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A Brief Note On The Hip Hop Industry Essay

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YG, an inner city black rapper within the hip hop industry, is a Blood gang member who was born and raised in Compton, California. Pitbull, on the other hand, is a Cuban hip hop artist, born in Miami, Florida, and is been more famously recognized within the music industry, in terms of fame and financial success. While these two artists come from opposite ends of the country, they do share similarities within their music and performance of hip hop culture, in that they both utilize problematic themes like misogyny, sexual objectification, and violence towards women in their lyrics and music videos, which are notorious subjects within hip hop music. They also pair this with rhetoric that glamorizes and fetishizes partying, drugs, and alcohol, as well, performing in flashy ensemble and jewelry as a display of wealth and class. YG and Pitbull also express pride within their music for their backgrounds and where they come from, as Pitbull often incorporates Spanish within his lyrics and even discusses Cuban politics in his song “Give Me Everything.” This is an important reference because Cuba is also very much much involved with hip hop culture, especially in American hip hop culture, by artists like Pitbull, who “ using body posturing and gesture evocative of U.S. rap performances, their lyrics are sung in a distinctly Cuban Spanish vernacular over rhythms often incorporating Afro-Cuban musical elements” (Neal & Forman, 2012, pg. 302). YG utilizes this same theme as he often

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