Rap started off as a fun way to release stress and relax long ago mainly in the form of free styling, (a streamed form of conscious improvised flowing) a.k.a "off the dome," graffiti, beat boxing, djing and scratching, and poetry. Since the beginning, rap has mainly discussed hardships and joys with what's happening around the rapper's community and life. Lyrics were very explicit since most mainstream rappers in the early days spoke of gangs, sex and women, drugs, violence, money, and trying to "live the life". The explicit lyrical content of most rap songs is the reason it hasn't flourished into a wide-spread genre fully embraced by society. Harsh words degrading females and promoting drugs and violence aren't things our parents want to here. The people that listen to rap music usually come from the same background as the people that rap, however this is not always the case. For instance, Tupac
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He came from California and promoted peace and happiness through his lyrics that talked about his life struggles and what was wrong with the world we live in such as racism and social injustices which he based on the hardships of growing up and having to deal with violence and life in inner cities. Most of his original following were the people that grew up around him that he influenced as a young man in Californian streets who had similar problems that listened as coping methods and to relieve tension. But after acknowledgement and popularity struck he was a worldwide phenomenon. After his promotion, Tupac’s following became multicultural because of the deep meanings fans could relate to in his songs and the sound and flow he rapped to over his beats.
Tupac along with hundreds of rappers paved the way to the rap game and influenced its audience. A study was done in which 700 15 year-olds listened to rap music that was sexually degrading for a period of time. After listening they were asked about their opinions and all of them respectively had a degraded image of sex in their mind. Drugs, another huge topic in rap and hip-hop music has also influenced many teens around the world. An increase in the use of drugs by teens can be correlated to rap through the lyrics again. Rappers talk about many types of drugs they have used and gotten high on sparking curiosity in teens that don't know about them and want to experiment.
Another thing rap has done to society is help change the image of the American Dream. The American Dream used to be to own a nice house in a nice neighborhood with a fence, lawn, two kids, spouse, nice neighbors and friends, and enough money to live adequately. With the excess of jewelry, a.k.a bling, drugs, houses, clothes, shoes, and purchases, the life of a rapper is highly desirable. Therefore the rapper attracts audiences and crowds and performs better with more popularity creating a star and influential figure that many rely on to cope with how the roller coaster of life is moving. Depending on what this figure does and how easily influenced the particular fan is, it indirectly influences its fan base to think almost everything the rapper does is acceptable and something they should be doing too.
Rap has continued to influence the youth of the nation. A study was done in which 700 15 year-olds listened to rap music that was sexually degrading for a period of time. After listening they were asked about their opinions and all of them respectively had a degraded image of sex in their mind. Drugs, another huge topic in rap and hip-hop music has also influenced many teens around the world. An increase in the use of drugs by teens can be correlated to rap through the lyrics again. Rappers talk about many types of drugs they have used and gotten high on sparking curiosity in teens that don't know about them and want to experiment. Another thing rap has done to society is help change the image of the American Dream. The American Dream used to be to own a nice house in a nice neighborhood with a fence, lawn, two kids, spouse, nice neighbors and friends, and enough money to live adequately. With the excess of jewelry, a.k.a bling, drugs, houses, clothes, shoes, and purchases, the life of a rapper is highly desirable. Therefore the rapper attracts audiences and crowds and performs better with more popularity creating a star and influential figure that many rely on to cope with how the roller coaster of life is moving.
Rap has influenced society greatly both negatively and positively but the point is that in order for rap to continue and maintain a healthy relationship with society is if it loses its references to very hardcore and demeaning things such as cocaine and other strong illicit drugs. In order for the future of hip-hop to be bright new stars need to emerge and promote good causes and influence society in the right direction and put out some sick tracks.
I like the unique subject matter you have for your blog. I also enjoy your brief history of how rap started. There are a lot of things that can be improved though.
