Turn Up Music Vs Conscience Music Essay

In Joan Morgan’s “From Fly-Girls to Bitches and Hos,” her feminist point of view addresses the problem of degradation and sexism in rap and hip-hop music. Through this passage, Morgan looks at the deeper meaning and connects rap and hip-hop music with the African American community. Between the beats, the lyrics of this specific genre of music show listeners various situations the African American community deals with, like crime, drugs, alcohol, relationships, and their day-to-day life in America. With Morgan’s feminist criticism, she states that the blame is not only on rap and hip-hop artists, but also other women because they should be speaking out against being called “bitches” and “hos”. Through the rhetorical strategies of description,

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”.

Author Imani Perry analyzes Hip Hop music not only by the musical aspects of the songs but the contextual and underlying meaning that songs portray. In Imani Perry’s Prophets of the Hood, she believes that the most important aspect of a song is metaphors and similes, which “engage the imagination and expand or transform the universe in which the MC dwells” (Perry 65). Perry focuses on the realistic quality of Hip Hop because “it tells us something about the political, artistic, and philosophical ethos of the music” (Perry 86). Her main argument is that although Hip Hop music may contain vulgar language and profanity, it ultimately warns people about “the dangers of illegal activity or mistreatment of others or oneself…and finds arguments in

Millions of people in the world listen to music for all different reasons. Most people all over the world listen to different genres of music in order to relax, but not too many people pay attention to the actual lyrics of a song. If you listen to the lyrics of a song you will realize that many songs have important messages or themes to them. An example of this is the lyrics of the song “Changes” by Tupac Shakur. If you listen to this song, you will realize that Tupac raps about not only the problems that African Americans face from society, but also the struggles that poor people in society have to endure and overcome. Many

McBride begins the essay by telling the readers of his nightmare. He once feared that his daughter would arrive home one day with a stereotyped rapper husband with “ mouthful of gold teeth, a do-rag on his head… and a thug attitude” (McBride 1). He came to realize that he in fact, hip-hop, a genre that he once didn’t believe was music, had become one of the most known genres in the world. The speaker first heard his first rap song at a college party in Harlem in 1980. The jazz lover he was, cringed at the rap music he claimed to be so poorly thought out and written. For the next 26 years of his life, he went out of his way to avoid hip-hop music all together, as if It was never there in the first place.

Art has undoubtedly become a decisive aspect of our culture; embedded in the way we learn and grow on a daily basis. Art forms such as music, television and dance dominate our society as an outlet of freedom of speech for humanity. The evolution of music has rapidly exceeded its original classifications, developing new genres with greater appeal to an audience, hence its influence on society has expedited. In recent times, lyrics (specifically rap lyrics) have been introduced into the court room as a form of documented confessional evidence, evidently challenging law’s authoritative nature. This essay will closely follow the genre of rap and its relationship with law, through cases based in the United States of America (USA). In addition, the trial of Simon Bikindi in Rwanda and Smith v The Queen will be used to form an acute analysis on the influencing factors of relevance, identity, freedom of speech and current constitutional law.

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

In the article Rap and Moral Character by Susan Dwyer, the subject of concern is the consequences of listening to rap music and the effect it has on moral character. The author argues that rap music contribute to the corruption of moral character, it is misogynistic, promotes violence and street crime. In this paper I will examine the author’s claims, use of key concepts, and her reasoning. By doing so, I will be able to demonstrate that Dwyer’s thesis is unjust and unsupported. In what follows, I will analyze the claims to show that the author’s arguments are irrelevant and lack sufficient evidence to support her thesis. Secondly, I will examine the author’s reasoning to point out fallacious reasoning and lastly I will evaluate her use of

Kendrick Lamar took the music industry by storm last year after his release of his sophomore album To Pimp A Butterfly. Immediately, the album quickly became critically acclaimed and resulted in multiple awards such as winning four grammys this past winter. The album goes deep into Kendrick’s personal struggles as new found celebrity, while also touching on subjects surrounding the black community. For this paper I took a look at the standout song off the album Institutionalized, that deals with the internal struggle people go through in life because of the barriers of thinking they are imprisoned to in their lives. Along with this, the song also has elements that tie

