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Social Commentary In Rap Culture

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“its like a jungle sometimes, and it makes me wonder how I keep from going under… You’ll admire all the numberbook takers/ Thugs, pimps and pusher, and the big money makers (Grandmaster Flash). Grandmaster Flash’s 1982 rap hit “The Message” embodied an era in rap defined by social commentary and awareness of the struggles present primarily in the black community (McWhorter). From the United States to foreign countries such as France and South Korea, rap culture has been expanding internationally and dominating the majority of popular music since the late 1990’s (Sinclair). Over the past several decades, there has been a cultural shift concerning the content of “mainstream” rap music. Rappers and fans alike have grown accustomed to the profane …show more content…

Dr. Rachel Sullivan, an associate professor at Montgomery College, explores the influence of corporate control in the rap industry. “Rap like any other cultural product, is also subjected to corporate control, which could potentially limit antiracist messages because those messages may not be economically profitable” (617). Social commentary prevalent in the early stages of rap music has been replaced with the mass glorification of drug use, violence, and mistreatment of women in an effort to spread rap music beyond the black community, the genre’s main audience. The expanding audience alters the influences of rap music, as themes of black struggle and pride were not as popular with non-African American listeners (Sinclair). Rap has certainly been successful in spreading throughout the world, with notable acts such as MC Solaar out of France and rap collective Tae Ji Seo and Boys from Korea (Sinclair). The meteoric rise of rap music from racial empowerment for the black community to a cultural phenomenon comes at the price of the content that rappers and there record label give to their …show more content…

The youth of this generation spend an equal amounts of time at school and being influenced by rap music, the most popular genre of music for those ages. The common “sex, money, and drugs sell” trope has become all but a formality at this point. “The dirtiest rap sells,” and by 2003, the 10 best-selling rap artists were all considered gangster rappers (McWhorter). Rap music and its once wide variety of themes is narrowing, and becoming highly repetitive; worshipping materialism, murder, and misogyny (Staples). Many independent artists not signed to major labels still freely express their social message, however the large music corporations have removed the credibility from the mainstream genre and created a monopoly within the industry (Herd). Former BET executive Paul- Porter asserts, “I blame the record companies. They’re sticking with the same formula. Hip-hop is 30 years, and they’ve been stuck on stupid for 10 years” (qtd. in Chang). Record labels put far more weight on the records their artist sell than the points they make in their rhymes. Hip hop moguls such as Jimmy Iovine, CEO of Interscope records, ponder to the rebellious youth with the cliché music and create thuggish personas for their artists that many attempt to emulate

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902 Words | 4 Pages

For example, Grandmaster Flash, Melle Mel, and the Furious Five created a song named, “The Message” in 1982. “The Message” explains how the dislocation of black Americans force them to partake in criminal activity because of poverty and lack of resources. This particular song tells a story of the future. Throughout the hook Grandmaster Flash repeats, “It’s a jungle sometimes/ It makes me wonder how I keep from going under”(1).

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847 Words | 4 Pages

This music that once made visible the inner culture of America’s greatest social problem, its legacy of slavery, has taken the dream deferred to a global scale” (McBride, 3). McBride reveals how hip-hop talks about a nation’s social issues and makes people aware of them. This demonstrates that hip-hop is powerful because it educates people on both past and current issues that their nation has faced. Finally, hip-hop is stimulating and commanding because even though it has evolved, it still urges people to put an end to racial

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218 Words | 1 Pages

Jason Ankeny, a senior editor of Upstart magazine, stated in his article “Hip-Hop White Wash: The Impact of Eminem on Rap Music and Music Industry Economics” that Eminem’s background and lyrical attributes sustain him industry respect and street credibility. Ankeny’s statement demonstrates the impact he had

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540 Words | 3 Pages

Chapter two of Cathy J. Cohen’s book Democracy Remixed focuses on the implications of the negativity surrounding rap genre music. In addition, Cohen discusses the effects that popular black media figures have when trying to address the issue of troublesome youth and the vulgarity of their self-expression. Cohen believes that the older generation of the black community demonizes aspects of black youth culture when there are other factors to take into account when discussing the lack of success among young black people. These factors include modern oppression, a privation of adequate educational systems, the absences of low-wage, low skill jobs, unfair incarceration systems etc. Moreover, Cohen makes an argument that it is not only rap, but the voices inside the black community that help to demean black youths.

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323 Words | 2 Pages

To begin, in order to truly understand the commercialization of hip hop one has to understand what exactly it entails. For this, Elizabeth Blair’s “Commercialization of the Rap Music Subculture,” comes in handy. In her article, Blair states, “Rap music…has moved out of the inner cities and into the mainstream of popular culture” (Blair, 497). From this, one can gather that commercialization entails this moment when something goes from being unnoticed, to becoming something everyone is talking about or listening to (Blair, 497). Furthermore, Blair also shows how commercialization entails “promotion” (Blair, 497).

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1086 Words | 5 Pages

In the late 1970s, a new musical culture appeared that had a very important impact, not only upon American culture, but also upon American mentality, lifestyle, language and behavior. It was the hip-hop culture which was not all about music. It could build personality, change your mentality, and change your lifestyle. Hip-hop and rap have been cultivated by African American culture since it’s birth and it still presumes to be.

