Violence in Rap and Other Forms of Self-Expression

Categories: Rap

According to Blanchard (1999), Violence in rap, and in other forms of self-expression, is the manifestation of a feeling of hopelessness and discontent in America's working class, especially working-class minority communities. By pointing to rap as the cause of violence, politicians attempt to erase from the consciousness of their constituents the history of oppression that has given birth to hip-hop culture. For many youth the heroes and success stories of the inner-city are rappers. The popularity of rap and the spin-offs of hip-hop culture--fashion lines like FUBU and Tommy Hilfiger33, movies such as Boyz N Da Hood and Friday, and television shows like The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and In the House--have had a major impact on American marketing trends.

The appeal of hip-hop culture has pushed out of urban areas and into the suburbs. Hip-hop has had a tremendous influence on mainstream fashion, television, movies, advertising, and language 34.

According to Nakia Jackson (2018), Rap music features lyrics filled with slang and often peppered with profanity, which has caused concern among parents, educators and activists alike.

Get quality help now
Doctor Jennifer
Doctor Jennifer
checked Verified writer

Proficient in: Rap

star star star star 5 (893)

“ Thank you so much for accepting my assignment the night before it was due. I look forward to working with you moving forward ”

avatar avatar avatar
+84 relevant experts are online
Hire writer

Rap lyrics may discuss violence as a part of an exciting and dangerous lifestyle, but some songs condemn violence and even propose solutions. Research done at Western Connecticut State University found that those who listen to music with violent lyrics are more likely to be violent. Rap was born in poor urban communities where violence may be poorly controlled, but social and economic factors can play a much greater role in the prevalence of violence. For teens in poor communities, rap lyrics speak to their current reality and their fantasies of escape.

Get to Know The Price Estimate For Your Paper
Topic
Number of pages
Email Invalid email

By clicking “Check Writers’ Offers”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy policy. We’ll occasionally send you promo and account related email

"You must agree to out terms of services and privacy policy"
Write my paper

You won’t be charged yet!

And like all forms of music, rap offers a creative outlet and a way to connect with peers. (Jackson, Nakia, 2018,What Influence and Effects Does Rap Music Have on Teens Today?,Livestrong, 6, 2, pg. 1) Necessarily Black: Cape Verdean Youth Hip-Hop Cultue, and a Critique of Identity

According to saucier (2015), Initially, questions of fashion and style were simply going to play a peripheral role in my portrayal of Cape Verdean blackness. However, after I attended many events, the importance of fashion and style became increasingly noticeable. Saucier, P. (2015). Front Matter. In Necessarily Black: Cape Verdean Youth, Hip-Hop Culture, and a Critique of Identity

According to Matt pickles (2017), Academics in the Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities' (TORCH) Race and Resistance Programme will host a discussion about the cultural value of hip hop this month 'The Hiphop Archive's focus, which includes projects like analysing the poetic quality of 2Pac's lyrics to understanding the post-civil rights dimention of Outkast's Southern rap, demonstrates that hip hop is a source of artistic innovation and enjoyment on its own terms, while also providing us with insight into the cultural, social, and political conditions that have shaped recent times,' says Louisa Olufsen Layne, a DPhil student in English at Oxford University.

According to Michelle (2009), he said It reflects contemporary currents in hip hop culture and critical scholarship, as well as the epochal social, cultural, and economic shifts of the last decade. Drawing together historical work on hip hop and rap music as well as four years of research at a local community center, Greg Dimitriadis argues here that contemporary youth are fashioning notions of self and community outside of school in ways educators have largely ignored.

According to John (2003), Many writers and thinkers see a kind of informed political engagement, even a revolutionary potential, in rap and hip-hop. They couldn't even be more wrong. By reinforcing the stereotypes that long hindered blacks , and by teaching young blacks that a thuggish adversarial stance is the properly "authentic" response to a presumptively racist society, rap retards black success.

According to Prize (2006), It was born on the streets of the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Harlem, and afte years underground it emerged in Los Angeles, Japan, Fance, and beyond to become an extraordinarily rich and often controversial wellspring of music, movies, language, and fashion. Once seen as a novelty, Hip Hop culture has become part of the mainstream--a mainstay of cable TV and shopping malls.

According to Bradley (2009), So many books on the subject focus on everything but the music, which is whyBook of Rhymes is so important. Bradley, an Englsih professor, gives rap lyrics the attention they deserve as a form of poetry, explaining the nuance and complexities of the songwriting. Reading this will help you not only become a more attuned listener, but also more appreciative of what the greatest MC's are really saying.

