Hip Hop: What is The Message?

[lady grey]

when discussing karolina the question was asked, if she hung with rappers would that be a negative in her public perception and/or affect her getting work?
that is a hard one to answer but it raised the broader discussion, which is hardly new, about the mixed messages found in hip hop lyrics, and also the perceived lifestyle stereotypes of the hip hop world. bill cosby for one has recently attacked hip hop for these messages & it spurred heated debate among african americans & the worldwide population in general about the messages that are being aired in hip hop- which is surely one of the most popular forms of music.
Id like to examine via an occasional news item the values espoused in some hip hop & ask if it is indeed a positive image to be teaching the impressionable young. & make no mistake, hip hop is hugely popular among the young.
some find perceived hip hop themes of prostitution [pimps & hos] organized crime [gang banging] drug use [chronic, powder etc] ostentatious material possessions [bling, cars, houses, etc] violence [gangs, gunplay, stabbings, fistfights, beefs] to be inapropriate lessons.
i personally like a good deal of hip hop & I have ever since 'rappers delight.' grandmaster flash, eric b & rakim, funky four + 1, treacherous three etc.
however as an adult I am not down with many of the messages included in the lyrics & the hip hop lifestyle is not one that i aspire to. so in a roundabout way lets find out if certain messages in hip hop are possible negative lessons and is it in fact possible that kk associating with rappers might harm her public perception? I am not answering these questions, im asking them.

first entry: harvard criticizes snoop dogg's lyrics encouraging men to use physical force to beat & subdue women. Im sure we are all concerned about domestic abuse & child abuse, snoop seems to endorse it on his latest lp:

""Harvard Cancels Snoop Show
By Clover Hope
Date: 4/15/2005 10:40 am



[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
Harvard University's Undergraduate Council has cancelled a planned performance by Snoop Dogg next month, after local news reports suggested students objected to the rapper's obscene lyrics.

[/font][font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Some Harvard students reportedly opposed Snoop appearing at the prestigious Massachusetts university, according to local news channel NBC 3.[/font]

[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The students mentioned lyrics from Snoop's latest album Rhythm and Gangsta in particular, about slapping women as a means of controlling them.[/font]

[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]The Undergraduate Council failed to mention the lyrics in a short statement they issued, which simply stated that Snoop's cancellation was due to "financial considerations and unavoidable obstacles."[/font]

[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]According to a report published on The Harvard Crimson's website on April 13, Snoop had not even signed a contract, but was in negotiations with the Harvard Concert Commission.[/font]

[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Concert organizers must clear a security plan with the Boston Police Department and obtain an entertainment license from the Boston Mayor's Office of Special Events if the proposed concert, slated for May 1, is to take place.[/font]

[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]While reports of Snoop's lyrics were offered as a reason for the cancellation of the concert, The Crimson reported that the Undergraduate Council, which funds HCC events, is unsure whether in can cover the expenses of the event.""[/font]

http://www.allhiphop.com/hiphopnews/?ID=4302

now thats snoops lyrics, Im also going to post an occasional real life story [like the recent gunplay between 50 cents & the games posses out side hot 97 radio station] to show that the lyrics are not idle boasts, they actually do result in literal crime & violence & once again the hip hop lifestyle seems to include random brushes with the law at a possibly alarming rate. I will simply post factual news events, you acn draw your own conclusions for yourself & your families.

 

[travolta]

this is a good topic. but i'll have to get back to you on this...

 

[PrinceOfCats]

As far as I can see, major 'hip hop' artists are hardly Bob Dylan. I heard someone try and do a 'cultural relatavism' whojamaflip on general hip hop lyrics saying why they sound like a shopping list. It just confirmed my suspicion that a lot of these guys are brain dead.

 

[travolta]

agree with prince...it doesn't take a stretch of the imagination to make something that will please the public and sell records. it is easy to categorize, and with hip hop its 'guns and hoes'...unfortunately that isn't even talking about the real music. i guess the best thing would be to do away with 'genres' and just listen to what grabs you by the throat.
that is why file sharing is such a great thing...people aren't dictated.

