Comparison Of Hip Hop And Rap

Throughout our lives we struggle to understand one another and with social media taking over it has become harder to do so. Hate and misunderstandings are increasing more than ever, now is the time to reach out and understand one another better. As I have learned in Introduction to the Humanities one way to do this is by studying how people process and document the human experience. According to Stanford Humanities Center “since humans have been able, we have used philosophy, literature, religion, art, music, history and language to understand and record our world (Standford.edu).” I believe music can give insight, not only to people’s world but also understand our own world better, what is going on in our community, or others from a different

There are many genres of music all of which paint different stories, but my preferred is Hip Hop. Hip Hop and Rap expresses the struggles of growing up with hard working parents, racism, and the struggle to find self-love but that is not what everyone hears. Historically America has imposed damaging stereotypical ideas and images on the Black community based on the content of hip-hop and rap. As outsiders it is easy to assume these stereotypes are the truth for a whole genre because of the anger you hear in rapper’s voices and the cursing but if you listen you can hear the heartbreaking stories, the love, and the history. American composer Leonard Bernstein brilliantly said, “music can name the unnamable and communicate the unknowable.” Since the birth of hip-hop, which was discovered in the late 1970s in the South Bronx by DJ Kool Herc and Afrika Bambaataa, society has had a difficult time accepting the quality of rap. For the Black community, it was a way for everyone to have a voice; a way to express their ideas, struggles, and stories. Hip-hop combines two slang terms. Hip, which means in the know and Hop represents the hopping movement exhibited by hip-hop performers. Rapping is one of the elements of hip hop as well as the distinguishing feature of most hip-hop

The figure begins to dance down the street with moves so gracefully, you almost don’t realize his wrists are still cuffed. The idea of the video is that we are often shackled to structures of beauty. But when we comprehend it’s all in our heads, we can dance. You are already beautiful, and we can’t let our oppression control our narrative. To do this in the song Propaganda uses his own personal experiences and bullying to show that its normal and you can overcome it. With most mainstream rap being more about sex, drugs, fighting it is wonderful to see that there are rappers that are educating and using their own stories to help teach the youth of today about history, self-love, and