Taking over of Hip-Hop

It is 2013 and it seems like equality is the most important thing for us as Americans. Everything has to be equal, and if its not we need to change it. But, the principles that out country lived on for so long has made this hard. There is still a divide between men and women, between straight and gay, and there is still a divide between blacks and whites.

Rapper Scarface, who is one of the most influential people in Hip-Hop EVER basically said that white people are trying to take Hip-Hop from the black community. I thought it was ignorant, and I thought that he was out of line for saying something like that. Like he was just pulling the race card to be controversial. After listening to his interview I would say that I would have to agree with him.

Scarface starts off by talking about how its not fair for people who can not relate to a certain style or culture to determine the type of music that this style or culture listens to. And they have a misconception of the music. They compare Jay-Z talking about guns to Chief Keef talking about guns and there is a huge difference. They may not understand the difference, or they may just understand it and continue to put of music that make the black community look stupid.

Another thing that really hit home during the scarface interview is the comparison that he made to Rock-n-Roll. How it was a black thing and how whites took it over. How now-a-days if u see a black person make that type of music they are out of place. Can the same thing happen to rap?

Violence: Cause or Effect

As you can see from my other post, violence is prevalent in the hip-hop community. But, is hip-hop the cause of this violence, or is the violent music and effect of what is going on in the “hood.” Hip-hop was known as the ghetto CNN in the past. Hip-hop was a media platform that allowed artist to create music about things that are relevant to them, about the places they live, it gives information like CNN about things CNN would never broadcast. Now we have sites like YouTube and WorldStarHipHop (self proclaimed ghetto CNN) to give us insight about what is going on in these urban areas, because it is still not put in major media circulation. Does hip-hop still serve this purpose?

Many people blame hip-hop for causing so much violence. That is not the case, hip-hop may cause violence on rare occasions and that is still a major problem. Hip-Hop INFLUENCES LOTS of violence, and then it is not handled appropriately. Individual responsibility is taken lightly now of days. I am not saying that the violence in hip-hop is good and does not need to leave nor am I saying the it does not have a bad influence on the youth, but what I am saying is that we cannot make hip-hop the sole factor for causing violence when it is one of many factors, and in my opinion a small factor in some cases.

Tony Anderson did a study similar to this while analyzing the effect of youtube on hip-hop. And after hearing his findings we find out that most of these rappers from the hood talk about violence because its what they know, its what they seen. They rap about drugs, not to promote them, but because they actually use or sold them.

The violence in music is a reflection of everyday life. Hip-hop is still the news for the “hood.”