Does Gangsta Rap Harm Black Americans?

In the global popularity scene, hip hop now rules, and is a dominant cultural form in many parts of the world. Rap gives voice to every culture that produces and circulates it, not just African-Americans. As a new force, rap levels the playing field, opening doors to new cultural players, and ripens for new corporate snakes to pounce on. Circulating ideas, images, sound, and style, it is becoming central to the new multimedia global culture and is an expression of a multicultural world with no borders and limits.

In this article, the speaker must be an expert in politics, ethnicity and the music industry. There is a linkage between the above fields hence the speaker must have had a superlative background on these issues. The audience targeted by this literature were seemingly music enthusiasts to be educated on understanding what Hip-Hop entails and hoped to achieve this as it was established. The subject was Hip-Hop as a music genre that was largely developed by African American men to express their plight on injustice and oppression. The principal issue was how Hip-Hop has been used as a form of resistance and need for deliverance of the African Americans.

“Gangsta rap acted as an outlet so such people could express themselves angrily and not in fear that they were going to be silenced for telling the truth. They often used gangsta rap to tell the stories of their lives, which sometimes included strong violence, hypersexuality, and drug abuse.” This music style was new and different. Gangsta rap was authentic and helped tell a story with its deep lyrics. “During the 1990s, Republican and Democratic politicians and some black leaders blamed, not all hip-hop music, but gangsta rap for all of the black communities ' social problems: drug use, teenage pregnancy, unemployment, gang violence, and high school dropouts. Even though these problems existed in the black community prior to gangsta rap, this music and culture has provided a convenient target to avoid addressing the causes of the real problems of black America: racism, sexism, and poverty”.

One of the more interesting implications that are presented in the later parts of this essay is the economic ramifications of the hip-hop culture. McBride paints the picture of a lower income Caucasian American teenager in Dayton, Ohio who finds truth in the story of hip-hop. McBride notes:

Analysis of Hip-Hop and Youth Culture Throughout the last twenty-five years, a new form of expression has continued to evolve. Hip-Hop, once limited to urban music and dance has become a widespread form of communication exhibited and enjoyed by young people throughout the world. Hip-Hop is no longer limited to rap music and break dancing; today it represents a multi-billion dollar industry that influences everything from fashion to prime- time television programming, professional sports, mass media marketing and advertising. Today Hip-Hop is becoming a way of life, a culture that is intricately woven into every aspect of young people's daily lives.

Hip-Hop isn’t just four elements combined within a culture, it is also “ a way of life, a language, a fashion, a set of values, and a unique perspective” (Efrem 2), the hip-hop basic and sub-elements have a strong impact in the American society mainly on its

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”.

Hip-Hop is a cultural movement that emerged from the dilapidated South Bronx, New York in the early 1970’s. The area’s mostly African American and Puerto Rican residents originated this uniquely American musical genre and culture that over the past four decades has developed into a global sensation impacting the formation of youth culture around the world. The South Bronx was a whirlpool of political, social, and economic upheaval in the years leading up to the inception of Hip-Hop. The early part of the 1970’s found many African American and Hispanic communities desperately seeking relief from the poverty, drug, and crime epidemics engulfing the gang dominated neighborhoods. Hip-Hop proved to be successful as both a creative outlet for

Gangsta rap is a genre of music that become very popular in the 1990s that reflected the violent lifestyle that was seen on both the east and west coast. This music would become a

Hip Hop culture has come from a inner city expression of life to a multi-billion dollar business. At the beginning of the new millennium it was the top selling genre in the pop charts. It had influences not only on music, but on fashion, film, television, and print. In 2004 Hip Hop celebrated its 30th year anniversary. It wasn’t big for the fact that it was still kicking. It was big because the once Black/Brown inner city culture had grown into a multi-billion dollar global phenomenon (Reeves). Hip Hop culture has provided a platform for all walks of life to speak their mind. Over the past 36 years it has provided us with both entertainment and controversy alike and had a huge impact on our nation’s history. `

In the early 70's, a Jamaican, DJ known as Kool Herc attempted to combine his Jamaican style of disk jockey, that involved reciting improvised rhymes over the dub versions of his reggae records (Davey 1). He also invented turntables, which kept the music going, with the occasional voice on the top of records, which started the roots of rap music. Over time, the culture broke into mainstream, spread around the world, and young people who did not have much to do, created not only multi-million industry, but have also created a way we can speak to each other all around the world. Hip hop is linked to other music such as rap which is embraced by urban black population. It is raw self-expression, sometimes features expletive lyrics, and violence. “Hip hop artists spoke to despair and pain of urban youth and the poor who were often without a voice. The rappers themselves were, the product of that reality, and it was conveyed through their lyrics” (Muhammad 1).

Even though, hip-hop is viewed as primarily of promoting negative message, however, it has reveled the pain behind the lyrics. “Hip hop music, had for over three and half decades, delivered a resounding message of freedom of expression, unity, peace, and protest against social injustices”. (Anderson & Jackson) As hip-hop continues to grow it has continued to remain a strong influential social impact. Hip-hop created a way for many individuals to express themselves on controversial issues seen throughout society.

In the book Asante refers to the many types of music as a “plethora of genres,” he touches on each genre briefly then he shifts to the main focus of Hip Hop. Asante referred to Hip Hop fans to be less keen to the stereotype of being more aggressive and violent, and to be more outgoing and to have higher self esteem than other genre of music listeners. Asante Jr. goes on to analyse the in depth take on the socio-economic and cultural problems of the generation. The book refers to the issues that hip-hop “should” be engaging in, beginning with the rapidly changing role of mass media

Hip-Hop started in New York during the 1970’s (Issues & Controversies), and has since then changed its sound, purpose, and overall attitude. At first, there was funk, which then influenced hip-hop, then later came hip-hop/ rap who developed their own styles of the art form (“gangsta” rap, hard-core, trap, and others). It was not just the beats and rhythms that changed, but also the lyrics. These controversial lyrics led hip-hop to become one of the biggest faces in mainstream media; But it was not recently, several moments in history have led to the rise of the music. Individuals would turn to music to let out their frustrations during the Civil Rights Movement. Nowadays, rappers’ lyrics come from the influence of where they’re from, mostly “ghetto”

Rap music has been a commonly known genre of music since the nineteen seventies and became popular as “gangster rap.” It has been known to portray images through it’s lyrics and videos of things, such as: gangs, guns, violence, and sexism. Rap has also been commonly associated to be more popular amongst teenagers. Many people who are from the older generations are associated with believing that rap music has had a negative impact in the society we live in today, and has had negative impacts on adolescents today. This is due to the fact that some studies have shown that teenagers who tend to spend more time watching the music videos or listening to the lyrics of rap music referring to sex and violence are more likely to practice these behaviors depicted in real life. Also, another study done by DuRant et al in nineteen ninety-seven shows that rap videos have the highest percentage of violence shown, at twenty and four tenth percent (Impact of Music, Council on Communications and Media).