 

[tricotineacetat]

I´ll possibly reply to this one later when I got some sleep... until then, I´d recomment checking out Ursula Rucker(´s Lyrics/Music), an afro-american "rapper" (a little underrated as she´s not bound to this genre, only) from Philadelphia. She´s actually preaching a lot against those "gangsta"-rappers influencing the kids, most important songs would be "What???" (from album Supa Sista), with regards to this topic. Enjoy.

 

[Fade to Black]

I´ll possibly reply to this one later when I got some sleep... until then, I´d recomment checking out Ursula Rucker(´s Lyrics/Music), an afro-american "rapper" (a little underrated as she´s not bound to this genre, only) from Philadelphia. She´s actually preaching a lot against those "gangsta"-rappers influencing the kids, most important songs would be "What???" (from album Supa Sista), with regards to this topic. Enjoy.

this is the same girl who was on the last song from The Roots' "Things Fall Apart" album, right? That was a dope spoken word piece she did...

 

[Fade to Black]

now thats snoops lyrics, Im also going to post an occasional real life story [like the recent gunplay between 50 cents & the games posses out side hot 97 radio station] to show that the lyrics are not idle boasts, they actually do result in literal crime & violence & once again the hip hop lifestyle seems to include random brushes with the law at a possibly alarming rate. I will simply post factual news events, you acn draw your own conclusions for yourself & your families.

Most of the high profile gangster rappers like 50, Snoop, Ja Rule, Jay etc. are all studio gangsters...they talk about it all they want on record, but in reality they're always surrounded by bodyguards and don't do any killing at all. I mean look at Snoop, Suge Knight tried confronting him several times at award shows and Snoop was hiding and cowering behind his guards. I do think that despite the fact that these guys are all talk, they have a significant influence on the youth who listens to their romanticized stories of violence and fall for it as reality, after all these are their role models.

oh, and I still think the whole 50/Game fiasco was part of 50's marketing ploy to build hype around The Massacre, it was perfect timing as it all went down the week the album dropped. I think Game genuinely hated 50 for sabotaging his career, but 50 capitalized on the situation and had that thing go down at Hot 97, they could've easily paid some random dude a few G's to take the bullet, after all he did get shot in the ***. If it was serious you best believe somebody would be dead by now. The whole thing just seems staged, like when one of the G-Unit guys said "we gotta go" right before the show went off air...

yeah i know gangsta rap is bad for me but i'ma stay bumpin that til i die.

 

[TokyoVogue]

As far as I can see, major 'hip hop' artists are hardly Bob Dylan. I heard someone try and do a 'cultural relatavism' whojamaflip on general hip hop lyrics saying why they sound like a shopping list. It just confirmed my suspicion that a lot of these guys are brain dead.

Funny you should mention Dylan
he's said he agrees with rap, i suppose the rhyming skills and talent, just not with the lack of substance.

and we all know what "the message" is:

Broken glass everywhere
People pissing on the stairs, you know they just
Don’t care
I can’t take the smell, I can’t take the noise
Got no money to move out, I guess I got no choice
Rats in the front room, roaches in the back
Junkie’s in the alley with a baseball bat
I tried to get away, but I couldn’t get far
Cause the man with the tow-truck repossessed my car

Don’t push me, cause I’m close to the edge
I’m trying not to loose my head
It’s like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder
How I keep from going under

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five ya'll

 

[czilla]

I think hip hop and its message is as varied and rock and pop music... It's populated by the same spectrum of superstars and dregs. You have your lyrical poets telling a story, your spitfire poets busy showing off their word acrobatics.. and then the people who couldn't care less about the poetry, but drop such a good beat. ^^ There's room for everyone, and the way I viscerally enjoy a loud power ballad is the same way I'm going to enjoy Nelly - Hot in herre or Lil Kim f 50 - Magic Stick.

