Textual Analysis - B*itches Love Me - Lil Wayne ft. Drake, Future

To what extent can it be argued that contemporary hip hop music is a negative influence on its target audience?

Being a very sexual song with provocative lyrics such as 'I got some down b*tches I can call', 'B*tches Love Me' is also a very controversial song. It highlights the typical negative stereotypes of a rap music video talking about the main things within any other negative rap video such as women for sexual satisfactions and drugs; which in this case is 'Kush', a type of weed. 

The first example of this cleverly lyrical song, portraying rappers such as Lil Wayne in a negative light is one of his lyrics of 'Can't treat these h*es like ladies, man...' connoting putting a negative view on women overall not to look at them as 'ladies' but to view them as 'h*es' with an overall lower domination compared to the male gender. 

Furthermore, the camera work within this particular music video is very quick moving, showing-off a range of shots some of which include having a montage of shots all throughout the video showing multi-narratives to the audience and still allows the audience to follow what is going on within each scene. Many close ups of Lil Wayne's face to emphasise the words he is saying to the camera are used such as curse words or any clever lyrics phrases that he is using. Long shots are used to get the full view of Lil Wayne sitting on a bed surrounded by women as well as many mid-shots used for Future and Drake as they are standing up singing into the camera.

As the women within the music video are seen to be portrayed as 'animals' as throughout the song they are referred to as 'bitches' meaning dogs, this shows how overall, Lil Wayne, Future and Drake are dominant over these women displaying them within the lower spotlight compared to the other gender. Due to this negative representation overall of women, they are made to look like snakes wearing rubber/latex bikinis which are colourful and appealing to the viewers. As the music video has a lot of colours such as yellow, blue and red, the contrast with that is that the lighting for the music video was also very low-key, setting the scene and connoting mystery. 

The sound used within the music video was mainly diegetic sound due to the music; being a music video. For the editing of the music video a few fade outs were used whilst putting the camera on the different artists such as a fade out from Lil Wayne's frame leading to a fade in, into Future's frame whilst it was his turn to sing when Lil Wayne's verse finished. Furthermore, the song was promoted by Cash Money Records,Young Money Entertainment and Republic records which, having a big name helped to sell the music video and due to the video having three contemporary favourite rap artists of the music industry. 

Also, this video leads to people talking about the sexual exploitation of women within the video wearing less clothing and it being very tight in order to lead to the sex appeal of more people, males in particular, being attracted to watching the video. The factor of 'dumbing down' the lyrics of the song such as mentioning typical representations of a rap song having factors such as drugs, alcohol and 'b*tches' reinforces the stereotypes of a typical rap video. 

Furthermore, binary opposition, plays a big element within the video as due to both of the sexes of both males and females. For example, the domination of males is portrayed throughout the music video as the females are caged up like animals and are heavily made over to look like animals to look like snakes as this leads to the personification of animals turning into humans. 

Media Magazine

1) Music is one of those things in life that we all interpret differently. It has the power to bring people together whilst simultaneously segregating us. This is more apparent in the social networking world of harsh tweets and hashtag battles fought by rival fan bases – the ‘Chris Brown vs Tyler The Creator’ Twitter feud exemplified this. - Talking about how social networks which the younger generation mostly uses starts wars using twitter to show favouritism within who the fans of either Tyler The Creator or Chris Brown is better than the other.

2) Thanks to YouTube, you can revisit the press conferences and see how painful it was listening to their misinterpretations. Sites such as Rap Genius allow the public to suggest the meaning behind song verses of any genre. - Misinterpretations of rap are usually what helps to portray artists of being negative however, beneficial websites such as Rap Genius explains what each sentence actually means so that the misunderstandings and the negative portrayals of artists disappear. 

3) The elder generation have an inclination of blaming rap for much of the violence that goes on within the younger world. - Links to my critical investigation of negative portrayal of contemporary artists one factor being violence. 

4) However, rather than viewing this imagery as misogyny, it could be argued that Eminem is ridiculing them in a bid to show us how unrealistic some modern representations of femininity are: robotic, aggressively sexual and objectified. - Ways in which artists are negative within the rap and hip-hop industry such as Eminem having negative qualities such as objectifying women within the music industry such as Kin Kardashian for example. 

5) Eminem entwines his voice with a myriad of voices from popular culture. His intertextual links to other voices are firmly entrenched in his work casting a shrewd eye over the banality of contemporary culture. 
-Eminem: hip-hop’s Lord of Misrule

6) The media obsession with female celebrities and their weight is mocked through the use of a chubby Jessica Simpson look-alike singing whilst munching on a hamburger, whereas the Sarah Palin impersonator (played by an apparently well-known porn actress) could be seen as showing us the commonly-held belief that women are only seen to be creditable if they can be sexually objectified. 
-Eminem: hip-hop’s Lord of Misrule - Linking back to the point of objectifying women to make men look more dominant and superior over women. 

