Is Hip-hop just hate speech?

Although I stand behind most of what I have written or this course, I feel that I could change one particular view in unit 3-1. In my final paragraph I stated: “To summarize, I agree with the first author in that the word should not be used. In reality I know that is not any one person’s call but I would love for the media like the NAACP, comedians, rappers and athletes to take the first steps in toning down their use of the word.” The black community is taking strides in changing their society. The problem that I see through the video is that I can recognize 50 cent and Nelly but I cannot recognize the numerous blacks that are PhD's. The United States needs to stand behind the true leaders of its communities, giving these highly educated people a bigger platform to stand on.

However my opinion on the NAACP remains largely unchanged. The only time I ever hear about them in the news is because someone was highly insensitive in what they were saying. I heard it from the Georgetown’s girls basketball coach and Michael Richards. Why is it that the NAACP only seems to be present when things are bad? Why do they not step forward to promote people that are doing good? Such as the teachers of inner city schools, or the men and women speaking about the rights of women in the class video. Perhaps I am ignorant to the things they do but I would think an organization based on advancement would be in the spotlight for the positives sides of society, not just the negative.

As news goes, the general population (and maybe I am no different) only wants to hear the shocking side of the news, not the easily digestible side. The same reason people fly by a lemonade stand but slow down for a car accident; sad and scary news sell.

In reference to the rapper being under the assumption that nobody wants to hear anything positive, look no further than some actual music artists.

John Lennon –“I want her everywhere and if she’s beside me, I know I need never care”

Bob Marley – “girl, ooh girl, is it feasible? I wanna know now, for I to knock some more. Ya see, in life I know there's lots of grief, but your love is my relief.”

Is this a case of hip-hop artists only listening to one genre of music and thinking that men like Bob Marley, BB King or Smokey Robinson could not write music? It’s a terrible injustice to see what music has turned to. Looking back on the beginnings of jazz, blues and Motown I often wonder why music has turned to such misguided hate speech.

My answer to the rapper is simple; Songs about harmony and love do make it big time and they do not make you less of a man. In fact, they empower you; they turn your words into something that holds meaning, instead of being used solely for posturing.

The market tends dictate what sells and what sells tends to be music that holds shock value. In almost every revolution of music, boundaries were broken and lines were crossed. It happened with the British invasion of the Beatles and Rolling Stones, again in the 70’s with all of the drug references, the 80’s and 90’s with grunge and heavy metal and is happening right now with rap and hip-hop. Pushing the buttons of the general public has always existed and will continue to exist. The question I am curious to know is; have we reached a point of no return? Can music possibly get anymore derogatory or demeaning?

My stance towards this issue is that music companies need to start looking at putting funds towards other kinds of music. Clearly their main interest is profit but since when does the whole of society NOT want to listen to quality music? As harmful as hip-hop is, nothing will change until the record companies or music producers make an attempt at a change. I just hope that it comes sooner rather than later.

I would be interested to know what curves the change in music, is it the producers, is it the time we are in or is it simply the musician? I would argue it lands mostly on the producers because there are always talented musicians available but most will go largely unnoticed. It would be an interesting topic to research further.

I would love to ask students questions, having them come to their own conclusions on some of the hate speech that is in hip-hop. Ask them if they believe women are below men or if toughness and posturing is the key matter to sustaining a healthy lifestyle. The answers I would receive would not necessarily dictate their true feeling or attitudes but it needs to be discussed. People (and men in particular) in the black community need to at least see that there are other ways to carry themselves.

Anytime you can learn more about an issue that might otherwise be foreign, is a good thing. Hearing Nelly and 50 cent talk or explain where they are coming from on some issues, regardless whether or not they are correct, gives the teachers an almost insider knowledge into their students lives. The best teachers I have had were always able to find a specific point of interest with me, allowing me to rise to a potential that might otherwise be unattainable. I remember specifically in an English class, we were to discuss poetry. The poets were given to us, Shakespeare, Poe, Cummings, among others, the teacher knew I really like music and allowed me to do my reports on Paul McCartney and Robert Plant. I remember putting more time into that topic than I did into any other topic throughout high school.

By knowing what the students like, you can have them dissect their own interests. It is possible that they form a different opinion than the one they had previous to the assignment. Furthermore, it may allow the teachers or other students a glimpse into a child's life. For me, the music I listen to reflects the mood I am in or my state of being. I imagine many of these kids are no different. It could be a great way to get the kids to open up.

carter wrote:I can sort of defend the creditiblity issue.

We were given articles to read, everything that was said or implied was just anti everything. I understand there is a market for that but not an entire market!

One lady pointed out that she liked the recent R&B that has been released, pointing out that the guy that peed on his girlfriend and the guy from florida that beat the **** out of his girlfriend were good spirited artists. I guess she didn't pay much attention to the news because those two are sleeze bags. I'm blanking on their names was one nelly? Who cares...they all suck IMO

If you want to speak in generalities, and i clearly do at many points, yes, the beatles and stones' followers had different upbringings and collective experiences than did the current rap crowd but it still doesn't excuse it. Hip hop has taken over entire sports arenas...it's just strange to see.