As far as I can see, major 'hip hop' artists are hardly Bob Dylan. I heard someone try and do a 'cultural relatavism' whojamaflip on general hip hop lyrics saying why they sound like a shopping list. It just confirmed my suspicion that a lot of these guys are brain dead.

Hehe, I know what you mean PrinceOfCats, but just as a counterpoint.. Most major musical artists in general are hardly Bob Dylan. For every Cristal popping, goblet toting rap caricature, there's a syrupy sweet rock-pop starlet making a name for herself off of incomprehensible romantic babble. + I'd put the brain-dead label on the audience that supports and demands the pop-slush, over the artists. No matter the genre, all you need do is look a little deeper on the major labels, or a little wider towards the indies and you find talented wordsmiths anywhere..

Anyways, I think the message depends on what artist you're listening to. Yes, gangsta rap thrives (luckily, bc I'm lovin' a good bit of it ), but there are just as many artists who make it their business - a la Ursula Rucker -- to refute that message if it offends or disturbs them. And it's not just the MCs and the indie hip hop heads kicking up a fuss... Think Nas' c**n Picnic (These are our heroes

From OJ to Kobe, uh let's call him Tobe
First he played his life cool just like Michael
Now he rock ice too just like I do
Yo, you can't do better than that?
The hotel clerk who adjusts the bathroom mat?
Now you lose sponsorships that you thought had your back
Yeah, you beat the rap jiggaboo, fake ***** you
You turn around then you sh*t on Shaq
Who woulda knew, Mr. Goodie-Two-Shoes
He love a little butt crack, got enough cash
Little kids with they bus pass who look up to you
To do something for the youth, stupid spoof
But you let them use you as an example
They would rep, but our heroes got they hands full [...]
These are our heroes, thanks a lot public school systems still rot
Still harassed by cops, snitches on blocks
Sellin they peoples out - some real folks with clout
Tavis Smiley, Michael Eric Dyson
Stokely Carmichael, let's try to be like them
Nicky Giovanni poetical black female
Jim Brown to the people who sing well from
Fela to Miriam Makeba

One last quote...
Yo...put one up shackle me, not clean logic procreation
I did not invent the wheel I was the crooked spoke adjacent
While the triple sixers lassos keep angels roped in the basement
I walk the block with a halo and a stick poking your patience
- Aesop Rock

So here's to the crooked spokes.

 

[lady grey]

hip hop murder rap

QUOTE FADE TO BLACK:"Most of the high profile gangster rappers like 50, Snoop, Ja Rule, Jay etc. are all studio gangsters..."" QUOTE

actually every one of them has been arrested for either drug dealing, assault, gunplay, attempted murder, stabbings. They have all detailed a criminal past in their lyrics & its 100% real. why do you say its fiction? they are admitted criminals.

NOW TO TODAYS NEWS:

""April 18, 2005 -- The two hip-hop mogul brothers who adopted mobster John Gotti's name and turned Murder Inc. records into a hit machine are under federal investigation for the beating death of a Manhattan drug dealer, The Post has learned.



Irv "Gotti" Lorenzo and his brother Christopher are suspected of wielding a piece of lumber — a two-by-four "embedded with nails," according to one police report — to repeatedly bash Anthony Sylvester on the head until he fell unconscious before dumping his body in a vacant lot on East 124th Street near Fifth Avenue on Oct. 20, 1993.

Investigators said the attackers left Sylvester for dead, but the bloodied victim managed to survive the attack — an "intervention of God," his mother, Marietta Freeman, 61, would later tell The Post.

Her son remained in a coma for eight months and then spent the next 10 years living in a hospice with round-the-clock assistance until he finally succumbed to his wounds on Oct. 29, 2003.

