particular, has made its way to mainstream media which is evident in the numerous films and movies that centers on what was once a part of an underground culture. Scholars explain that the popularity of hip-hop in both music and films are partly due to its potential to disseminate information, address an issue, and promote social change. Tinson and McBride (2013), for example, note that hip-hop is a “…form of critical education at the intersection of, and inseparable from political engagement” (1). Scholars further note that hip-hop’s current state “…requires frequent accounting of its engagement with the social, political, and cultural climate
Even though my parents listened to KRS-One and Public Enemy, while my sisters engaged in Kanye West and OutKast, both eras of the hip hop genre purpose were to discuss economic problems and push people toward the right path of life. In Yan Dominic Searcy’s article, he says, “Many rappers grew up amid violence, police harassment, poverty, drugs and promiscuity. Rappers will tell you they rap about what they know. If the community wants to change rap lyrics, the community must change reality.” (Searcy)
“Beyond Beats and Rhymes” Summary This movie was a broad discussion about hip-hop music (or more specifically gangster rap) and what kind of social issues the music not only showcases but seems to promote. The producer of this film, Byron Hunt, interviewed people involved in all aspects of the hip-hop industry, including famous rappers, to try to get to the bottom of this. Some of the most prominent issues discussed in the film were the over-sexualization of women, gun violence, and anti- homophobic attitudes. Hunt would ask those involved in the industry about why they think these themes are so prevalent.
There have been many rap songs and albums that have been very meaningful, and have gained millions of fans that appreciate their music. For example, on Kendrick Lamar’s debut album Good Kid, m.A.A.d City, each song is a piece of his life story. He describes his struggles growing up in the ghettos of Compton, California. Kendrick addresses situations such as gang violence, peer pressure, and oppressed women. On the song “The Art of Peer Pressure”, Kendrick describes the inner conflict that he dealt with at a young age, trying to distinguish right from wrong in certain situations.