Arsenio Hall Show Analysis

In this book, Jeffrey Ogbar talks about the beginning of rap, where it started, some of the artists of this genre and some of the controversial topics the artists rap about. He also talks about the usage of the N word as well as men calling women the B word. In the first chapter of the book, Ogbar contextualizes the debate by talking about the history of the minstrel figure in American popular culture, relying mainly on the work of W. T. Lhamon and Patricia Hill Collins. He talks about how the earliest manifestations of hip-hop music in the 1970s came from the Black Power movement and often included direct rejections of minstrel tropes for example in the artist KRS-One’s song “My Philosophy”. Before going on a chronological study of the internal debates that many rappers have over their relationships with the minstrel trope, Ogbar finds the source of the debate in early twentieth-century black writers’, mainly W.E.B Du Bois, interest in elevating many portrayals of African Americans in the arts, versus Harlem Renaissance writers’ rejection of the emphasis on

One of the more prominent criticisms of hip that Rose points out is that there is a large amount of misplaced blame in the world of hip hop. She writes, “increasingly, too many of hip hop’s supporters point to structural racism to explain the origins of the problem but refuse to link these structural forces to individual action and to the power of media seduction” (p. 73). In this section of the second chapter, Rose is explaining that those who defend commercial hip hop are taking a more-or-less one-dimensional approach to their arguments by solely blaming structural racism and overlooking the

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”.

McLune also believes,“many hip-hop rappers are sexist and materialistic singers”(222), and not many rappers sing about equality and respect between the sexes. Even female rapper’s follow in the male rappers footsteps of disrespecting black women. Female rappers follow this path to keep from being “targeted, slandered, and ignored”(223). Female rappers who take a stance against the norm risk being called “bitch, a ho-or worse, a dyke.” McLune states that she wants the sexism to stop and until it does hip-hop will fail. According to McLune, Kevin Powell excuses sexism because of poverty. Experience has shown us that any man, rich or poor, can be sexist regarding women. By allowing the behavior to continue black women will always be the victim.

Vanilla Ice uses a stereotypical approach to establish credibility from other rappers and his audience. With the use of literary devices, Vanilla Ice illustrates himself as an MC capable of “cooking [other] MC’s like a pound of bacon.” This simile comparing other MC’s to bacon gives the audience the impression that Vanilla Ice can out-perform any competitor. This is essentially challenging others as though they were no match for him. He also uses the stereotype that successful rappers constantly have female attention when he claims he has “girlies on standby.” However, he insinuates he is too good for these women after he “just drove by.” This implies that he not only has admirers, but it is not worth his time to stop and acknowledge them. He also makes his music seem desirable by comparing its value to that of drugs, claiming “if [his] rhyme was a drug [he’d] sell it by the gram.” This comparison demonstrates how addictive he believes his music is. Vanilla Ice uses these methods to appeal to the conventions of rap in order to create an image comparable to that of an established

As long as we’re examining race, how is the success of a white rapper such as

To gaze into the lyrics of both Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur is like living in the ghettos of New York City where violence never stops. Both of these artists grew up seeing and living a life filled with violence. Gunshots and drive-byes, death and murder were a daily occurrence. Although the lyrics of both artists are simply telling their life stories and how hard it was to grow up in their “hoods” they contain vulgar, hateful, and sexual verses that send the wrong message to their listeners. Whether these listeners are teens or adults, white or black, they are continually sending notions of hatred and fear through their lyrics and actions. Ultimately,

Hip-Hop Culture and race have had a complicated relationship in the past two decades. It has been commonly referred to as “black music” and a reflection of black culture. However, recent studies done by the Mediamark Research Inc. showed that 60% of rap music buyers are white. With the emergence of white, Latino, Asian, and other rappers with diverse backgrounds on the Hip Hop scene it is important recognize the changing color of the genre and the stereotype it holds as “black music”. Black culture has also been subject to appropriation because of the popularization of Hip-hop music. However, much of the discourse on the topic confuses cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation, and states that hip-hop music is strictly for African Americans or that it doesn’t belong to anyone at all. Hip-Hop is a black art form that transcends cultural boundaries and can be appreciated through the lenses of different cultures as long as those who enjoy it acknowledge its roots. The genre’s growing number of non-black rappers is not due to the appropriation of the genre by other cultures but as an expansion of it due to it’s growing popularity across the world.

