Rap Music And Culture

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”.

In any group, people either listen to hip hop, and enjoy it for what it is, or people do not and assume negative connotations about it because of the stigma associated with it. This is due to the media’s influence on music as well as the influence of politics on music. It is important to mention that there has also been a divide drawn between different types of hip hop due to these influences. These two types have been labeled as “conscious rap” and “gangster rap”. Conscious rap is said to be more socially conscious and to have addressed issues present today, whereas gangster rap is said to contain themes and lyrics that generally emphasize the "gangsta" lifestyle. For this paper, I will not differentiate between the two because while one type of music may be more influential than another, it would not be fair to assume this based on popular opinions. This influence means that it will hard to gauge the actual influence of hip hop on the academics of a student because there is a bias one way or another when answering the

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

Within History, Rap has been considered the “CNN for black people”; what started as a way to express struggles in the ghettos of New York has transformed into one of the most popular genres of music in America. The popularity of rap has allowed many to have their voices heard, created new fashion trends, and even developed popular modern slang used by people throughout the world. The commercialization of rap has resulted in a significant following of the culture in America but also a large number of people who oppose the music. The culture of rap music has a substantial impact on popular culture in America, and by using an open mind and looking past the violence and language, people can better understand the meaning behind rap and the perception that follows it in America today.

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.

For many years, the youth have been known for singing along to their favorite song and taking that song as whole and using it as their motto for life. It may seem that sometimes these kids do not know what is being said in the music but this shows that they do know what the lyrics are saying. According to Franklin B. Krohn and Frances L. Suazo in their article “Contemporary Urban Music: Controversial Messages in Hip-Hop and Rap Lyrics,” many teenagers and minority groups view rappers as their spokesmen because of their ability to speak in street language and bluntly express their frustration (Krohn, 1995). Unfortunately, hip hop lyrics usually tend to talk about drugs, sex and violence leading kids to think that everything they hear is okay and that is how they have to live their life. Yet, there are artists out there who take their lyricist skills to give positive lyrics and messages in their music, but these songs are not often played in the mainstream.

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.

Rap music is defined as popular music advanced by disc jockeys and urban blacks in the late 1970s. This kind of music consists of a repeated beat pattern that provides the background for rapid, urban language, accompanied by a vocalist. Hip-Hop music is a genre that originated in the United States by inner-city African Americans in the 1970s which consists of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted. The Difference between rap and hip-hop music defined by EBONY is that hip-hop is a culture while rapping is one of four elements contained therein—the others being breakdancing, DJing and graffiti. The perception of rap music/hip-hop music by academic scholars is often accurate, in the portrayal that types of rap/hip-hop musicians often exhibit violent, misogynistic, antisocial, and materialistic content and behavior. Writer’s Johnetta B. Cole, Tia Tyree, Michelle Jones, Matthew Oware, and have all discussed the topic of rap music, and the ways in which it exhibits violent, misogynistic, antisocial, and materialistic content and behavior.

Rap music has the power to influence people in ways such as dictating fashion or wardrobe choices, promote rebellious ways, and can even affect the morals you live by. The youth in America is highly influenced by famous rap and hip hop artist due to the many relatable stories they tell in their music. Many times the stories are speaking of hardships in life and crimes committed. Their lyrics are significantly influential enough to have caused people to commit crimes such as robbery, violence, and even murder.

Hip-hop as a whole, consists of DJs, who make the beats and scratch records, rappers who rhyme lyrics to the beat, graffiti artist who use spray paint to make art on building walls, and breakdancing to the music. Shortly it advanced, serving as a platform for urban youth to discuss things they faced on a daily bases from their crime ridden neighborhoods to struggling for a meal. Hip-hop consists of many different styles and flows like bands like Public Enemy used militant style lyrics to uplift the black community and send political messages while artists like LL Cool J sang smooth love ballads boasted about his talent. Later came gangster rhymes that glorified murder, misogyny, and other topics of the sort. Groups like A Tribe Called Quest and De La Soul use their own style on hip-hop with mellow flows over sophisticated jazz beats while rapping about culturally and politically conscious topics.

Rap music has experienced a radical increase in popularity in the last five years. In the year 2000, rap became the second-best-selling genre in music, capturing 12.9 percent of the year's $14.3 billion in total record sales ("Rap/Hip Hop" Sc 1). Though rap is no stranger to criticism, that criticism has increased in both quantity and vociferousness at about the same rate as the number of rap albums climbing the charts. And the growing evidence that, apparently, in order to achieve commercial success, each rap album must be more negative and offensive than the last does not help to address these criticisms.

Today, many view this as just rap, but to fully embrace the variance between the two is to understand the difference. “Rap” is the musical sound produced by the art form of chanting rhythmically over a track of music. Contrarily, Hip-hop is not just music, it is a cultural movement that influenced America in positive ways. These positive influences are represented in the traditions, fashion,

In an industry, mainly controlled by high society white men, African-American musical artists are frequently regarded as commodities, not as artists. They must adjust a requirement for artistic control and "keeping" it real" with the impediments and weights from record organizations inspired by producing deals and massive appeal. Often the message and artistic integrity of rappers can be lost amidst national marketing campaigns and concern for approval by important commercial allies. Musicians have struggled to maintain rap's potency as a form of resistance and empowerment. It is doubly injuring for dark ladies who are now plagued by assaults from outside their groups to feel the push of musical knifes to their respect from inside. Apart

Rap is a genre of music that has great history, songs, instruments, and rappers. The most used instruments in rap are drums and mix/sound boards. Rap music started when slaves would work in the fields and sing “call to answer” songs, where one person would sing part of the song and everyone else would answer in the next line. Nowadays, famous songs for rapping are “Lose Yourself” by Eminem and “Remember The Name” by Fort Minor. Famous rappers include Chris Brown, Wiz Khalifa, and Macklemore. Rap has an interesting history and popular songs.

First, the uniqueness behind rap music cannot be found in any other music. Because rap is lyric driven music, the speed and the pronunciation a rapper uses affects the outcome of the sound greatly. Also rap contains a lot of wordplay and figurative language that makes it complex and meaningful. The difficulty behind making a rap adds a competitive nature that most other genres do not