MEST 4 : Critical Investigation

'Hip hop is not dead, but gravely ill.’[1]

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

Within the past 20-30 years, ‘rap music has made a drastic change within the music industry like any other genre of music’[2]. Artists have developed into such people that make their audiences follow everything they do, how they act and what they aspire to have. This genre of music is well-known for having a huge impact mainly upon the new generation with artists such as Lil Wayne, Eminem, Jay-Z, Kanye West etc. It is said that hip-hop has not only evolved within the past few years that have passed, but has changed continuously all along. The contemporary factor of hip-hop, rather than having more positive values, through time, artists have evolved to put materialistic factors before anything else which is not morally correct however, other materialistic factors such as educating the overall target audience of the youth about being more peaceful, for example, can be seen as a morally correct factor; hence, instead, contemporary artists encourage the opposite of starting war instead of putting a halt to it; being one of many examples as to how the target audience of hip-hop music are being affected in a negative way. ‘Hip-Hop is a mode of repetition and revision.’ [3] This has been clearly shown on the younger generation of teenager, who have copied what artists in contemporary hip-hop showcase. This links to Blumler and Katz’ theory of Uses and Gratifications, ‘this approach focuses on why people use particular media rather than on content’ [4] as these youths feel as if they have the ‘personal identity’ with the specific artists that they are listening to. Due to the youths feeling of the same ‘level’ as such with them in order to fit into society to impress their peers for example.

‘Although some artists within the music industry talk about the positive representations of women within their songs’[5] such as Usher for example on the basis of love, there also a lot of negative representations within not only the rap, but the whole music industry talking about the negative representations of women. For example, Eminem's old days of Slim Shady, his lyrics were easy to hear, hence, easy to interpret by the audience and as he did this, he would make women such as Kim Kardashian or Paris Hilton look like rich yet very 'slutty'[6] women within the industry being one of the many negative representations for women being portrayed within a undesirable manner. ‘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.'[7] This leads to the misleading representation of today's society showing women to be of a less importance and more of objects for men in order to meet their needs of sexual satisfaction.

‘Rap artists… have drawn upon samples of such past political figures such as Malcolm X to comment upon contemporary events and to make young African-American listeners aware of their own past.’[8] Artists such as Flava Flav, Chuck D, DJ Lord formed a group called ‘Public Enemy’ famous for their 'politically charged' music. This group formed in 1982 and targeted their own races' concerns within their music in order to get the word out as to how the African-American people felt at the time. For example, topics discussed within their music included political, social and cultural consciousness. As the racism topic was one of the worries of the African-American residents, the group was shown to attack the audience with their strong beliefs within people such as Elvis which were glorified within the music industry. “The trio became friends, talking philosophy, politics, and hip-hop late into the night.”[9] The lyric from their song of 'Fight The Power' stated "Elvis was a hero to most, But he never meant shit to me you see, Straight up racist that sucker was, Simple and plain, Mother fuck him and John Wayne, Cause I'm Black and I'm proud."[10] Talking about how as white people such as Elvis or John Wayne believed in racism and the members of Public Enemy believed within and were for this argument of wanting white people to be separated from the black people. This movement was called ‘The Nation of Islam’[11], leading to influencing more people to create a divide between black and white people and ultimately causing more controversy within the 1980's as this era was arguably known for being heavily controversial. Alvarado’s theory links to this as the members of Public Enemy are all black and may be seen as intimidating within society linking to black people being two of the four things that Alvarado mentioned of black people being ‘dangerous’ and also ‘pitied’[12] due to the racism that took place within that certain period of time. Also, another theory which goes against the idea of black people trying to fit in within is Fanon[13]’s theory of ‘black skin, white masks’[14] This group subverts this theory as instead of trying to fit in within the society run by people who were of a white race going against what Fanon said about how ‘Negros’[15] will try to fit into a white society. Public Enemy’s lyric of “Cause I’m black and proud.” shows the audience how they are proud of who they are linking to what ideologies the group believed in of ‘The Nation of Islam’.

The elder generation have an inclination of blaming rap for much of the violence that goes on within the younger world.” [16] This quotation goes with my original question of how ultimately, within today’s contemporary hip-hop music, how negative factors such as violence are consisted within not only the lyrics of the rap but also how it has evolved over the past few decades. This links to Perkin’s theory of how there is some element of truth within each stereotype linking to target the elder generation for the violence that goes on within today’s generation. ‘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.’[17]