The lyrics that are in rap songs are not only listened to by African Americans but by many other cultures, cultures who know nothing about them. Different cultures listen to rap music to get to know a culture and all the violence and explicit lyrics within rap creates stereotypes. To other cultures they see African Americans as violent pimps, which is not the case at all. Not to mention African American women in rap videos, even the men in the same culture consider them to be b***** not sisters.

According to Alexander (2012) todays like minstrel shows of the slavery and Jim Crow era, today’s displays of rap music and videos are generally for white audiences and is televised around the clock for a worldwide audience. Alexander explains that it is a for-profit display of the worst racial stereotypes and images associated with the era of mass incarceration, an era in which black people are criminalized and portrayed as out-of-control, shameless, violent, oversexed, and generally undeserving. The majority of consumers of gangsta rap are white suburban teenagers. The profits to be made from racial stigma are considerable, and the fact that blacks, as well as whites, treat racial oppression as a commodity for consumption is not surprising.

I recently wrote an essay about the development of the star persona of Ice Cube, the rapper/actor who has made the unusual transition from hardcore gangsta rapper to leading man in such “family-friendly” films as Are We There Yet? The essay, entitled “With an Attitude: The Development of Ice Cube’s Star Persona,” will soon be published in the online film journal 16:9; I’ll link to it as soon as it’s up. The thesis of the essay is that, for all the apparent and unexpected alterations to his “street” persona, Cube’s film characters are nevertheless almost always coded as gangstas – an association that he has not been able (or has not wanted) to shake.

White privilege is the notion that white people have an upper hand against minorities when it comes to societal success like wealth, finding a job, and not being profiled or stereotyped. Authors Maeve Eberhardt and Kara Freeman claim white rappers have it easier than black rappers because of white privilege when they say, “There has been a great deal of media attention focused on ways in which white artists such as Macklemore are criticized for their ‘race mockery’ (D’Addario 2013), for building their careers within the originally African American genre, all the while profiting from playing up stereotypes surrounding this group” (Eberhardt and Freeman). They are trying to protect the African American culture by calling out Macklemore for igniting the popularity or rap within white audiences since he is white. While none of this is provable, there were still plenty other white, Asian, Hispanic, and biracial rappers that had to strive arduously to break through a predominantly black artist genre. Williams claims that Vanilla was the founder of the white rap scene, but most people took him as a joke, especially the African American community when he writes, “the biggest name associated with the term “white rapper” was Vanilla Ice, and he was …largely recognized as a joke, a shill, and a straight-up fraud” (Williams). Black people

During that time, it was difficult for white people to become well respected, or even taken seriously for that matter, within the hip-hop community. This was primarily due to the fact that hip-hop

Eminem uses his hegemonic whiteness to blur the lines between black and white music. Society has clearly separated white and black music as well as white and black culture. Eminem is able to blend his “whiteness” and “blackness” together, at the same time, to overcome these racial boundaries. He is able to blend in-between the boundaries, blurring the lines on what society perceives as white or black music.

Marshall Mathers, better known as Eminem, is recognized for his work as a rap artist who is able to connect with his audience through humor and rhythmically dicey lyrics. Eminem’s “My Name Is” music video is able signify whiteness and rearticulate race with the use intertextual editing techniques that parody common representations of whiteness. Eminem is using his “My Name Is” video as an approach to solidify his style of rapping and thus create new political and cultural authenticities that entice questions of race representation in the 1990’s and beyond. (Kajikawa).