Gangst Gangsta Raps

Many Americans today embrace the culture of hip-hop. Since hip-hop became mainstream its influence has surrounded most Americans. People engage in social issues from the hip-hop culture In his recent work, How Hip-Hop Holds Blacks Back, John H. McWhorter have offered harsh critiques of hip-hop for delaying and marring the success of black people. McWhorter asserts hip-hop music “celebrates a ghetto life of unending violence and criminality(10).” He believes hip-hop contributes to the stereotype nearly all Americans maintain in regard to black people. Reflecting on harsh song lyrics McWhorter attempts to strengthen his argument. McWhorter acknowledges not all hip-hop promotes violence in people. He concedes “not all hip-hop is belligerent

Rap music has become one of the most distinctive and controversial music genres of the past few decades. A major part of hip hop culture, rap, discusses the experiences and standards of living of people in different situations ranging from racial stereotyping to struggle for survival in poor, violent conditions. Rap music is a vocal protest for the people oppressed by these things. Most people know that rap is not only music to dance and party to, but a significant form of expression. It is a source of information that describes the rage of people facing growing oppression, declining opportunities for advancement, changing moods on the streets, and everyday survival. Its distinct sound, images, and attitude are notorious to people of all

Adams, T. M., & Fuller, D. B. (2006). The words have changed but the ideology remains the same: Misogynistic lyrics in rap music. Journal of Black Studies, 36(6), 938-957. Retrieved from the JSTOR database.

In her article “Gangsta Culture”, bell hooks explains the social calamities and degeneration of social attitude that has occurred as a result of the glamorization of street gangsta culture. Her purpose is to inform us of the detrimental effects of the patriarchal maleness that has plagued black culture with its violence and incarceration driven norm of supremacy. As a Distinguished Professor of English at City College in New York, hooks structures her text in a cause-and-effect procedure, utilizing a general-to-specific organization scheme to establish her claims. She begins with a biographical segment noting on the influence of Dr. King and Malcolm X in gangsta culture and its cultivation into mainstream media, which aligns her claims on gangsta culture serving as the vehicle for patriarchal manhood. Throughout the article, hooks uses repetition of the term “patriarchal” to emphasize that the prominent figures in hip-hop portraying such image are influencing and presenting a false facade for all black males.

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,

Perry ultimately analyzes Hip Hop music through the meaning of the lyrics and the impact that the song has on its surroundings. This criteria for examination can be applied to the analysis of the differences and similarities between “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five and “N.Y. State of Mind” by Nas. Although both records are significantly different in terms of the musical aspects of each song, they are ultimately similar in that they both portray the reality of the ghetto areas in New York through the significant use of rapping. Thus, both records have significantly impacted the evolution of rap music and rap’s role in the music industry today. Both ultimately are used to promote an awareness of continuing racial and social injustices and the need for it to be diminished.

Nelson George states that “Gangsta rap is direct by- product of crack explosion. Unless you grasp that connection nothing else that happened in the hip hop’s journey to national scapegoat will make sense. This is not a chicken-or-the-egg riddle —first came rocks, then gangsta rap” (136). To prove his point he examines the connection between drug culture of the inner city areas and the hip hop music. The money collected from illegal drug deals spent on recordings of gangsta rap music. George says “Suspicion of women, loyalty to the crew, adoption of a stone face in confronting the world, hatred of authority—all major themes of gangsta rap-owe their presence of lyrics and impact on audiences to the large number of African-American men incarcerated in the ‘90s” (138). I agree with his statement that gangsta rap is a directed by- product of crack explosion, because social and racial issues for instance drug dealing influencing the lyrics of music and this explosion of heroin and crack in communities gave birth to gangsta rap.