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392 Words | 2 Pages

“Beyond Beats and Rhymes” Summary This movie was a broad discussion about hip-hop music (or more specifically gangster rap) and what kind of social issues the music not only showcases but seems to promote. The producer of this film, Byron Hunt, interviewed people involved in all aspects of the hip-hop industry, including famous rappers, to try to get to the bottom of this. Some of the most prominent issues discussed in the film were the over-sexualization of women, gun violence, and anti- homophobic attitudes. Hunt would ask those involved in the industry about why they think these themes are so prevalent.

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1507 Words | 7 Pages

It is established that hip-hop can only be authentic to the black community because of the common experience shared through its lyrics. Eminem’s mimicry of a predominantly black industry within a predominantly white society is described as both ‘authentic’ and ‘grotesque’. The author suggests that Eminem’s success is due to the authenticity and acceptance in his socioeconomic status. The rapper can genuinely relate to his audience not by pretending to know what it’s like to be black, but by using a commonality, poverty, to reach an otherwise unreachable audience. Eminem establishes his racial identity as being ‘white trash’, but focuses on class over race to build his reputation in his early albums.

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1186 Words | 5 Pages

Hip Hop is seen as something inspiring, but most people see it as a way to speak out the truth about a problem. As in “Hip Hop planet” being able say the truth can sometimes worsen any situation because sometimes what we say can promote violence and whatever happens after is not in our control. The essay is about how hip hop has changed into speaking out the issues that need to be taken care of in order to maintain a proper society. McBride talked about how rappers use violent lyrics to degrade women and gays and because of this it shows how the music has evolved into something entirely different that no one would have ever expected to have changed. In James McBride's essay “Hip Hop Planet,” he argues that hip hop has a negative influence on American Culture despite people thinking of it as inspirational and how people live through different experiences in life despite of your race.

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1882 Words | 8 Pages

Hip-hop culture has been the topic of various academic, social, and political discourses. Rap music, in particular, has made its way to mainstream media which is evident in the numerous films and movies that centers on what was once a part of an underground culture. Scholars explain that the popularity of hip-hop in both music and films are partly due to its potential to disseminate information, address an issue, and promote social change. Tinson and McBride (2013), for example, note that hip-hop is a “…form of critical education at the intersection of, and inseparable from political engagement” (1). Scholars further note that hip-hop’s current state “…requires frequent accounting of its engagement with the social, political, and cultural climate

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662 Words | 3 Pages

Rap music has been controversial and in the forefront of the american media now and in the 90’s. Without the frame of its social context and history rap music can not be understood. Numerous media groups, politicians, and general society are quick to place blame on rap for the growing trend in youth violence. “Keep in mind when brothas start flexing the verbal skillz, it always reflects what's going on politically, socially, and economically”-- Musician Davey D. In the 1990’s music defined the era of rap music socially ,politically, and historically.

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2399 Words | 10 Pages

Some show African American women as strong to build them up and others show them as weak or needy exchanging sexual favors to obtain a particular lifestyle (Stephens & Few, 2007). Identities of African American woman are defined and perpetuated by those who have always held the power to create and distribute messages in the music business. Misogynistic views in hip hop are narrated by male Hip-Hop artists, but distributed for economic gain by record labels usually ran by wealthy Caucasian man —making the commodification of sexually scripted African American women highly profitable (Rebollo-Gil & Moras, 2012). The media has various methods of exposing the negative images of African American women such as mainstream rap to being heard on the radio, projected on television, downloaded on the Internet and consumed on YouTube. In the world of Hip-Hop and Rap, the sexual objectification of African American women is obvious, “bitch” and “hoe” are common labels used to describe women or to add insult to injury labels women call themselves.

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718 Words | 3 Pages

“Large business” (Spotlight 13), utilize “hip-hop artists as” (Spotlight14) spokesmen to gain attention. Many believe that by doing this companies are “purposefully --promoting negative values” (Spotlight15). Yet to say that all rappers promote negative values is completely bias, because as we have previously established not all rappers rap about negativity. “No connection is found between antisocial behavior in young people and controversial genres of music such as ‘gangster music’”

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634 Words | 3 Pages

After reading the article, Gangstas, Thugs, and Hustlas: Identity and the Code of the Street in Rap Music, C. Kubrin studies 403 songs of rap albums that portrays violence in the lyrics. The lyrics serve different functions that establish social identity, reputation and exerting social control. I will discuss why a street code exists, the violent behavior that rap music contains, and how rap music creates a social identity and exerts social control. Kubrin states that there is recent sociological research on identity, culture, and violence in inner city communities and how it describes a black youth culture or street code that influences adolescent behavior, particularly violent behavior (pg. 360).

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946 Words | 4 Pages

Nowadays, everyone wears the identity with pride. The genre was a testament to triumphing over hardships, to having enough confidence in oneself not to let the world drag you down, and to rising above the struggle, even when things seem hopeless. Violence in rap did not begin as an affective agent that threatened to harm America 's youth; rather, it was the outcry of an already-existing problem from youth whose world views have been shaped by the inequalities and prejudice they have experienced. The relentless wave of heroic new rappers arriving on the scene formed the golden age of hip hop in the 1980s, a newfound voice which rose from the impoverished ghettos during the 1980s and inspiring a generation of black youth to fight the police brutality they faced on a daily basis.

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