New York is the City of Dreams

Berrigan and White both grew up in New York and had similar life experiences as New Yorkers. Their work is full of experiences that they’ve had while living there as common citizens, among many famous people. White mentions “New York will bestow the gift of loneliness and the gift of privacy” (White 118). Living in New York is a gift, however, even though it is a city that never sleeps it can sometimes feel lonely. New York is a place with a diversity and plenty of room to grow in any direction you choose, New York City is a place of many opportunities like when E.B said “Residents of Manhattan are to a large extent strangers who have

Unlike other Hip-Hop songs of the time, “The Message” was not intended to be a party anthem or upbeat happy song. It was, however, one of the first hip-hop songs that rapped about and documented the struggles within the urban area of the city. The chorus of the song, “It’s like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder how I keep from going under” (Anthology of Rap, pg. , line 1-4), emphasizes how the artists, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, felt about living in the city. While the rest of the lyrics illustrate a vivid picture of the overall surroundings of the urban city, “Broken glass everywhere, people

State of Mind,” released in 1994, details the violent and perilous environment of the city of New York. Although it was recorded more than ten years after the release of Grandmaster Flash’s “The Message,” the records essentially highlight the same topic. This reveals to his audience that the social injustices and situations of those living in disadvantaged neighborhoods in New York have not changed since. Nas’s record was featured in his popular album Illmatic, which “brilliantly blurred the lines between fiction and documentary, creating a heightened sense of realism and visceral eloquence” (Dyson and Daulatzai 2). Nas is able to construct a record that displays an accurate depiction of life in a ghetto neighborhood. He even says in his song, “I think of crime when I’m in a New York state of mind.” Thus, he is associating New York City with crime, revealing a social injustice. “Through the Illmatic album, Nas performs the most critical function of the public intellectual: linking a rigorous engagement with the life of the mind to an equally rigorous engagement with the public and its problems” (Dyson and Daulatzai 98). Through songs such as “N.Y. State of Mind,” Nas is attempting to communicate to his audience the struggles of certain racial groups, chiefly African Americans, living in the impoverished areas of New York City. The two records are making the point that these cities in New York need to be transformed from a place of fear and violence to

New York City’s old slum neighbourhood, the Five Points, was notoriously known for its vice and crimes. The first organized crime group in New York City was the Forty Thieves which was led by Edward Coleman, started in 1825, in the back of a grocery store. The Dead Rabbits were an Irish gang in the Five Points area, and are most known for the riot they caused in 1857. The Eastman Gang were a Jewish group in the Five Points area, which began in the late nineteenth century, and were the rival of the Five Points Gang. The Five Points Gang was another group, started by Paul Kelly and included future famous mobsters. In Five Points, where most of New York City’s crime started, it also started some of history’s most notorious gangs, and mobsters.

"Dreaming America," was written by Danyel Smith about the origins of Hip-Hop and Ms. Hip-Hop's journey to find the musics origin. The speaker of this story is Danyel Smith and it is written for a column in the Spin magazine. The audience of this column would be anybody that wants to learn more about the music or those who already love it. The overall tone of this column is informal and factual. The description of New York and California is an extended metaphor used to describe the two states and their differences that make Ms. Hip-Hop coming back time after time. At the beginning of the section Danyel Smith uses a rhetorical question when asking about the birthplace of Hip-Hop, this is used to get the reader thinking about the origin of the

In billy Joles "new york state of mind" he talks about when he grew up in long island new york and after living there he moved to L.A and "new york state of mind is about how he misses ney york. In the poem "New York, New York" by luke ester talks abut all the benefits of new york.

New York City, the shining icon of the American dream and the mixing pot of cultures, was but a name I knew when I was young. Nine years ago, I finally set foot on the fabled city when my family immigrated to the United States. The gigantic airport, JFK International, spanned for miles and its terminals stood proudly over the jumbo jets below. That night, nausea from the plane’s descension and the entropic movements of my aunt’s Jeep prevented me from seeing the outside world. I rested my head on my mom’s lap while still imaging what the city was like.