According to Chappelle (1995), Ever since hip-hop moved from the street corner to the orner office, it's been much more difficult for it to remain connected with its neighborhood roots. but Dave Chappelle somehow managed to do it, organizing a concer film in Brooklyn that featured many favorites of the alternative hip-hop crowd, namely the Soulquarians. Also, the Fugees. Oh, an Kanye, back when he still rocked the pink Polo and Jesus chain. It is an interesting look at how a show is put on.

According to Robbins (1995) , who at the times was only a few years removed from N.W.A, summed it up perfectly when he said, "Living up to what you say on records, it's all entertainment. Anybody in their right mind knows you can talk about shooting somebody on a record but ain't really go out there and do it, unless you're just stupid. It's entertainment, you know, we make records, it's all entertainment, that's all it is. This is like our jobs." Thanks to The Show, for the first time in history, hip-hop was exposed to be a profession and an industry rather than a completely factual medium.

According to Devos (2007), Nowadays, rap is considered to be one of the most popular genres in the music industry. A lot of rappers have several platinum albums under their belts, and rap videos are in constant rotation on T.V. stations such as TMF, JIMtv and MTV. However, the degree of popularity hasn't always been this high. Therefore, I would like to explain how popular rap-often referred to as 'mainstream, rap has evolved.

According to Jordan Lindsay (2019), "Hip Hop History and Culture. First and foremost, this is not about rap music, that is a part of the culture, but this looks at the historical development of hip hop in New York City in the early 70's and we look at the different eras in hip hop up until today in 2019, One reason I think it's important, number one because many of my students live and breathe hip hop culture, yet and still, just like with any culture you don't realize how much culture impacts your lives, the way you view the world, the food you eat, the way you dress, the way you talk, all these different elements become a part of any culture but with hip hop culture, I don't think the students really understand how it impacts their lives," Smith said. The impact of street culture on Nigerian Hip-Hop AYOMIDE O. TAYO 02/02/2019 The streets is the mecca, the Garden of Eden, the lifeblood where Hip-Hop culture gets its spiritual essence from.

It's the birthplace of the struggle that led to the creation of Hip-Hop as a cultural force to address issues of economic injustice and institutional racism. The inner cities, the slums, the project housings, ghettos are the streets. The art of rap, dancing, deejaying, graffiti and beat-boxing, the five elements, were all created from the streets, so as other elements fashion and Hip-Hop philosophy.Street culture has brought a way of life that was previously not acknowledged, curated and celebrated.

According to Bradley (2009), This hasn't always been the case; poetry once had a prized place in both public and private affairs. At births and deaths, weddings and funerals, festivals and family gatherings, people would recite poetry to give shape to their feelings. Its relative absence today says something about us ,our culture's short attention span, perhaps, or the dominance of other forms of entertainment but also about poetry itself. While the last century saw an explosion of poetic productiv- ity, it also marked a decided shift toward abstraction.

According to Charnas (2010), "Essentially, the Roc-A-Fella ethos was that hip-hop can be everything to its fans. It's not just music, it's not just entertainment, but it can be the clothes that they wear, it can be the language that they speak, it can be the books that they read it can be even the money that they spend. So I think Jay really is a product of that. and acts according to that ethos.

So he ends up diversifying into nightclubs and a sports team and a cosmetic line." Jay- Z said. The Big Payback tells the history of hip-hop through the lens of business from the street to the boardroom. Begginning in th '70s when DJ's first received cash to rock a party all the way through to the 2000's when artist-owned record labels and clothing lines raned in hundreds of millions of dollars, Charnas looks at the individuals that made it happen, both positively and negatively, and, in the process, shows how the business affected the music.

According to Ntarangwi (2009), As a category East African hip hop includes several genres, such as rap, R & B, and ragga (note: ragga is spelled with one 'g' in the monograph, though it is often spelled with two to differentiate it from Indian raga). Ntarangwi analyses the relation of these genres to globalization, neo-colonialism, and the agency of youth.

Agency is an important theme of the ethnography and Ntarangwi states that hip hop is a means for artists to retain autonomy while influencing 'other people in political discourse and even economic activity in spite of the global forces of inequality and exploitation that they face.

According to Anthony Neal (1971), From the very beginning of its recent history, hip-hop music or rap, as it has come to be known has faced various obstacles. Initially, rap was deemed a passing fad, a playful and ephemeral black cultural form that steamed off the musical energies of urban black teens. As it became obvious that rap was here to stay, a permanent fixture in black ghetto youths' musical landscape, the reactions changed from dismissal to denigration, and rap music came under attack from both black and white quarters. Of course, it is difficult for a culture that is serious about the maintenance of social arrangements, economic conditions, and political choices that create and reproduce poverty, racism, sexism, classism, and violence to display a significant appreciation for musical expressions that contest the existence of such problems in black and Latino communities.

