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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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