'Hip hop is not dead, but gravely
ill.’
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’
.
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.’
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’ 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’
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'
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.' 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.’
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.”
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." 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’
,
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’
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
’s
theory of ‘black skin, white masks’
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’
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.”
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.’
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.' 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!’ (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’ to be more encouraged
into wanting to be more like him and wanting to use more guns. Medhurst’s theory
of ‘short-hand stereotypes’
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’
. ‘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.”
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.
'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.' 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.’
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.’
‘The popularity of
music videos has reinforced the overt sexuality found in hip-hop music.’
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'
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’
,
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
to discuss that ‘male gaze’
is one of the main reasons for the success of many explicit music videos some
of which include F**kin' Problems, ‘Dance A$$’
ft. Nicki Minaj, ‘23’
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.’
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’ 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’. 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’ 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. Therefore,
the consumption of misogynistic music can influence audience perceptions of
misogynistic content, but does not directly lead to “subsequent aggressive
actions”’
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’
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.’ Moreover, ‘Public Enemy were more political
within the starting ages of hip-hop’
,
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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