Perkin’s theory of how stereotypes have an element of truth within them link to this. 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 being one section of how quickly technology has changed within the past few years as within the past, old hip-hop would not have this problem occurring as much as not as many negative topics would be up for discussion as much as today's contemporary artists which include Lil Wayne, Drake, A$ap Rocky etc. Furthermore, as violence is another factor which has escalated since the days of when rap was once a more political genre than anything else, due to this more people have become more encouraged to be violent. 'The elder generation have an inclination of blaming rap for much of the violence that goes on within the younger world.' [18] an example for this quotation is one of the rap groups called Public Enemy which could have been seen to be starting a certain type of war which may have led to connotations of violence leading to artists such as Chief Keef within today’s society to come up with subliminal catch-phrases such as ‘Bang Bang!’[19] (connotations include gun violence) which may be seen to be brain washing and making more of Chief Keef’s target audience which are ranged from ’15-20’ [20] to be more encouraged into wanting to be more like him and wanting to use more guns. Medhurst’s theory of ‘short-hand stereotypes’[21] is highlighted and talks about and how the stereotype of teenagers being seen as violent within the views of the elder generation as they associate rap with violence and link it to young people. Also dependant on their backgrounds for example, if they were born and raised within a black family, then this may lead more people to link them to rap and violence and stereotypically, most rap artists within the music industry are black and rap originally started off with a black person, ‘DJ Kool Herc’[22]. ‘Hip-hop is an iteration of black language, black music, black style and black youth culture.’ The elder generation have an inclination of blaming rap for much of the violence that goes on within the younger world.” [23] This quotation goes with my original question of how ultimately, within today’s contemporary hip-hop music, how negative factors such as violence are consisted within not only the lyrics of the rap but also how it has evolved over the past few decades. This links to Perkin’s theory of how there is some element of truth within each stereotype[24] linking to target the elder generation for the violence that goes on within today’s generation.

'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.'[25] Moreover, the theory of hegemony can be used within this section as the target audience of young men listening to music which ridicules women and portrays them to be objects, may influence this target audience, who may want to be like artists such as Eminem to also treat the women in the negative ways. For example, domestic violence also plays a big role within this, as within Eminem's very violent song called 'Kim', senseless lyrics are used such as 'Bleed b*tch, bleeeeeeeed.’[26] The song also talks about violent factors such as slitting his ex-wife's throat due to his anger being very sadistic and ultimately cruel leading to the encouragement of (domestic) violence and violence in general also leading to talking about sex discrimination of how women are seen to be of a lower stature than men and the song ‘Kim’ clearly states that. ‘Gangsta rap is a hip-hop genre that focuses primarily on the negative aspects of inner city life. The lyrics often glorify criminal activity and degrade women.’[27]

‘The popularity of music videos has reinforced the overt sexuality found in hip-hop music.’[28]Due to today's society of rap music developing into having lots of swear words, it could be argued that culture is evolving into portraying artists to lacking creativity. For example songs such as 'F**kin' Problems'[29] it is shown that the song has two versions one being explicit and one being clean this is because as the song turned out to be so popular, it tended to be broadcasted upon the radio, mainly on hip-hop channels such as ‘89.5 FM - Ghetto Radio’[30], this song would be played often and in order to be allowed to play, it needed a clean version. Furthermore, within the music video, there are a lot of women dancing around wearing clothing which may come across as provocative to men, leading to theorists such as Laura Mulvey[31] to discuss that ‘male gaze’[32] is one of the main reasons for the success of many explicit music videos some of which include F**kin' Problems, ‘Dance A$$’[33] ft. Nicki Minaj, ‘23’[34] etc. It can be argued that within today's contemporary Hip-Hop genre, the music videos try to relate to the category of pornography and due to this, it may encourage more people to be astounded and shocked by not only the explicit lyrics but also the scenery that is being displayed within the music video; by doing this creates a huge discussion and causes a lot of controversy as, as well as adults viewing the explicit music videos, the younger generation of children can also access and view the videos raising questions such as:

Are children being brainwashed and encouraged to watch more videos which contain violence and explicit content? ‘Violence is literally everywhere in media. And it's becoming harder to avoid.’ [35] The answer to that question is no one knows, however, research shows that a lot of heavy exposure to media which is violent, and in this case music videos; it can be very risky for children as they may be influenced into engaging into violent behaviour. Artists such as Nicki Minaj wear provocative clothing and create dance moves within music videos such as ‘twerking’[36] within her music videos. One example of this is her music video of ‘Beez in the Trap’ ft. 2 Chainz which shows two women twerking and wearing less, provocative clothing encouraging ‘male gaze’[37]. On the other hand, as Nicki Minaj is one of the few female rappers within the music industry, this may encourage the target audience of females to aspire to be like Nicki Minaj and may imitate her as they may see her as a role model going with the theory of the ‘Bobo Doll Experiment’[38] and can be use within this case as the target audience are mimicking Nicki Minaj as she promotes negative factors of sexuality.

However, a question still stands of how audiences use hip-hop. ‘While a correlation may exist between exposure to misogynistic music and audience attitudes regarding violent acts against women, a causal link cannot be demonstrated between listening habits and resulting misogynistic behaviour. [39]Therefore, the consumption of misogynistic music can influence audience perceptions of misogynistic content, but does not directly lead to “subsequent aggressive actions”[40]’[41]

Overall, contemporary hip-hop is represented to be a very negatively influenced genre upon its target audience as it has evolved over time to artists promoting factors such as ‘sex, drugs and violence’[42] artists such as ‘Odd Future 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.’[43] Moreover, ‘Public Enemy were more political within the starting ages of hip-hop’[44], things have changed and narrowed down to a more materialistic lifestyle leading mainly the youth generation to doing things which will lead them to being more like the artists that they look up to. For example, the use of ‘Iconography’ depicted within rappers’ music videos consisting of props such as knives, guns, drugs etc. this therefore encourages the younger generation of mainly teens to copy these artists and to use what they are promoting within reality. In society, there is a moral panic (Stanley Cohen) due to parents who bring up their children and will be afraid of what they will become.

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