NYPD investigators recently handed over new witnesses and evidence in the case to the feds, who are weighing going before a grand jury to obtain a murder charge for the Gottis, whose record label, now called The Inc., is home to superstars Ashanti and Ja Rule.

Robert Nardoza, a spokesman for Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf, declined to comment on the probe.

But Gerald Shargel, a lawyer for Chris Gotti, called the allegation "malicious, false and reckless."



Shargel insisted the Gottis never knew Sylvester and, back in 1993, "were just hardworking kids just trying to make it as construction workers."

According to sources, court records and his relatives, Sylvester, then 33, was living on the fringe and had been arrested about a dozen times, mostly for larceny, possessing stolen property and criminal trespass, from 1991 to 1993.

In early October 1993, he was arrested again, this time on a drug-possession charge, and was sentenced to 30 days at Rikers Island.

He was released on Oct. 19, and the following day, was walking on 104th Street near Fifth Avenue when a car pulled up.

Authorities are now probing whether it was the Gottis who jumped out and pulled Sylvester into the lot, where they took the nail-studded board to his head.

Cops theorize Sylvester either owed money to a drug dealer or had stolen narcotics from him. "It looks like they tortured him, hitting on the head and probably demanding with each blow to know where their money or product was," an investigative source said. ""

http://www.nypost.com/news/regionalnews/42930.htm

murder inc, which gave the world ja rule & ashanati- involved in murder, assault & drug dealing. there's no fiction here- it's pure bloody murder.

 

[Fade to Black]

lol if Irv Gotti is such a gangster then why didn't he call a hit on 50 during the peak of the G-Unit/Ja Rule beef? I'm not denying they have criminal backgrounds, but a lot of their talk is exaggerated boasts and pure gangsta bravado.

"That n*gga ain't Gotti, he pretend" - The Game

 

[sugarpea]

the negative messages about violence and women that is found in mainstream hip-hop continues because that is what the majority of hip-hop lrecord buyers want and dont object to hearing. who are the majority of hip-hop record buyers: white males from the suburbs....so to blame hip-hop for such negative messages is to overlook the overaching (white patriarchal) acceptance and glorification of misogyny and poverty and violence among communities of color

 

[lady grey]

criminal records

since irv gotti was just charged with murder in the article I posted today thats real enough for me. beating & torturing someone with nail-filled lumber until they fall into a coma & doe in the hospital? thats real enough for me.

youre blaming the CD buyers for the offensive lyrics of rappers?
thats like blaming the victim for a crime.

the problem is that hip hop glorifies all the crimes detailed above & its a terrible influence on children & the world in general & to associate with the hip hop life style is degradating & seems to encourage a lot of criminal activity.
there is no shortage of eveidence of this i can post an artcle everyday.

 

[Nemova]

and we all know what "the message" is:

Broken glass everywhere
People pissing on the stairs, you know they just
Don’t care
I can’t take the smell, I can’t take the noise
Got no money to move out, I guess I got no choice
Rats in the front room, roaches in the back
Junkie’s in the alley with a baseball bat
I tried to get away, but I couldn’t get far
Cause the man with the tow-truck repossessed my car

Don’t push me, cause I’m close to the edge
I’m trying not to loose my head
It’s like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder
How I keep from going under

Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five ya'll

That's the only message I know. B)

 

[lady grey]

deeper messages

I certainly think rap is a totally valid artform & Ive embraced it for decades.
musically & for the nimble wordplay of many mcs.
but that doesnt mean that one should turn a blind eye to destructive content in that or any artform.
and make no mistake i am hardly the first person to quarrel with the gangsta rap lyrics or lifestyle.
its an on going debate worldwide and the daily news of crime and arrests among well known rap figures should give any citizen of the world much concern.
are these crimes & ethical abrogations 100% acceptable to those of you who would defend hip hop, those crimes & the lifestyle?
does the furious five being raised in the bronx among poverty somehow give them a license to commit crime? that is exactly what bill cosby bemoans- the negative influence of hip hop lyrics on impressionable youth, particularly african americans.
is that ok with you or youre concerned too??