ReplyDeleteFirst, I am not clear about your goal. Are you suggesting that rap artists begin to "clean up" their lyrics? And that if they dont the global community will think less of them? The environment in which rap was created was one of endemic drug use and inner city violence. These phenomenon understandably came out in their lyrics. It is important to understand that any art form is a function of the artists. A rap artist (ideally) produces music that is an expression of their feelings, rather than music that caters to the preferences of their audience. Another point you mention is that many parents do not want their to hear the explicit lyrics contained in many rap songs that they children listen to. Many adolescents listen to music their parents disagree with intentionally, as a form of rebellion. You seem to have repeated some sentences, verbatim, twice throughout your blog. ---The American Dream used to be to own a nice house in a nice neighborhood with a fence, lawn, two kids, spouse, nice neighbors and friends, and enough money to live adequately. With the excess of jewelry, a.k.a bling, drugs, houses, clothes, shoes, and purchases, the life of a rapper is highly desirable. Therefore the rapper attracts audiences and crowds and performs better with more popularity creating a star and influential figure that many rely on to cope with how the roller coaster of life is moving.---
This is a relatively large chunk of text of repeat. Another instance of this happening is when you wrote---
A study was done in which 700 15 year-olds listened to rap music that was sexually degrading for a period of time. After listening they were asked about their opinions and all of them respectively had a degraded image of sex in their mind. Drugs, another huge topic in rap and hip-hop music has also influenced many teens around the world. An increase in the use of drugs by teens can be correlated to rap through the lyrics again. Rappers talk about many types of drugs they have used and gotten high on sparking curiosity in teens that don't know about them and want to experiment.---
This is obviously a large problem as these portions of text are quite large and literally identical. I dont know how this happened, maybe you accidentally hit a hot while you were typing. Either way, you will need to find new bodies for the paragraphs that these texts are pulled from. I also think you should focus more on the global aspects of your blog. How exactly is rap going global? Has it recently become a part of the global music community? I think it is ill advised to make the focus of your blog the censorship of certain themes within rap. I heartily agree that the derogatory names for women and positive portrayal of drugs is a negative aspect of this genre of music. Rap is an art form though, and like other art forms its content should not be decided by the audiences that experience them. Maybe you could examine different subject matters adressed by rap artists in nations throughout the world? The study you cite should also be referenced to show its validity. The correlation you mention between increased drug use among teenagers and mention of drugs in rap should also be referenced. To say that a particular type of music increased drug use among a certain demographic is a very powerful statement. You mispelled "hear" as here. Attributing the loss of the American Dream to rap music is also problematic. In a social sense, the American Dream was forever altered if not abandoned in the cultural upheaval of the 1960s in the United States. Perhaps you should say that it influences its audiences to pursue the wrong goals.
The blog is interesting and seems to come from a topic you are generally interested in however there are both good and bad things about your blog. Starting off with the bad and take in to mind that this might just be me but the yellow writing is fairly hard to read. The colors do however create a good combination so if you could increase the size of the font it might help, but nearing the end my eyes were getting sore. The introduction could have been a little more involved as it was actually fairly easy to read. You appear to know what you’re talking about and the flow is natural very blog like. Tupac is in interesting subject in the rap world because his style went against a lot of other rappers of the time, even many rappers of today. It is interesting to see that an art form that came out of hard times and oppression can be used to spread peace and happiness. The problem of repetitive text in your blog however kills the ending. Your build is nice and the placement of everything works but when text and statistics repeat themselves verbatim it becomes a problem and the reader will begin to skim.
ReplyDeleteThe statistic in which a study was done in which 700 15 year-olds listened to rap music that was sexually degrading for a period of time. After listening they were asked about their opinions and all of them respectively had a degraded image of sex in their mind. This is actually a confusing statistic for you to have in your blog because you seem to push for rap’s acceptance, but not many people are going to want to accept a medium that is sexually degrading. Your blog doesn’t really push for anything it keeps a laid back informational stance and could be much better if it were to have a more clear purpose for telling people the history of rap. The effect on the struggle of acceptance through the acquisition of material goods was a good example of where expansion into how it has effected the youth and perhaps even a guess for how the future looks for the people trying to reach the level of the famed.
Over all your blog could use some work and I don’t mean to tear you down I think that there could be some really interesting research and there are a cornucopia of souses you can draw from. The influence of gangs, money, religion, and even expanding into rap music’s influence on people out side of the U.S. are all viable directions for your blog to consider. It would be nice to see more information on different rappers, different styles of rapping, maybe a link or two to a video or audio file. There is a lot of directions this blog can go and if it reads as well as the beginning of the blog it will surely be good. Keep in mind while adding to your blog that the aspects should be seen globally so try not to focus too locally.
Nick Gathings
This was a really great contest and hopefully I can attend the next one. It was alot of fun and I really enjoyed myself.. buy hip hop beats
ReplyDelete