Life involves many hardships that may seem impossible to overcome, but with the right amount of strength, one can move beyond the wall of struggle, pain, hate, depression, and any set back. Many can relate to the events in this book because it was written by a normal person, living a normal life, who faced many problems just like any human being, yet, these struggles relate just as much to various theories. Some experiences in Buck come from the negative representation of woman, oppression of Malo, Amina, and Uzi, and Afrocentricity of Chaka. By observing this, M.K. Asante’s book, Buck, can be viewed through a Feminism, Marxism, and New Historicism theoretical lens.
The decade of hip-hop is what some may call it. Tupac, Naz, Biggie Smalls, as well as other artists, were major contributions. Not only for the people who are trying to find their footing, but Buck as well. Throughout the book various lyrics were embedded in order to create a better understanding for its readers. In addition, this book is based upon a 90s lifestyle within Philadelphia, which included drugs, gang activity, crime, hip-hop, and havoc. Malo was directly in the center of everything, the girls, the fights, the guns. His experiences shed light towards what it’s like to as an African American individual living in or near the hood. Not everyone realizes what people go through while living there, but now it gives some readers an image of what goes on. Though times have changed, not all previous feelings
The rest of the chapter talks about the similarity of minstrel images in 1990s hip-hop, as evidenced by the defining characteristics of greed, violence, hyper sexuality and pathos in “gangsta rap” (a sub-genre of hip-hop further defined in chapter two). Ogbar balances this landscape with challenges to what he calls “neo-minstrelsy” from both inside and outside the hip-hop community, including discussions of the Spike Lee movie, Bamboozled, underground conscious hip-hop groups such as The Roots and Little Brother, and the activist “Stop Coonin’ Movement”, to name a few. Throughout the book, Ogbar explains how rappers strive for authenticity by “keepin’ it real”. And that is defined by how they rap, walk, talk, and make their
Music and society have always been closely related. For years now music has been apart of people’s everyday lives all around the world. Having so many different genres out there, it makes it easy to be appealing to so many different ethnic backgrounds. However, one type of genre in particular has seemed to grab the attention of a younger generation. Rap music has undoubtedly had its utmost impact on African American youth, since many of the performers themselves are African American. An overtly masculine culture dominates rap music and creates gender stereotypes that become abundantly popular to the youthful audience. Three constant themes that are found within the rap culture are encouragement of violence, the misogynistic representation of women, an extreme hatred of homophobia. Each theme plays a detrimental role in the process of defining black masculinity as well as shaping the values, morals, and beliefs that its younger audience adopts after tuning into this “gangster lifestyle”.
Hip hop paints pictures of poverty, violence, and thug life. Jay-Z says, “the story of the hustler was the story hip-hop was born to tell- not its only story, but the story that found its voice in the form and, in return, helped grow into an art” (Jay-Z, 18). This shows how hip hop became the voice for people living in the ghetto. The hustler’s story created a connection with a global audience that defined the life of pure struggle (Jay-Z, 18). For instance, Jay-Z was raised in Brooklyn’s drug-infested projects causing him to have a rough adolescence. He became a hustler to afford material items and help his mother pay for the bills like most teenagers in his generation. Jay-Z explains how teenagers were wearing automatic weapons as if they were sneakers. Instead of focusing on education, teenagers were worrying about adult responsibilities. Consequently, teenage roles were shifting in negative
In your article “Hip Hop Planet”, you write about the global impact of hip hop, and the powerful message it contains. You first came across hip hop at a party, and didn’t like it much. In fact you seem to hate it, until 26 years later, when you started to regret that you have missed a very important and cultural event. A vision is going through your head about your daughter falling in love with a rapper, which caused you to think twice about hip hop. Although, you don’t seem to like the sound and the beat from hip hop, you begin to realize how the lyrics contain powerful and meaningful messages. In the article, you talk about your first experience with hip hop, and your thoughts about it. You also describe the stereotypes of hip hop, and how
The misunderstood subculture of music that many have come to know as “hip-hop” is given a critical examination by James McBride in his essay Hip-Hop Planet. McBride provides the reader with direct insight into the influence that hip-hop music has played in his life, as well as the lives of the American society. From the capitalist freedom that hip-hop music embodies to the disjointed families that plague this country, McBride explains that hip-hop music has a place for everyone. The implications that he presents in this essay about hip-hop music suggest that this movement symbolizes and encapsulates the struggle of various individual on
As thorough and rewarding as Bradley’s close reading can be, it is this sole focus that becomes problematic in Book of Rhymes. He stays on the surface, privileging the discussion of linguistic elements over cultural impact. He begins his wordplay chapter with an anecdote about a friend who disapproves of the misogynistic and violent elements of the Notorious B.I.G.’s lyrics, a qualm addressed by Bradley in a customary manner: “It’s not what he’s saying, it’s how he’s saying it” (86). Bradley is partially correct; how he’s saying it is the aesthetically appealing aspect of hip hop, the reason millions of people around the world enjoy the music. But what he’s saying is the more compelling aspect. The environment that produced the attitudes reflected in hip hop, the source of Biggie’s misogyny and violent imagery, must be given its proper treatment in order to understand rap music on deeper levels than the beauty and complexity of its poetic structures.
