Essay on Tupac vs Biggie

Is all rap music promoting and glorifying crime and degrading women? This is a question that is asked often and the general consensus is that, yes, it does. Is there any evidence however to back up these claims and are the rappers intending their music to be seen in a negative aggressive way. I don’t necessarily think that rap music does anything but give the musician an outlet for their talent and use topics like women and crime in their songs for commercialization and to create an image that rappers need in order to succeed in that genre. We will come to an overall conclusion at the end of this essay after we source different arguments on the topic.

Everyone knows a guy by the name of Tupac Shakur, but how do people know Mr. Shakur? Maybe it is by the hardcore gangster and obscene rap lyrics directed towards people, more so aimed towards his east coast rivals. As years went on, more and more people viewed a handful of Tupac’s music as a true work of art, containing strong messages along with stories from his troubled childhood and young adulthood. Later on in both Tupac’s life and career, he began to realize the demise of the African American culture as a whole. During his last stint in prison, not only did he realized all of this wrongdoing throughout this life, but also the negative influence rap and hip hop had over the young African American community. What happened during his incarnation,

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

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.

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

Whether you love it or hate it Rap music has come to be one of the most popular, yet arguable, music genres of the past decades. Today’s rap music has changed enormously since the 1970’s. Rap music was about having fun, being able to express what youth were feeling and a way to keep youth out of trouble. Rap songs usually use explicit and demeaning lyrics, which has huge influence on the youth of today. While rappers say that they’re plainly rapping about reality. They often use violence, the use of drugs and Guns as the main tool to tell the story of their lives and show how hard it is growing up in their neighbourhood. This surely does not set any good examples for the young men and women, listening to this trash and singing along with the

Hip hop is something that has been around since the 21st century. When it comes to the hip hop community, there are so many stereotypes that the media portrays. This essay will show that the stereotype of violent, crimes African American in rap music can become self-prognostication for the hip hop community. This is a behavior that has been corresponding in the rap music and has become accepted as a social norm by the African American community.

As the decade of the 1970’s came to an end, a new Black music emerged like much of the others - wrapped in social realities of an genuinely Black experience. Rap/Hip Hop bursted on the seams relating many of the same political messages and ideologies heard decades before. Echoing the Black Power movement and using the musical culture as a way to rebuild Black communities constantly under attack, rap brought real life stories of an urban, younger

When examining figures that fall into the group of black vernacular intellectuals, one of the most recent and influential people that should be considered a part of this group is the late Tupac Shakur. The hip hop artist, who died at the young age of 25, left a far reaching impact that can be easily seen through both in his music he left behind, and his influence on prominent figures in today’s hip hop industry. Though his career would only last for five years, from when his first studio album was released in 1991, to his death in 1996, Tupac released a number of songs that contained very poignant messages particularly regarding the living conditions of African Americans in the U.S. and the often troubled relations between police and the African

A new style of hip-hop called “gangsta rap” arose during the 1990s that shaped the lives of culture, social injustices, and identity amongst the black community. It helped respond to the “decline of class and race based on consciousness (Quinn 174). One of the most influential rappers to gangsta rap was an artist named Tupac Amaru Shakur, also known as 2pac. He grew up Brooklyn and the Bronx but moved to the California where he attended high school (Marriott 1). This is significant because during the 1980s there was a lot of rivalry between West Coast and East Coast rappers (Marriott 1).

Tupac Shakur is a name that will always be associated with defining the genre of gangra rap. Known as a lyrical genius and often referred to as a prophet rapper he became “a spokesperson not just for his own generation but for subsequent ones who continue to face the same struggle for equality”(“Tupac Shakur”.) As an advocate for the change of African-American strife through his music, he often voiced that he was his own worst enemy at times. In the 1993 single “Keep Ya Head Up” off the sophomore album Strictly 4 my N.I.G.G.A.Z. Shakur establishes verisimilitude with his listeners by narrating experiences of hardships in life, especially within the black community. In addition, the early 90’s was filled with racial tension: LA Riots, Rodney

One of their hits include the song "All Around the World ( The Same Song) in 1989.

The first claim Carl and Virgil make is that adults don’t understand hip hop music’s appeal and why youth listen to it (Taylor and Taylor 210). That claim, however, doesn’t have any substantial, credible, information to back it up. In fact, in a radio broadcast by Talk of the Nation, “A Look at Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes”, they discuss that one man as an adult listened to hip hop music as well, stating it was part of the urban culture and he loved listening to it, until he started learning about the effects it had on youth (“Look”, par. 4). The second claim that the authors’ make is that hip hop is merely just youth living in the moment and expressing their views. It doesn’t effectively discuss that it involves more than just songs, but actual violence, rape, and misogyny. A study by Squires Catherine, Laura P. Kohn-Wood, Tabbye Chavous, and Prudence L. Carter, called “Evaluating Agency and Responsibility in Gendered Violence: African American Youth Talk About Violence and Hip Hop”, they evaluated how young black children reacted to seeing black women abused in hip hop music videos, and results showed that the children thought the woman deserved it because hip hop artists have to be tough (Squires, Kohn-Wood, Chavous, Carter 731). The authors made very opinionated claims, but didn’t reference any studies or articles to provide evidence to their claims. They also did not use their knowledge and credibility to provide insight or support for the claims they made. This

In addition to the actualization of women, rap also promotes extreme violence and abuse towards women. Besides the ?mild? abuse the vast majority of rappers perpetually depict, some rappers display a loathing so deep it can only be classified as misogyny. In the song ??97 Bonnie and Clyde,? by Eminem, he says ?There goes mama, splashing in the water. No more fighting with dad, no more restraining order. Blow her kisses bye-bye, tell mommy you love her? (Bonnie). In a sinister fashion, the song goes on to describe how he murdered and disposed of his ex-wife with the assistance of his three-year-old daughter. Here the violence towards women crosses generations and involves the traumatic use and abuse of a three-year old girl. It promotes that violence, even toward our most vulnerable, is acceptable if they are female. Undeniably, the hip-hop culture?s perverse attitude towards the treatment of women has gradually been accepted by society. It seems society has been desensitized to the violence of rap by

     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