With the violent diction, many people were put off by it. “Although violence, sexism and obscene lyrics have always been a part of American popular culture, what made gangsta rap intimidating was its lyrics…The lyrics came instead from the minds of what many white Americans considered to be the most violent and threatening segment of America-‘young angry inner city black men”(Canton 245). Much like today, the incarceration rate for black men was incredibly high, which can be seen through the aftermath of the Watts Riot, the formation of the Black Panther Party as well as countless other civil movement events. Gangsta rappers’ goal was to appeal to the masses of their culture. As many of them at least knew someone that had been put in jail, making songs about what got them there pulled a strong audience. For example, prominent gangsta rap group, NWA combined the violent rhetoric and political charged diction in their song, “F*ck tha

When Shakur states, "Cops give a damn about a negro? Pull the trigger, kill a n*gga, he 's a hero," he 's mentioning the controversial topic of how African Americans, more commonly African American males, are targeted by the police and if a cop kills an African American male it 's not a big deal. I believe this portion of Shakur’s song directly relates to W.E.B. Du Bois’, “Of Our Spiritual

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

In a number of ways in his article, Beaver argues “at the very least” that companies involved with the recording industry should meet what he calls the “‘moral minimum’” to prevent the harm he feels is inflicted upon all aspects of society by rap music and should consider “censoring” the derogatory language observed in rap lyrics in order to “correct social injuries,” even if the lyrics of the genre itself generate a sustainable profit from consumers (107). Beaver calls attention to the fact that the lyrics of any genre of music, not just rap, can impact human behavior in a negative way due to the violence and unfavorable messages embedded in the lyrics themselves. He bases this fact not only on the opinions expressed by critics of the rap genre, but also on the results of a variety of suggestive scientific studies involving groups of people ranging from college students to youths aged twelve to seventeen. Beaver notes that the results of the studies have shown increases in negative behavior such as aggression and sexual activities. Beaver does endorse the fact that researchers

Generally speaking, each of the eight hip-hop songs that I have examined for this assignment contain some aspect of violence. To analyze my observations from these songs, I searched for repeated images and attitudes in the language of the artist.

In conclusion, you have take many factors into consideration to understand the mainstream cultural reaction to this material and why its highly varied. In both Jamaica and urban poor US cities, there are a lot of gang-related violence that have helped fill a leadership void in the community among a dispossessed people. There is poverty in that it’s almost a trap to get out of as black families have been struggling for so many years to break the cycle that has kept them apart of this system. This system sets them out for a life of crime that could eventually lead them prison. For example, especially in the United States, black males are so prevalent in the prison populace in the country in that on any day, a male with no degree is more likely in jail than working. And so with such struggles like this, a lot of it is then reflected in reggae and hip-hop music. “As hip-hop gained popularity, musicians who’d actually lived something resembling the life they sang about in their song faced the temptation of

At the point when rap began numerous rappers discussed the ills of society and the shamefulness and disparity they managed. Rappers accentuated their world which is/was "packed with poverty, police severity, medication misuse, instructive inequality, high dropout rates, and roughness (Rowley, 2010). Rap music has as of late been at the middle of the worry about the potential destructive impacts of rough or misogynic verses on social conduct. In US society, it may assume a discriminating part in advancing brutal and solitary conduct (Herd, 2009).

Throughout history, music has been used to express the feelings of people or groups whom may have no other outlet to express themselves. The best example of this occurrence would be the lower class of America’s use of rap music. Rap music started out as a fun variation of disco with the purpose to make people dance and enjoy themselves, but it later transformed into one of the best outlets to express the struggles of poverty in the United States. The genre gained popularity when the song “Rapper 's Delight” hit the charts in the early eighties; rap evolved into a plethora of different styles from there, Gangster Rap formed with NWA in the late eighties, and rap really hit it’s zenith in the mid nineties. Modern rap began in the early starts of the twentieth century. Because of the storytelling that rappers do in the music, it gained notice in the inner city where the demographic could relate. Many young teen in the inner city environment built dream to be famous rappers just like their own favorite artists . Rap connects to me by its style, its purpose, and its political incorrectness.