As a cultural movement, hip-hop manages to get billed as both a positive and negative influence on young people, especially on Black and Latino youth. On one hand, there are African American activists, artists and entrepreneurs, such as Russell Simmons, who seek to build a progressive political movement among young hip-hop fans and who have had modest success with voter registration efforts. On the other hand, there's no shortage of critics who denounce the negative portrayals of Black people, especially women, in hip-hop lyrics and videos.

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Recently, a few critics in major U.S. newspapers took note of a well-publicized marketing firm study that cited the cultural influence of hip-hop and reported on sexuality among African American youth in households earning less than $25,000 per year in 10 cities. The study revealed that Black adolescents are becoming sexually active at ages younger than other youth and are suffering from HIV/AIDS at a rate higher than other groups.

"The teens did display attitudes consistent with the macho pose of hip-hop rappers. Their motto: 'Use or be used,' among others. And 'Get it while you can.' And consistent with a culture that uses 'bitches' and 'hos' as labels for every woman but one's mama, the study reveals 'Black females are dissed by almost every one,' including other Black females," wrote nationally syndicated columnist Clarence Page.

"The study of the hip-hop generation fails to pin down the big question: Does rap music and other traits of the hip-hop culture influence teens or merely mirror the culture that teens have created? The answer is probably both," Page noted.

After more than two decades of hip-hop's growth, an emerging cohort of young scholars may very well provide clear answers to questions of hip-hop's influence. "At one level, we need to document the genre. On a more sophisticated level, we need to determine how African American and Latino students perceive their social identity with respect to hip-hop's content, expressions and context. It is also important that we examine the perspectives of both the producers and consumers of hip-hop," says Dr. Beatrice Bridglall, the assistant director of the Institute for Urban and Minority Education at Columbia University.

BEYOND CELEBRATION

Dr. S. Craig Watkins, a professor of sociology, African American studies, and radio, television, and film at the University of Texas-Austin, is among a group of social scientists who have taken up the charge to examine exactly what impact hip-hop is having on its young audiences. For the most part, Watkins says that hip-hop scholarship has focused on analyzing content and cultural interpretation. That trend will change as scholars examine the effect the music and media images from hip-hop culture are having on the social identity and values of young people.

Previously, scholars, wondering whether the music and the culture would last, tended not to focus on the impact it was having upon its audience, Watkins explains. He also contends that a number of scholars embraced hip-hop with an uncritical, celebratory slant in their scholarship. With the passage of time and hip-hop's unimpeachable commercial success, it's become critical to explore its cultural impact, he says. "For young Blacks, it's important as culture because they see it as something that represents them," Watkins notes. Since the 1990s, Watkins has examined questions such as "What accounts for the global popularity of hip-hop culture products such as rap?" and "What has the 'commodification of blackness' done to the Black community?" That has led him to closely study media representations of hip-hop culture as a way to "explore what's going on with young people--their values, attitudes and behaviors," he says.

Currently, Watkins is planning a survey project that will initially study the attitudes and beliefs of 100 to 200 Texas youth of different races and ethnicities to determine what kind of media culture en gages them. The study cohort will be made of seventh, eighth and ninth graders. "I want to see how that shapes their behavior, lifestyle, self-esteem, mental health and attitudes toward their peers and society," he says.

Watkins expects to have the first round of studies on the Texas youths ready by spring 2005. He estimates that to do a high-end, first-round investigation will cost between $300,000 and $400,000.

Dr. Gwendolyn Pough, a professor of women's studies at the University of Minnesota, says her research of hip-hop culture has looked at the content and form of hip-hop performance, as well as the assessment of performance, lyrics and media images upon its audience. In her upcoming book, Check It While I Wreck It: Black Womanhood, Hip Hop Culture, and the Public Sphere, Pough is said to show "how influential women rappers such as Queen Latifah, Missy Elliot and Lil' Kim are building on the legacy of earlier generations of women--from Sojourner Truth to sisters of the Black power and civil rights movements--to disrupt and break into the dominant patriarchal public sphere." She says that while women have sought to empower themselves through hip-hop, males have all too willingly used the culture to denigrate them.

"My work looks at how hip-hop affects Black women," Pough says.

She adds that there's been little scholarship that examines hip-hop in temps of Black women's representation, as well the effects the culture has on the self-image, social identity, and values of young Black women.

GAINING ACCEPTANCE

Dr. Cynthia Winston, an assistant professor of psychology at Howard University, says research psychologists can expect to wage a struggle to gain acceptance for work that assesses the impact of hip-hip culture upon youth social identity. In her own work, which investigates the psychology of high-achieving African American students, her subjects relate that hip-hop culture has helped shape their identity as young Blacks. Winston's research on African American achievement has been awarded a National Science Foundation career grant.

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"My sense is that most young African Americans strongly relate to the influence of hip-hop culture," she says.

