Song Analysis of "Testify", by Rage Against the Machine Essay examples

* When the 12 person jury meets in the room to vote on a guilty or non-guilty verdict, the method used to vote was 1st based on a majority decision-making process where those would raise their hands for guilty and a non-guilty verdict. Once the results were in and 11 voted guilty and 1 voting not guilty. Based on the movie, 11 members of the jury voted guilty while 1 juror voted non-guilty. The 1 non-guilty, disrupted the dynamics of everyone else’s vote; which leads to a major conflict. They now needed to illustrate the pros and cons of both guilty and non-guilty parties.

People's bias and predispositions can affect their opinion of different circumstances and different people. This is very evident throughout the play. After the first group vote and juror 8 votes not guilty, a discussion ensues. It is there that

A jury is a person who is un-qualified and not paid who is selected at random to participate in the court hearing. To be

The above text is the hook to the poem “Mystery of Iniquity” Before going in depth with the first piece of the poem; something stands out in the first two stanzas: “iniquity” and “inequity”. According to Webster’s dictionary, inquity is defined as “gross injustice; a wicked act or thing” and inequity is defined as “injustice, unfairness; an instance of injustice or unfairness” (Merriam-Webster) Here Ms. Hill sets the tone for the rest of the poem. She explains that the unfairness of iniquity and inequity is a miserable feeling. She is talking directly to those that share her unfortunate circumstances of being treated unfairly in a state of misery. The pre verse that follows the hook brings the topic of religion into view. The first four lines in the pre-verse symbolize Biblical meaning and give way to religious pretext. The verse says

Juror 10 is a closed minded older man that uses a lot of stereotypes to make his decisions on whether or not the accused is really guilty or innocent. For example, Juror 10 yells, “You said it there. I don't want any part of them, believe me” (12 Angry Men). At this point during play, he was using where the accused lived and grew up

The film uses juror three to demonstrate how past experiences can influence ones prejudice in decision making. Juror 3, who has a prejudice against the accused, and thinks the kid is under-privileged and doesn’t deserve a second chance, which is reason enough for him to conclude the accused is guilty. As the discussion continues as to the verdict of the trial, juror three grows frustrated and angrily refutes, “What is this? Love your under- privileged bother week or something? (12 Angry Men). Due to his past experiences with young men, he is ready to sentence the defendant to death with weak circumstantial evidence, grows angry as the other jurors question what he refers to as “facts” and claims “You can’t refute facts” (12 Angry Men) As all the Jurors except juror twelve get more and more frustrated by the slowed process, juror three begins to see through his prejudice, and disperses the other jurors interruptions by saying “Be quiet, we’ll all get a turn”(12 Angry Men). It finally becomes clear, he sees similarities with his son he had a falling out with several years ago, and puts this prejudice aside and excepts that the evidence is too circumstantial to convict a kid for murder, and sentence him to death.

It was interesting to see the large differences in each juror’s lives. Every jury is eclectic because it is made up of very different people with very different family lives. For example, Juror #3 seems to be a well educated and well off man as he was wearing suspenders and a dress shirt. However, Juror #7 was a young man who seemed fairly uneducated and fairly poor because he dressed in a sweatsuit and used improper language. It was very interesting to see these different personalities clash. In the beginning when the men are all on the same page that the defendant is guilty except one, the men generally more relaxed (except for Juror #3).However, as more of the men start to explain their reasonings for seeing reasonable doubt, tension is prevalent in the room. The men who vote guilty are rallying up against the people who voted not guilty. The feeling of the room switches again as most jurors decide the defendant is guilty. That being said, Juror #3 creates a lot of tension in the room throughout the film due to the the fact that he yells at anyone who disagrees with him because he is unwilling to hear their opinions. For example, while one man is explaining why he thinks there is reasonable doubt, juror #3 decides to start a game of tic tac toe. This is very interesting because he is ready to send the defendant to his deathbed

I’ve lived among ‘em all my life. You can’t believe a word they say. You know that.” This shows that his prejudicial views of the boy are influencing his behavior thus contributing to his persistent vote of guilty. In fact, his opinion only changed after he went on a long prejudicial rant later in the movie causing the group to reject him, as shown when they all slowly turned their backs and ignored him while he was still talking. This pressure was enough to cause him to conform to the group and change his strong vote of guilty to not guilty. This shows the power of a group’s influence in causing conformity, which by definition is a change of belief or behavior in order to fit in with a group. Another clear demonstration of conformity is in the first vote that was held by the jury to determine the stance of all the individual jurors. When asked to raise their hands for a verdict, most went up quickly with some of the others slowly coming up

Ludacris does a remarkable job of portraying his message about the struggles that some adolescents are faced with. “Runaway Love”, by Ludacris, featuring Mary J. Blige (2007), represents the theme of struggle through hip-hop and rap music. It is about little girls who are “stuck up in the world on their own.” They have to take care of themselves because the people they are around do not care about them. They range from nine to eleven years in age, and their goal in life, at such a young age, is to run away from home. Ludacris is trying to get the listener to realize the struggles that even children have to face because adults are not the only ones who have problems, like most people believe. He is very successful in

Throughout the text, negative racial prejudices hinder the success of justice, thus denying truth in the judicial system. Due to the defendant being hispanic, and from the slums, negative racial prejudices become prevalent in the juror’s opinions, which ultimately leads to injustice, as the truth is denied and ignored. The negative racial prejudices are depicted throughout the play multiple times, especially by Juror 10, who is revealed to be an open racist who believes that the 16 year old defendant should be sent to the electric chair due to his hispanic nationality. Within the play, Juror 10 states “They’re violent, they’re vicious, they’re ignorant, and they will cut us up. That’s their intent” when referring to the hispanic ‘race’. The direct dialogue conveyed within Juror 10’s statement allows the

This song implies that individual’s are violating the norms and values of society. They start the song with a verse that expresses

In order to understand the topic that is to be discussed in this essay, one must first understand two seemingly unrelated topics. Those topics are feminism and punk rock. These two social movements spawned the love child that has come to be known as the riot grrrl movement. The history of the riot grrrl movement is deep and intensely intertwined with themes of monumental social change, musical evolution, and the previously unseen all-encompassing nature that is unique to third wave feminism.

In my opinion, Kendrick Lamar, an award-winning rapper and songwriter, has one of the best abilities to describe his distressed and abused lifestyle in Compton, California. He is not your original cliché artist who does not speak about anything meaningful. Kendrick, also known as K. Dot, is one of the most well known and most respected rappers in this era. Not only does he speak about his gloomy past, but he also speaks about his fortunate future. His ability to give detailed representations of his struggles and his story telling allows me to, metaphorically, enter the mind of Kendrick Lamar.

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).

This song starts off very much like the Jimi Hendrix guitar solo in Purple Haze. The difference in this piece is that it tones down a bit so you are able to hear the lyrics of the song although it still feels that the guitar is the “star” or solo of the song. I believe Janis Joplin is also the lead singer in this song and she has an amazing voice. It is a rough, blues feel and she could hit some high notes. Her style of singing is amazing.