American Writer James McBride, who wrote the essay "Hip Hop Planet", spent most of his life disliking the culture of hip hop, but after some research and personal experience, he had a change of heart. The purpose of his essay is to shine a positive light on hip hop culture and move his audience-- people who think it is all bad-- to have a change of heart like him, and to achieve his purpose, he uses rhetorical strategies including appeals, specific diction, and meticulous sentence structure.
In his memoir, Losing My Cool, Thomas Chatterton Williams describes how his identity was formed based on hip-hop culture and the ideologies surrounding it. Losing My Cool allows readers to look through a lens and see how popular culture shaped Williams’s identity, like it has for many black youths. Music, sports, and fashion have all had important roles in changing the way the author thinks. Although the subject matter is completely different from what I have experienced in my own life, I often found myself drawing parallels between Williams’s life and my own.
In this article, the speaker must be an expert in politics, ethnicity and the music industry. There is a linkage between the above fields hence the speaker must have had a superlative background on these issues. The audience targeted by this literature were seemingly music enthusiasts to be educated on understanding what Hip-Hop entails and hoped to achieve this as it was established. The subject was Hip-Hop as a music genre that was largely developed by African American men to express their plight on injustice and oppression. The principal issue was how Hip-Hop has been used as a form of resistance and need for deliverance of the African Americans.
Rap music, also known as hip-hop, is a popular art form. Having risen from humble origins on the streets of New York City during the mid-1970s, hip-hop has since become a multifaceted cultural force. Indeed, observers say, hip-hop is more than just music. The culture that has blossomed around rap music in recent decades has influenced fashion, dance, television, film and—perhaps what has become the most controversially—the attitudes of American youth. For many rappers and rap fans during it’s early time, hip-hop provided an accurate, honest depiction of city life that had been considered conspicuously absent from other media sources, such as television. With a growing number of rap artists within this period, using hip-hop as a platform to call for social progress and impart positive messages to listeners, the genre entered a so-called Golden Age
At the beginning of Buck’s journey he is cared for and well nurtured. At the start, Buck gets kidnapped, and he is set in a completely new environment. This new world has wild dogs, mean people, and minimal room for mistakes. Buck is forced to make a conversion otherwise he’ll die. “All the stirring of old instincts which at stated periods drives men out from the sounding cities to forest to plain to kill things.” Buck awakens his instincts to survive in this unforgiving place, he kills to survive, to have fun, and to feel free.
It has been 30 years since Hip-Hop was first “introduced” to the world. Whether it be fashion or politics, this musical genre/culture plays a huge role in everyday life and has generated billions of dollars across the globe. In this paper I will be discussing when, where, and how Hip-Hop was created, “old school Hip-Hop, “Hip-Hop’s Golden Age”, “Hardcore rap” “Gangsta rap”, “G-Funk”, 21st century Hip-Hop, and how Hip-Hop affects society.
Hip-Hop is a cultural movement that emerged from the dilapidated South Bronx, New York in the early 1970’s. The area’s mostly African American and Puerto Rican residents originated this uniquely American musical genre and culture that over the past four decades has developed into a global sensation impacting the formation of youth culture around the world. The South Bronx was a whirlpool of political, social, and economic upheaval in the years leading up to the inception of Hip-Hop. The early part of the 1970’s found many African American and Hispanic communities desperately seeking relief from the poverty, drug, and crime epidemics engulfing the gang dominated neighborhoods. Hip-Hop proved to be successful as both a creative outlet for
Buck was a part Scotch shepherd and St.Bernard. He was tan, brown, and black. Buck was neither a house-dog, nor a kennel-dog.Buck also lived the life as a sated aristocrat. He weighed one hundred and forty pounds. Buck lived at sun-kissed Santa Clara Valley for four years.
The book is a witty novel that explains the hard life of Buck. Buck is a sled dog during his life went through different owners. Buck suffer from the wrath and injustices of ruthless own soul corrupted by greed for gold, up relations of friendship and loyalty with your best Thornton owner who passed through his life. Despite being written in 1903 by Jack London, it stays fresh and acutal. Jack speaks of materialism and dehumanization of human beings as well as the relationship of fidelity, love, affection and friendship between different people. I find that is a highly recommended book, makes us think in the 21st century on the dehumanization and relations of human beings with nature and mother earth. Despite being a book of the past century