Hip Hop : The Use Of Gun Violence In Hip-Hop

Hip hop, the creation of electronic sound and enticing language is a style born from the African American and Hispanic cultures. It formed in New York City from block parties and the participation of the youth culture. This style of music began as a minimal change in rhythm to a globally popular culture consisting of graffiti art, dancing, and music. Hip hop was not only a type of tasteful music, but it also became a benchmark in history. When this style of music was created, it served as an outlet for those who did not have a voice, particularly the minority groups. These groups were given rights that they deserved just like everyone else. In the 1970’s is when hip hop began to spread, creating not just

Hip Hop: Beyond Beats & Rhymes is a documentary created and produced by Bryon Hurt. The documentary challenges the dominant discourses of hyper masculinity and the misogynist treatment of women in commercialized rap. Of the many mainstream phenomenons that are discussed by Bryon in the documentary, the issue of hyper masculinity in Hip Hop is questioned greatly. Throughout the film, the producer was able to show the wide acceptance of hyper masculinity not only in Hip Hop but also American culture as well. He defined America as a hyper masculine and hyper violent nation for the reason that using a gun to defend one’s family became a metaphor for masculinity and a tool for widespread violence. The issue of issue of hyper masculinity can be

Most of the homicides in Chicago are due to illegal gun violence. This is a very sad issue that is glorified in the music that many of us listen to. Our radio stations give announcements on stopping the gun violence, yet they play songs where the artist speaks about it as if it were a good thing. Of course music is made for entertainment, and I’ll be the first to admit that I myself listen to music that promotes violence, but there are plenty of little kids that also listen to that type of music and think that violence is

“…the appropriation of hip-hop cultural forms suggest not that whites want a black identity: rather, they want characteristics of blackness.” (Perry 2002, 109). This is quote by Pamela Perry, a sociologist as University of California Santa Cruz, from her book Shades of White:White Kids and Racial Identities in High School. Pamela Perry is a sociologist from University of California, Santa Cruz, throughout her book she touches on the idea of white children developing a sort of identity crisis depending on their environment. This quote helps put the appropriation of African American culture in its simplest terms. In most cases people associate Hip Hop culture with African Americans. With that being said, many artist of different genres who attempt to have a more hip hop vibe, fall subject to appropriating African American Culture. Various artist have been appropriating culture in several different ways whether it’s through dance, sound, or even image.

The Oppressive Language Leading to the Degradation of Woman via The Hip Hop Culture Today

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

It may be hard for a kid to understand why his parents didn’t want him or her listening to Pac or Biggie’s lyrics, but as their actions on TV and in music videos displayed the same notions, their fear only increased. For both artists, they had videos displaying women with nearly nothing on, smoking, drinking and carrying weapons, but kids people liked it. That’s why both of these artists are known as the best of all time. What they didn’t see though was the rising amount of disrespect towards women, increase in drug sales and an enormous increase in gun violence during this time. This is proven by Lindsay John, “The endemic of violence in the black community can be directly traced back to the whole irresponsible images of black masculinity which is fed to us through music.” (174) Along with the videos, they had concerts that displayed rash and harsh comments towards not only whites but also law enforcement. Like in this lyric by Tupac:

In the show ABDC (America’s Best Dance Crew), which aired in 2008, blacks along with other races such as whites and Asians participated, in which they are able to showcase their breakdancing talents and help expand the culture hip-hop to a wide variety of audiences. But In the article, “Started in the Streets’ Criminalizing Blackness and the Performance of Asian American Entrepreneurship on America’s Best Dance Crew, Season 1, Brian Chung states how hip hop breakdancing in ADBC “participates in reproducing neoliberal anti-black narratives” (Chung, 120). Many black participants in the show are shown to be part of criminalizing blacks showing how they come from impoverished backgrounds and made their way up in the industry through hip-hop.