The movie begins with a bird's eye view of the birthplace of Hip Hop, New York City. The film appears constructed so that the audience has to make sure that they listen to nearly every word that is being said. Ice T interviews a number of Hip Hop artists and pioneers without interruption or shooting down their thoughts and ideas. Ice T interviews each artists about their writing process and the development of their syntax and diction in regards to their rhymes. At the end of each

The song begins almost as a confessional, telling his audience about the decisions and choices he made leading up to the creation of ‘Jay-Z’. When he says, “I’m leaving after this song/ So you ain’t gotta feel no way about Jay so long/ At least let me tell you why I’m this way,” the rapper is letting his audience know that this song is about his life and the aspects of his upbringing that lead him to his present life as Jay-Z. It is also important to note that the lines above are being told from the point of view of Carter

Lennon says, “ I’m here just to breathe it. It might be dying and there might be a lot of dirt in the air that you breathe, but this is where it’s happening.” In 2013, about 54.3 million people visited New York City, most likely with the same idea as Lennon, that New York is “it”. Everything is happening in New York and no one wants to miss a minute of it. New York’s culture is so fast-paced that people say a New York minute is shorter than a regular minute because everyone is moving quickly and with a purpose. Today, New York captures people with the flashing bright lights in Times Square and the dream of new opportunities. Frank Sinatra’s song, “New York, New York” also relays the same theme as Lennon did when he says “I want to be a part of it, New York, New York” and “I’ll make a brand new start of it”. Overall, his song captures the idea that New York is a grand place of opportunity and new beginnings where everyone wants to

Spike Lee, Martha Stewart, Nicki Minaj, Bill Cosby and Michael Bloomberg are all connected by invisible strands that bind them. Most would ask what is the substance of these bonds, how could all these individuals from different worlds be connected? The individuals listed above are all successful “transplant New Yorkers” (people who are not originally from N.Y.C) who went from rags to riches. They are the inspiration for the roughly four million non – natives found within the city. Other significant reason for the huge influx of non – natives are popular compositions by Frank Sinatra and When O’ Henry which are “New York, New York” and “The Duel” respectively, both of which are guilty of painting a vastly deceitful portrait of New York, which misleads millions of individuals from near and far causing them to migrate to the city only to be faced the sad reality. New York is not as great as it is made out to seem.

The most lyrically rich track comes next as a two part analysis of the cities violence. After a few minutes of boasting of getting women, becoming famous, and selling only the finest of ganja, and after a silent 20 second break, Chance lyrically pours all his feelings on the violence and paranoia he has had to witness and endure. Though while he’s rolling with a gun on his hip, a blunt on his lip, he’s not mirroring the violence, but admitting to the accompanying fear and hoping for change. Something that a lot of Chicago rappers could take note of. He wants to be “Captain save the hood” asking media members and really the white community why no one cares about the travesty that is the hood. “They murking kids, they murder kids here. Why you think they don’t talk about it? They deserted us here. Where the fuck is Matt Lauer at, somebody get Katie Curic in here. Probably scared of all the refugees. Looks like we had a fucking hurricane here.” Truth hurts, and that is ever so apparent in his last few lines, “Everybody’s dying in the summer,

When you think of New York, most people imagine the great sky scrappers, the beautiful lights at night, The New York Yankees, and of course hectic traffic. New York City and its citizens have always demonstrated a toughness and grit that have historically defined the city and those who live. Often times, New Yorkers have been considered the bully, rude, and obnoxious type. Of course there are some unfriendly New Yorkers, but the city and is more than that. Without some of those obnoxious yelling taxi drivers, New York would not be New York. People often imagine the bad or more crazy part of New Yorkers rather than the good. Humans tend to do that in most situations. The frantic way of living in constant motion is what makes New York great.

Frank Sinatra is a son of two Italian immigrants. Sinatra is an outsider to the establishment who made it big in New York City. Just like Frank Sinatra, Jay started from the bottom of living in Brooklyn's drug infested Marcy Projects and made something of himself. He sends out a message to his fans that no matter what your skin color is, how old you are, male or female, or where you come from, you can always succeed to make something of yourself. I feel like many people can relate to this verse of Jay’s because Jay-Z grounds himself in traditional New York mythology. That mythology is basically a mythology of a city that offers awesome difficulties and similarly incredible open doors. This is the New York of the Ellis Island foreigner dream,

Every time I hear this song it makes me long to leave all of my responsibilities and head off to the city of dreams. A trip to New York has been a dream of mine since I was a little girl. I have always wanted to visit the place of tall buildings, history, and where culture is intertwined with its people. I have wanted to live the fast pace life of a New Yorker, where I could stand outside and see, smell, and taste all of the experiences that this city has to offer. I have been building and building this ideal image in my mind for so long. If I ever get to New York, will I be disappointed by the city that never sleeps? The city that is a part of almost every movie I watch. Can New York live up to the expectations I have