 

[czilla]

youre blaming the CD buyers for the offensive lyrics of rappers? thats like blaming the victim for a crime.

I think most pop music is factory made to cater to an audience. Think about the production/writing force The Matrix -- they've penned every teeny bopper hit for the past 3 years. Not that having a single songwriting force is a bad thing -- motown certainly used the same format and their product was syrupy-goodness heart: The Marvelettes - Please Mr Postman) -- but the music industry absolutely apes the success of one item until they can no longer bleed a penny from it. Songwriters, producers, rappers copy what sells. 50's gangsta image has done incredibly well with suburbanites and urbanites alike... paving the road for his many attempted imitators. If the boys and girls spearheading the 'negative hip hop influences' weren't so continually lauded for their efforts via record sales (ie. CD buyers) and hand wringing gossip pieces I doubt they'd bother to live them... or stage them.

 

[sars]

i think the african-american community has lost its hold on true hip hop. i mean, damn look at the 'underground' hip hop scene as of late; its dominated by white kids. it was pure when it started out (not totally of course) and stayed pretty real, creative, and worthwhile but now? hip-hop in general has been fetishized and a whole commodity culture has been built on it, with the music as a foundation. people are getting rich off it and that's basically what matters most right now.

i feel myself getting stupid listening to a lot of the tunes out right now.

 

[czilla]

Commodification of a musical genre isn't strictly bad -- blues was commodified into rock and roll.. We wouldn't really want to forsake Led Zeppelin, right? I also don't think that the underground is dominated by white kids.. It's 4 am, but the only major 'white' underground rapper that I can think up who gets his fair share of respect is Atmosphere --- and deservedly so. Plus, the underground is less underground than ever. It's so accessible, and there are so many deserving, talented and prolific lyricists to choose from. Hip hop is just diverse enough to support different genres and different sorts of fans.... I could go a whole year w/o touching crunk, and hole up w/ my emcees if I so desire. Anyways, the whole money being the only thing that matters... Certainly to a few major players, but that's like saying Britney Spears and Ashlee Simpson are reflective of rock and roll. The 'album of the day' thread is chock full of other options.. It's just a question of celebrating the bands you adore over what the publicity mill tells you to adore, right?

 

[sugarpea]

youre blaming the CD buyers for the offensive lyrics of rappers?
thats like blaming the victim for a crime.

the problem is that hip hop glorifies all the crimes detailed above & its a terrible influence on children & the world in general & to associate with the hip hop life style is degradating & seems to encourage a lot of criminal activity.
there is no shortage of eveidence of this i can post an artcle everyday.

there is no empirical evidence that there is a causal relationship between hip-hop and level of criminal activity or violent behavior among hip-hop listeners....my point is this: rappers, like any other type of artist, are businesspeople...if their audience didnt want to hear about black people killing each other and women treated as objects, they wouldnt write about it...the fact of the matter is this, any time a musical art form created by african americans (jazz for instance) reaches the mainstream, it is fetishized, as someone said below and a lot of the mainstream songs/pieces you hear are silly, overproduced and stereotyped version of the original art form (glenn miller, anyone?)

 

[PrinceOfCats]

fact of the matter is this, any time a musical art form created by african americans (jazz for instance)

As a reaction to Glenn Miller's ilk there was hardcore bebop - a form of music so ridiculously complex that no 'white boy' from the suburbs was ever going to listen to it, or that was the theory. But then look at the artists themselves. John Coltrane fights addiction, Charlie Parker dies of an overdose, Miles Davis takes a break from Jazz to become a pimp. This is a pretty extended analogy but you cannot deny that the culture that created these men - be it 'ghetto' culture, music culture, Jazz culture - clearly have issues with drugs, the law and women. Hip hop or rap just takes it stage further by making these issues the focus of the music. It isn't just what the audiences want to hear.