According to Weicker (2009), Hip-hop became more than a music, It was a lifestyle. Dancers started wearing baggy and colorful clothes to create hip-hop look.Break dancing also became popular for its hip-hop moves.Large artwork called graffiti appeared on city buildings and transportation.Hip hop grew into more than a style of music. It became more popular with television shows.While people don't like the lyrics and videos,hip hop has been an important influence for the past thirty years.

According to Charlton (1970), Hip-hop began with break dancing in the though ghettos of New York's South Bronx and soon spread to Queens and Brooklyn. The dance is also provided a bit of positive relief from life in neighborhoods where gang violence was common. A DJ named Dj KOOL HERC is the father of hip hop because he is the one who started the culture.The basic values around which they organized were freedom, justice, equality, knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. Regardless of the style of the music backing rap vocals, and regardless of the message of the vocals, rap singers always expressed a sense of sincerity.Like they are sharing their freedom of expression on anyone.

According to Lois Elfman (2019), according to Lois Elfman,"Culture matters when it comes to politics," says Villegas. "Im having them observe and understand the controversies of the cultures in which they are embedded. I'm trying to introduce them to the fact that hip hop is'nt colorblind. Hip hop is immersed in color consciousness." He says that hip hop is the gateway into understanding White supremacy and colonialism. "infused in all my classes with the hip hop ethos is understanding racism and colonialism. My classes are all pivoting around these central problems. Villegas said.

According to Archarya (2015),"Mass media created a seemingly authentic Black American culture that glamorized drugs, violence, and hypersexuality." She also remarks that hip hop has been converted into a multi-billion industry that has been turned to "generate cold, hard cash." This statement is true because nowadays, hip hop artists focus more on making money and glamorizing drugs, money, and naked girls. There are many ways hip hop can affect a person, definitely not the only one, that can affect the youth. I am writing this post not to condemn hip hop or rap music, but to make an awareness about several ways it can affect us, the youth, negatively. By watching hip hop music videos that glamorize drugs and sex, an individual may be tempted to try drugs or to have multiple partners just because they are "curious." Indeed, it appears that the more hip hop/rap music a person listens to, the more negatively the individual will be affected". Archaya said.

According to Brown (2016), The lyrics appeal to the emotional struggles usually felt in teenage years, and for teens in lower socioeconomic brackets, the financial struggles felt by many rappers mirror their own. An escape from reality is provided for teens in the "better tommorrow" depicted by some rap songs.

Rags-to-riches stories can be appealing at many developmental stages. Youthful desires to break the rules and become one's own person are condoned by rap music. Most of all, rap is enjoyed by teenagers because it brings people together.

Writing lyrics and producing new beats is a needed creative outlet for young people. It is important for record companies to break this pattern, and allow more positive role models into the spotlight.

Teenagers' brains are highly plastic or impressionable. This means the messages they see from anything, including rap music, are likely to impact their behavior. These impacts can be both positive and negative.

To conclude, rap music will affect teenage fans for better or worse. The negative effects will likely be minimized if the teenager also has other influences, and if they fully understand the intent of rap culture. Although there is much progress that can be made, the genre still functions as an awesome form of entertainment, and a unique way of bringing people of different backgrounds together.

According to Nakia Jackson (2018) ,Rap music features lyrics filled with slang and often peppered with profanity, which has caused concern among parents, educators and activists alike.Rap lyrics may discuss violence as a part of an exciting and dangerous lifestyle, but some songs condemn violence and even propose solutions. Research done at Western Connecticut State University found that those who listen to music with violent lyrics are more likely to be violent. Rap was born in poor urban communities where violence may be poorly controlled, but social and economic factors can play a much greater role in the prevalence of violence. For teens in poor communities, rap lyrics speak to their current reality and their fantasies of escape. And like all forms of music, rap offers a creative outlet and a way to connect with peers.

According to Washington (2018) For these reasons, I believe that it behooves counselors to develop a working knowledge of Hip-Hop culture and rap music, at the very least, and to envision how these things are germane to social justice counseling with Black males. It is important to state that this position does not assume that Black males are a monolithic group with respect to Hip-Hop culture and rap music. The presence of lewd and misogynistic lyrics within Hip-Hop and rap music is but one legitimate, resounding criticism articulated by prominent cultural critics and Black males who have expressed distrust and disdain for Hip-Hop and rap music.

Updated: Nov 01, 2022
Cite this page

Violence in Rap and Other Forms of Self-Expression. (2019, Dec 05). Retrieved from https://studymoose.com/violence-in-rap-and-other-forms-of-self-expression-essay

Violence in Rap and Other Forms of Self-Expression essay
Live chat  with support 24/7

👋 Hi! I’m your smart assistant Amy!

Don’t know where to start? Type your requirements and I’ll connect you to an academic expert within 3 minutes.

get help with your assignment