7) Indeed, looking at some aspects of his life and work it is almost impossible to refute these allegations; his venom-fuelled tirades against his ex-wife Kim are legendary, whilst his own mother launched a $10m lawsuit against him for using the lyrics ‘my mom smokes more dope than I do’ on the hit ‘My Name Is’.
-Eminem: hip-hop’s Lord of Misrule - Showing the negative lifestyle of Eminem's life before he was famous and talks about drugs and violence linking to his wife and all of the negatives that he has done within his song about his wife called 'Kim' projecting all of his intense hatred and anger towards his wife spitting spiteful lyrics such as 'Bleed, bitch! Bleed!' being a sense of violence as throughout the song he talks about slitting her throat continuously. 

8) Though hip-hop is now a dominant force within mainstream youth culture, with artists such as Jay-Z or the British Plan B finding success far beyond traditional rap/r’n’b audiences, the stereotypical ‘rapper’ exists in a largely fixed form in the public consciousness.
 - Odd Future, Stranger Past – Issues of Representation in Contemporary Hip-Hop 

9) As the popularity of the genre grew, however, there also rose a dominant stereotype among hip-hop artists, and by association of young black males; traditionally masculine, unemotional, aggressive, violent and often misogynistic. - Odd Future, Stranger Past – Issues of Representation in Contemporary Hip-Hop - The negative stereotypes of hip-hop artists of being young and black being violent is currently very dominant in music with artists such as Chief Keef being a classic example of being a negative influence for it's target audience encouraging them to treat women disrespectfully labelling them with nicknames such as 'bitches' and 'hoes' and also encourages people to be more violent using power phrases such as 'bang bang' being a major trend within today's society. 

10) Odd Future... Most of the press coverage surrounding the group has focused on the deliberately shocking nature of their lyrics, with graphic violence, homophobia, misogyny and references to suicide and rape. 

- Odd Future, Stranger Past – Issues of Representation in Contemporary Hip-Hop - OFWGKTA being a prime example of being a very negative influence towards their target audience and mainly the contemporary more younger generation of people and linking to Alvarado's theory talking about black people being violent, humorous and pitied.  

11) What Odd Future do is push the violence and aggression common in hip-hop’s representations of young black men to its logical conclusion. Even then they could be seen as using the stereotypical violence of the lyrics as a window to an introspection and vulnerability similar to that seen in the work of Childish Gambino.

- - Odd Future, Stranger Past – Issues of Representation in Contemporary Hip-Hop

12) In his solo work, Tyler, the Creator hints at honest psychological wounds. Lines such as

'let’s buy guns and kill kids with dads and mom, and nice homes with 401Ks and nice-ass lawns'

express real hurt, venting the jealousy of an alienated kid still stinging from the rejection of an absentee father. 

-  - Odd Future, Stranger Past – Issues of Representation in Contemporary Hip-Hop

Google scholar - expanded

1) 'Hip hop is not dead but gravely ill. The beauty and life force of hip hop have been squeezed out, wrung nearly dry by the compounding factors of commercialism, distorted racial and sexual fantasy oppression and alienation.' - The Hip Hop Wars - Tricia Rose   - This will be crucial for my critical investigation as this quotation talks about how hip-hop is gravely 'ill' ill connoting negative vibes. It also gives examples of ways in which it is 'ill'; being able to help me whilst writing up my critical investigation as my topic discusses hip-hop's negative effect within today's current society. 

2) 'Queen Latifah's U.N.I.T.Y which won a Grammy in 1993, presents the perfect starting example of a black woman bringing wreck in Hip Hop.' - Check it While I Wreck it: Black Womanhood, Hip-hop Culture, and the Public ... - Gwendolyn D.Pough - From this, racial issues are brought up as stereo typically, within the hip hop industry, most of the rappers are known to be black according to today's society ever since rap originated from Brooklyn, NY. However, contemporary white artists such as Eminem and Macklemore have fit into the rap/hip-hop place claiming their places as 'brilliant rappers', linking to the cultivation  of these white rappers trying to fit into society allowing them to become more like the other successful rappers. 

3) 'The song is also an instance of outspokenness in that she calls attention to sexual harassment, domestic violence, and the influence negative images of black womanhood have on black women.' - Check it While I Wreck it: Black Womanhood, Hip-hop Culture, and the Public ... - Gwendolyn D.Pough - Linking to sexuality and sexism being an extremely controversial topic within the industry of rap and hip hop and this will help me talk about the negative impacts that rap has upon society leading back to the question asked originally.

4) 'As we categorise artists along the lines of positive and negative, good and bad, skilled and stupid, we should pause and reconsider our strategies.' - Telling the audience to reconsider judging themselves before judging other people within the music industry. 