Winston expects to be very encouraging of psychology students who want to examine hip-hop culture in their research. It will be imperative for researchers to aggressively employ sound research methodology to ensure their work is taken seriously in the research community, Winston says. She notes that psychology research based on Black culture ideas and theories is still finding acceptance in the academy.

"If you're rooting your research and your findings in something that is very much intimately involved with Black cultural experiences and phenomena, there is a hesitancy because there's so many things that have to be revisited," says David Wall Rice, a Howard graduate psychology student under Winston.

He is writing a dissertation on "race self-complexity and identity construction of African American male adolescents," which acknowledges that hip-hop culture plays a significant role in young Black male identity.

"It's a topic and an interest that will always be a part of my research. I don't know if it would be a main focus, but it's something that will be part of it because it's part of the people that I'm doing research on," Rice says.

Dr. Anthony Kwame Harrison, a newly minted Ph.D. in anthropology from Syracuse University who wrote his dissertation on West Coast underground rap music, believes that scholars who assess hip-hop's impact on youth should be clear to make distinctions among the various genres of rap music, as well as the media and corporate entities that promote hip-hop culture. Harrison, a devotee of progressive hip-hop culture which includes underground rap, says it's incumbent upon scholars to examine the corporate culture that promotes the hip-hop music most commonly heard on radio and viewed as music videos on television.

Since the early 1990s, the biggest selling hip-hop artists have been the ones most associated with "gangsta" rap; the "bling-bling" rap that celebrates materialism: and the "big pimping" rap that denigrates women, according to Harrison, who teaches in the sociology department at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. "It's the partnership of hip-hop and corporate media that's brought us the negative images and the rap music that people complain most about," Harrison says.

He says it's significant to note that since Whites have become the biggest consumers of rap music, a trend which dates back to the early to mid-1990s, the exposure of hip-bop artists tends to go to those who push the most negative images and morally questionable lyrics. "(Scholars) have to be conscious of who gets promoted and the entities that support them," he says.

carter wrote:One of the things i have going for me and my arguement is that i couldn't care any less what todd or this black dude i know think about what is music. I mean todd listens to britney spears, the other guy listens to twista, lil'wayne, lil'retard, and other guys i can't remember. Had he listened to 2pac, ice tea, even snoop! I would listen. He's played the stuff he listens to, it's just party music after party music.

RCBooba wrote:Out of curiosity, when you say Dave Matthew's Band and Coldplay suck, do you mean overall or their latest stuff? I only ask because I know you liked their earlier stuff, and I'm curious if you still do, or if your distaste with their newer works has spilt over into your general impression of the two bands?

ethan wrote:. I don't bother coming up with specific examples any more because any person that needs me to come up with an example is obviously an idiot.

RCBooba wrote:

ethan wrote:. I don't bother coming up with specific examples any more because any person that needs me to come up with an example is obviously an idiot.

Boy, I really miss talking to you people face-to-face on a daily basis. And people that know me now wonder why I get so angry sometimes....

RCBooba wrote:

ethan wrote:. I don't bother coming up with specific examples any more because any person that needs me to come up with an example is obviously an idiot.

Boy, I really miss talking to you people face-to-face on a daily basis. And people that know me now wonder why I get so angry sometimes....

carter wrote:
One of my main problems with hip hop is that they don't even play instruments, they generally can't read music, it's all studio based. Where as the oldies of motown and company had brass and strings and singing and dancing...Again, rock has taken a similar turn and i think that sucks too...

carter wrote:
I love how you keep pointing out that i don't listen to other music because i would say that bout you.

ethan wrote:I think I understand why Carter doesn't bother with more specifics in his argument, because it seems quite similar to something I go through regularly. Lots of current rap sucks (at any point in time, most music in any genre is bad). Many rappers have no lyrical ability and do far too much sampling. I don't care about bad rap any more than I do about bad pop or rock, but I feel Drago's pain because I go through the same thing when I talk to religious people about their holy books. Anyone with a brain knows that the Bible and Koran are full of inconsistency, contradiction, and demonstrable lie. I don't bother coming up with specific examples any more because any person that needs me to come up with an example is obviously an idiot. This is, I assume, exactly how Carter feels about coming up with examples of bad rap.

cpschult wrote:

carter wrote:
One of my main problems with hip hop is that they don't even play instruments, they generally can't read music, it's all studio based. Where as the oldies of motown and company had brass and strings and singing and dancing...Again, rock has taken a similar turn and i think that sucks too...

This... maybe

I agree that there is a general decline in artists performance. I remember us talking about how one of the biggest starts in music right now (Justin timberlake) can really only sing and dance.. and he very rarely sings now, mainly does that talking ****. There is also that crappy auto tuner thing which makes it possible for everyone to hit the notes. I also remember talking to drago about only good looking artists making it these days, instead of good musicians... to many crutches for them.

I really think that tupac is overrated. He was one of the first rappers that I know of to really talk about social topics in his music, but lyrically, I think there are many, many superior today.

I liked dave mathews when he was on crystal meth

Did you listen to that Nas video douschie?