Ice Cube ( O ' Shea Jackson

I recently wrote an essay about the development of the star persona of Ice Cube, the rapper/actor who has made the unusual transition from hardcore gangsta rapper to leading man in such “family-friendly” films as Are We There Yet? The essay, entitled “With an Attitude: The Development of Ice Cube’s Star Persona,” will soon be published in the online film journal 16:9; I’ll link to it as soon as it’s up. The thesis of the essay is that, for all the apparent and unexpected alterations to his “street” persona, Cube’s film characters are nevertheless almost always coded as gangstas – an association that he has not been able (or has not wanted) to shake.

In her article “Gangsta Culture”, bell hooks explains the social calamities and degeneration of social attitude that has occurred as a result of the glamorization of street gangsta culture. Her purpose is to inform us of the detrimental effects of the patriarchal maleness that has plagued black culture with its violence and incarceration driven norm of supremacy. As a Distinguished Professor of English at City College in New York, hooks structures her text in a cause-and-effect procedure, utilizing a general-to-specific organization scheme to establish her claims. She begins with a biographical segment noting on the influence of Dr. King and Malcolm X in gangsta culture and its cultivation into mainstream media, which aligns her claims on gangsta culture serving as the vehicle for patriarchal manhood. Throughout the article, hooks uses repetition of the term “patriarchal” to emphasize that the prominent figures in hip-hop portraying such image are influencing and presenting a false facade for all black males.

Hip hop is something that has been around since the 21st century. When it comes to the hip hop community, there are so many stereotypes that the media portrays. This essay will show that the stereotype of violent, crimes African American in rap music can become self-prognostication for the hip hop community. This is a behavior that has been corresponding in the rap music and has become accepted as a social norm by the African American community.

Whether you love it or hate it Rap music has come to be one of the most popular, yet arguable, music genres of the past decades. Today’s rap music has changed enormously since the 1970’s. Rap music was about having fun, being able to express what youth were feeling and a way to keep youth out of trouble. Rap songs usually use explicit and demeaning lyrics, which has huge influence on the youth of today. While rappers say that they’re plainly rapping about reality. They often use violence, the use of drugs and Guns as the main tool to tell the story of their lives and show how hard it is growing up in their neighbourhood. This surely does not set any good examples for the young men and women, listening to this trash and singing along with the

Gangsta rap is a form of music that is enjoyed by everyone and there should be no stereotypes attached to it. It has been debated if Gangsta Rap harms Black Americans; it is a heavily criticized art form since its inception. The Encyclopedia Britannica defines “Gangsta rap: a form of hip-hop music that became the genre’s dominant style in the 1990s, a reflection and product of the often violent lifestyle of American inner cities afflicted with poverty and the dangers of drug use and drug dealing. The romanticization of the outlaw at the center of much of gangsta rap appealed to rebellious suburbanites as well as to those who had firsthand experience of the harsh realities of the ghetto. “

Nelson George states that “Gangsta rap is direct by- product of crack explosion. Unless you grasp that connection nothing else that happened in the hip hop’s journey to national scapegoat will make sense. This is not a chicken-or-the-egg riddle —first came rocks, then gangsta rap” (136). To prove his point he examines the connection between drug culture of the inner city areas and the hip hop music. The money collected from illegal drug deals spent on recordings of gangsta rap music. George says “Suspicion of women, loyalty to the crew, adoption of a stone face in confronting the world, hatred of authority—all major themes of gangsta rap-owe their presence of lyrics and impact on audiences to the large number of African-American men incarcerated in the ‘90s” (138). I agree with his statement that gangsta rap is a directed by- product of crack explosion, because social and racial issues for instance drug dealing influencing the lyrics of music and this explosion of heroin and crack in communities gave birth to gangsta rap.

In this case, Hip Hop causes societal regression rather than positive change. Moreover, “with its controversial and stereotypical imagery, gangsta rap...justified further benign neglect” (Source G) of the African demographic it represented as it spread the belief that African American communities like Compton are not worth governmental concern but are in need of further policing. This increased police brutality and allowed the worsening of ghetto conditions as described in ( Source B) The Message due to the warranting of neglect.