 5) 'Many of Biggies music videos celebrated the trappings of wealth, while scantily clad women surrounded men [...] There were lyrics of hustling and lyrics of sexual exploitation.' - Again linking to sexual references, showing women to be inferior to men portraying them to be their 'bitches, hoes' usually not giving them enough respect opposed to men. Also, it shows what rap is usually about 'hustling' meaning a strive to get money usually by doing negative things such as selling drugs or stripping for example being a disadvantage and making a negative impact upon the audience for the genre on rap. - Prophets of the Hood: Politics and Poetics in Hip Hop. By Imani Perry


6) 'Hip-hop exposes the current punishment regime as profoundly unfair. It demonstrates this view by, if not glorifying law breakers, at least not viewing all criminals with the disgust which the law seeks to attach to them' - Much Respect: Toward a Hip-Hop Theory of Punishment - By Paul Butler - Showing a sense of more negative topic of sensitive discussion talking about how rappers are negative rapping about things such as breaking the law and how it may be 'glorified' and by doing this may encourage a sense of violence to the listeners of the lyrics as they may want to be like their idols which include rappers such as Lil Wayne for example. 

7) 'The ghetto, in all of its negative complexity, is still heralded as an idealised space for minority teens teens within rap's cultural discourses precisely because its considered as being somehow what 'real' than other spaces and places, leading Robin Kelley to the observation that "to be a 'real nigga' is to have been a product of the ghetto.' - The 'Hood Comes First: Race, Space, and Place in Rap and Hip-Hop
 By Murray Forman

8) 'This study investigated short-term effects of exposure to hip-hop music videos with varying degrees of sexual imagery on viewers' acceptance of the objectification of women, sexual permissiveness, gender attitudes, and rape myth acceptance.' - Does Exposure to Sexual Hip-Hop Music Videos Influence the Sexual Attitudes of College Students? - Michelle E. Kristler 

9) 'Potentially negative influence of rap music was found in some empirical studies summarised the literature by stressing that adolescents who preferred rap music and heavy metal were at higher risks of poor academic achievement, delinquency, anti-social behaviour and substance use than any other adolescents.' 

10) Preference for French rap had the strongest links to deviant behaviors, whereas preference for hip hop/soul was linked to less deviant behaviors. Results are discussed within the psychosocial and sociocognitive perspectives on music influence in adolescence and also within the perspective of normative deviant behaviors in adolescence. 
-- Rap Music Genres and Deviant Behaviours in French-Canadian Adolescents - 

Dave Miranda, 

 

Michel Claes

Self evaluation

Critical investigation

WWW: Previously set targets have been met. 

More notes have been added to the blog. 

Healthy progress in terms of note taking. 

EBI: 

1) Complete everything off  including most of the proposal

2) Make more notes

3) Use a wide range of resources rather than just the internet such as more books, newspaper articles, magazines i.e. media magazine which can be accessed both online and by borrowing  Mr Bush's copies. 

4) Use different websites compared to just sticking to the mainstream websites such as the Daily Mail. 

5) More use of a range of articles. 

5 links.

1) http://www.ehow.com/about_5418679_negative-rap-hip-hop-music.html

Glorifying Violence

Sexualization

• The popularity of music videos has reinforced the overt sexuality found in hip-hop music.

Misconceptions

2) http://www.collegenet.com/elect/app/app?service=external/Forum&sp=3940

People's views on Hip-hop being both positive and negative.

The principal said that artists like Cam'ron were such huge influences on the kids' lives that when the artists included subjects such as "pimpin' and b****es" in their music, and glamourized violence and street life, that the children were quick to follow.

3) http://www.ehow.com/facts_5589579_effects-rap-music-teen-society.html

Racial Stereotypes

• We would like to think that America has healed from its harsh racial past, but that's not so. Rap music reinforces racial stereotypes by projecting black males as primarily criminals or unfaithful partners who lack character. This makes it harder for young black men who do the right thing to get noticed.

Degrading

• Teenage boys should be raised to treat all women with respect, but when they see constant images of women dancing in a raunchy manner or as going along with the mistreatment from men in the video, they learn to adopt this belief.

4) http://www.ehow.com/facts_5761873_rap-music-bad-influence-children_.html 

Drugs

• Over the past 20 years there has been an increase in lyrics that reference drugs in rap music, according to a study published in Addiction Research & Theory.

Grades

• Parents admit that rock music and rap have had a bad influence on their sons' grades, according to an article in Adolescence. The article also noted that the adolescent boys had a poor academic record before they started listening to rap and rock.

5) http://voices.yahoo.com/african-american-art-influence-hip-hop-community-67979.html 

It's amazing that music can have that type of influential ability. Even more amazing when you dissect a particular song and strip it down to it's lyrical form

The influence of Hip-Hop is tremendous! At one point in the decade of the 1990s era, two particular rappers had two sides of the United States hating each other. Perhaps because many of those participants were misinformed about the influence of music. Many Artists have gone on record to tell their fans to 'not do what I do.' In other words, don't follow the same steps as the music.

But younger and less informed crowds still continue to do the same. After 27 years of successful music producing throughout the hip-hop industry, many listeners still haven't gotten the clearer the picture that the people they admire are artists. An artist is a person who is a performer, a character or a creator of something unique. Rap artists are paid millions of dollars to express themselves on top of flashy percussions and rhythm.

Tutorial Targets 5.11.13

• Read and make notes on media magazine article on hip-hop
• Copy more notes onto blog and include page references 
• Check other students' blogs for more references
• Use Amazon to research more books