From it's inception, rap indured a lot of hostility from listeners--many, but not all, White--who found the music too harsh, monotonous, and lacking in traditional melodic values. However, millions of others--often, though not always, young African-Americans from underprivileged inner city backgrounds--found and immediate connection with the style. Here was poetry of the

As a young girl raised in the Catholic church, I remember those constant reminders about how important it was for me to refrain from listening and or watching any form of profane music, especially rap or hip-hop. The only reason my parents provided me with, as to why this form of music was restricted, was that the verbal and body languages that were expressed through the song lyrics and the music videos were “immorally wrong for a Catholic girl”. As an obedient child, I obeyed the rules, for the most part. But now, as a young adult, I realize that my parents' ethical judgement towards profane music, impacted my understanding of the true purpose of hip hop music and the goal of the artists. I came to the realization that ethical judgement

Music is increasingly emerging as a form of modern-day activism that is used in voicing the concerns that different segments of the society may have. Through music, the artists can highlight the social problems that are facing the oppressed section of the community. Music is a powerful tool owing to the more significant address that it can reach and its reliance on the millennial relation. The activism that is intended for addressing the police brutality and the small steps that are undertaken by the authorities to solve the social problems have been crucial in addressing the concerns of the modern-day society. The killing of the blacks and the black rights have been some of the issues that are facing the black community. Hip Hop music has

Since the beginning of its art form rap music has been subject to scrutiny throughout its existence. In a Theresa Martinez reading from the semester, the author describes rap music as a resistance. She builds on a theory of oppositional culture that was composed by Bonnie Mitchell and Joe Feagin (1995). In this article, “POPULAR CULTURE AS OPPOSITIONAL CULTURE: Rap as Resistance”, Martinez explains how African Americans, American Indians, and Mexican Americans draw on their own cultural resources to resist oppression. She states that this very resistance to the dominate culture in

Throughout history, music has been used to express the feelings of people or groups whom may have no other outlet to express themselves. The best example of this occurrence would be the lower class of America’s use of rap music. Rap music started out as a fun variation of disco with the purpose to make people dance and enjoy themselves, but it later transformed into one of the best outlets to express the struggles of poverty in the United States. The genre gained popularity when the song “Rapper 's Delight” hit the charts in the early eighties; rap evolved into a plethora of different styles from there, Gangster Rap formed with NWA in the late eighties, and rap really hit it’s zenith in the mid nineties. Modern rap began in the early starts of the twentieth century. Because of the storytelling that rappers do in the music, it gained notice in the inner city where the demographic could relate. Many young teen in the inner city environment built dream to be famous rappers just like their own favorite artists . Rap connects to me by its style, its purpose, and its political incorrectness.

On an everyday basis the world around us offers us a great deal of information and variety, of enlightening art and the dumbing down entertainment. Many people have fallen into the trap of dismissing anything that is not considered fine art as culturally and intellectually inferior. The restrictive nature of this approach leaves us with an elitist viewpoint and a sense of supremacy. And when talking about supremacy, whether it is white, black or even cultural, it is in no way something positive. Albeit, it is difficult to control the feeling of superiority when talking to someone who genuinely loves and admires singers with lyrics like: “Been around the world, don't speak the language. But your booty don't need explaining.” Still, it is important to keep in mind that even Jason Derulo and Virginia Woolf have something in common, the origins of their means of expression. “It is practically certain that music and literature, usually combined with dance, arose as a single activity long before the concept of an art existed. In later stages of history, the connections between the musical and literary arts have varied from nation to nation and period to period. (…) As soon as the arts of music and literature began to draw apart, the possibility of one’s influencing the other arose.” If we believe that art is an imitation of life, then music and literature are equal in that as they can both give imaginative and true depictions of life. And every so often