When analyzing rap, the struggle of African American people can be identified. Mukasa argues that gangster rap typically is affiliated with the truth about the struggles of American Americans. He also argues that there is media tends to connect rap with negative things such as crime and violence. This is supported when he says: “There is a tendency to pigeonhole black life and identity, especially as portrayed in mainstream American media, within the confines of a decrepit, immoral, destitute, criminal underworld.” Media overlooks the quality of black life. What the media does not show, Gangsta Rap vividly demonstrates. Gangsta rap is a genre that is characterized by lyrics

“There are approximately 27,900 gangs, with 774,000 members, impacting towns, cities, and communities across the United States. Gangs conduct criminal activity in all 50 states and U.S. territories. Although most gang activity is concentrated in major urban areas, gangs also are proliferating in rural and suburban areas of the country as gang members flee increasing law enforcement pressure in urban areas or seek more lucrative drug markets. This proliferation in non-urban areas increasingly is accompanied by violence and is threatening society in general (Decker, 1996).” The code of the street is silence and to snitch is death. Everyone within Calliope projects knows this so no one talks, not even to the police. In the distance music from a radio playing “Hand on pump finger on the trigger (Cypress Hill)” can be heard as men laughing and joke about how they just creeped up on some guy and shot him and the look on his face. A 187 has just been committed (police code for homicide) but no one cares in this community

The preceding genres of rap music are all closely related, but Hip Hop originated from Jamaican reggae music. There are other cultures who have adopted hip hop influence such as Latinos and Asians. Although rap music has been widely accepted by different cultures all over the world, their have not been many studies dedicated to researching if rap music increases violent behavior through the lyrical content of the songs. Out of all of the genres of rap music, Gangsta Rap has been noted by past researchers to promote violent self identification which in term promotes violence through lyrical content. Gangsta Rap became popular in the 1990s. In a study conducted by Herd (2009) that included 340 gangsta rap songs, it was found that violent references dramatically increased and those references were viewed as positive and linked to wealth, prowess, and glamour. In reference to Kubrin (2005), he found that “The St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture categorizes ‘gangsta rap as the most controversial kind of rap genre, because it received global attention for having violent depictions of urban ghetto life’ in America.” (Abrams 2000:198)

The foundation of rap started to evolve into a form of art, and it was intended for people to express their problems about growing up on the “streets.” Originating within the Bronx of New York City, it was used to share the struggles of growing up in violence, hardships, and as a minority in America. Companies began to capitalize on the growth of rap in the 90s through marketing techniques used to portray stereotypes of the culture associated with the genre. In her essay Selling to Children: The Marketing of Cool, Juliet B. Schor says “In the 1990s, ads aimed at white, middle-class Americans began to be filmed in inner-city neighborhoods with young black men as the stars” (220). Schor then goes

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 an extensive and a broad conglomerate of various artistic forms that ultimately originated in the South Bronx and then quickly spread throughout the rest of New York City among African-Americans and other African-American youth mainly from the Caribbean and from Jamaica during the 1970’s. Over the course of decades and recent years, controversy surrounding Hip-Hop and rap music has been the vanguard of the media. From the over hype of the East and West Coast rivalry to the deaths of Tupac, Biggie, and even Michael Brown and Trayvon Martin, it seems that political and broadcasting groups have been injudicious to place essentially the blame on rap and Hip-Hop music for a superficial trend in youth violence.

Greg Tate of the Encyclopedia Brittanica (insider for hip-hop music) stated best that “...the romanticization of the outlaw at the centre of much of gangsta rap appealed to rebellious suburbanites as well as to those who had firsthand experience of the harsh realities of the ghetto.” Here, Tate explains the true meaning behind the genre ‘gangsta rap’. Though brutal and straightforward, this music selection was an expression of freedom for those stuck in low-income homes, poverty stricken neighborhoods, drug polluted streets, and gang filled high schools. Gangsta rap not only proved to be an outlet from the ‘ghettos’ but it also altered the hip-hop sound. Gangsta rap proved, in the early 80s and late 90s, to be the music that would alter the previous hip-hop movement through narrative lyrics, hardcore beats, and realistic messages from the east and west coasts.

The study of hip hop music has been cited well throughout its growth over time. The purpose of this paper is intended to discuss hip hop culture and address cultural stereotypes associated with rap and hip-hop music, but also how its original lyrical intentions were forms of expression and art. It will begin by guiding the reader through how it originated, its influence with the African-Americans with its subculture and popularity in urban areas, its styles of evolving, the introduction of hip hop and rap to the public, the depiction it gave off with its criticisms from outsiders. An evaluation of hip hop artists songs by Sugar Hill and the Gang, Run DMC, Queen Latifah, and N.W.A. Including lyrics from the songs “Rappers Delight”, “King of Rock”, “Latifah’s Law”, and “Niggaz4Life”. In the conclusion it exposes how hip hop music is clearly for black Americans to express themselves freely and in fact did not cause violence.