In rap music it’s not hard to find the violent lyrics with most of the music speaks about gang violence, shootings, drugs, and more. An example of a song that influences violence is J. Coles song “A Tale of 2 Cities” with lyrics like “Picked up the paper and they say my nigga Eddie caught a body, I'm convinced anybody is a killer, all you gotta do is push 'em to the limps” in this part of the song Cole speaks about how his friend, who isn’t really a person who would commit a crime, murdered somebody; Cole isn’t surprised because he believes everybody is a killer if you push them to their limits. Another example in the song is “They robbin' niggas on the daily can you blame a nigga that ain't never had things? Guess not last night they pulled up on my nigga at the light like ugh, nice watch, run it” the first part of these lyrics Cole justifies the crime of robbing because they have nothing. In the second part Cole states that somebody came up to his friend and robbed him of his watch, on this part the sound of a gun being cocked in the background is heard and is continued with the chorus saying “hands in the air now” (Genius). These lyrics not only promote violence but justify why it was okay to do such crimes. The reasoning behind why artists talk about violence is that it’s a way of telling their story. Namir, a rapper in New York says “People have to realize that rappers are just like any other artist or musician. What makes an artist an artist is his artistic portrayal of his life and how he expresses his life through whatever art form that he does” (PBS). With people growing up in terrible environments and music being a way for them to cope the reasoning for the violent lyrics is the artist trying tell their

You’re standing in a crowd amongst thousands of fans at an Eminem concert, people from all over, shoulder to shoulder in a massive stadium, singing along every word of their favorite song for hours. People from all over are connected to each other through the power of music. When it comes to music, the life experiences, inspiration, and current events play a tremendously significant role. Hip hop is a form of art which can be expressed through rap songs, break-dancing, and graffiti art. The culture has become so popular that it has entered today’s fashion and modern language. Hip hop music is an extremely large part of today’s generation and a global genre, which influences the generation all over the world.

Wholesale crime, Homicides, Deadly drugs, Guns, Violence, Disease, Really dangerous people roaming free, the overall urban demoralization and decay of social and institutional standards. This has been the Obamas hip-hop desecration of America where no one cannot hide the facts that in eight years our nation has been overrun by gangs, drug dealers, and the purveyors of vulgar sub-culture anti-law order

In the movie Chi-raq, Spike Lee shows us how gun violence can cause a major mental and physical impact in the communities and how firearms and guns are much misused in today’s world and society. Firearms and guns were made for self-defense and protection against an attacker, but in America we seem to misuse them. However, gun violence has played a major role in today’s crime rates and has affected our neighborhood. Guns have been used for many crimes including murders, robbery, and aggravated assaults according to Cooper, Alexia, and Erica Smith. (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1). In the beginning of the film of Chi-raq, it involves a shoot-out in the neighborhoods of Chicago and he shows us that not only guns violence affects gang members

In seventh grade, I stumbled my way upon the Detroit based rapper Eminem. I was at 150 listens on his track The Real Slim Shady before I knew it. I then found my way into Kanye West, which exploded my interest into the genre. I have listened to all of the considered essential hip hop “classic” and modern day albums. I noticed in these “classic” albums very distinct change in subject matter and style that each of the different areas of rappers on where they originate from. Some people believe that the hip-hop culture is at a decline with the lose of this uniqueness and individuality shown in each of these areas. I too even thought that the hip-hop culture was at a decline until I was researching my topic, but instead this individuality and uniqueness in the rapper’s different stories that they tell in their raps. The genre has expanded throughout the world and continued to evolve while sticking to these roots of individuality and uniqueness.

Hip-Hop is an extensive and a broad conglomerate of various artistic forms that ultimately originated in the South Bronx and then quickly spread throughout the rest of New York City among African-Americans and other African-American youth mainly from the Caribbean and from Jamaica during the 1970’s. Over the course of decades and recent years, controversy surrounding Hip-Hop and rap music has been the vanguard of the media. From the over hype of the East and West Coast rivalry to the deaths of Tupac, Biggie, and even Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin, it seems that political and broadcasting groups have been injudicious to place essentially the blame on rap and Hip-Hop music for a superficial trend in youth violence.

     Most rap songs that contain violence reflects incidents that occur in today’s society such as the Rodney King incident. “Rap music brings together a tangle of some of the most complex social, cultural, and political issues in contemporary American society.” Rap and hip-hop artists write songs that promote the killing of enemies as well as targeting institutions such as the church, government, and justice system (Ro 145) Most artists relive their own painful experiences over and over again though their music, delaying their own society’s process of recovery . for example, in 1989