The Pied Piper of Hip-Hop   Term Paper ID:38013 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Hip-Hop Rap and Gangsta rap are not just entertainment but a cultural force that ...... More...

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Paper Abstract: Hip-Hop, Rap, and Gangsta rap are not just entertainment, but a cultural force that black leaders have come to see as a Pied Piper leading its children down a dark roaD. Discusses the hip-hop ethos. Paper Introduction: Hip-HopAPA style The Pied Piper of Hip-Hop Public conscience has dumbed down under electronically hyped butprimitive sounds words and social insults of hip-hop sneers and astomping beat It generates a billion dollars in sales thereby winningfriends in high commercial places Beyond the profit circle concernedblack leaders count the social cost Cedric Muhammad thinks rapsters and hip-hoppers ought to stopbehaving like strutting juveniles and grow up He draws an analogy betweenPuffy and Shyne in the hands of the law they hold in contempt Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. They know where reality and art end in their personal lives, but theycannot see the lines when someone of their same ethnicity challenges theirstage image or street credibility as an artist. Hansen does not tiptoe around the culturally andracially sensitive issue: Rap music, and particularly its subgenre, "gangsta rap," is probably the most controversial form of popular music to find its way into mainstream popular culture. Put my pistol up against his head - I said, "Sucka-ass nigga, I should shoot you dead."The protagonist of a rhyme by KRS-One (a hip-hop star who would later speakout against rap violence) actually pulls the trigger:Knew a drug dealer by the name of Peter - Had to buck him down with my 9millimeter.Police forces became marauding invaders in the gangsta-rap imagination. Other genres of popular music, such as rock and heavy metal music (especially in the form of music videos), have been denounced by watchdog groups and others for their violent, sexual, antisocial, and sexist content. I'm 'bout to kill me somethin' A pig stopped me for nuthin'! Thecombative cultural force is much more than entertainment. (2 4) Hip-hop's bad rap. Most academic musicologists, although theyrecognize the social symbolism of hip-hop, remain skeptical. New York: Basic Civitas Books.Krims, Adam. (2 ). Now top rappers began to write rhymes celebrating street warfare ordrugs and promiscuity, as in the ominous 1982 hit, "The Message": "You grow in the ghetto, living second rate And your eyes will sing a song of deep hate. The controversial nature of rock and heavy metal lyrics and music-video visuals precipitated a body of empirical work over the past several years documenting their effects on listeners (Hansen, 1995).Similarly, a Canadian study has found that, when it comes to rap music andFrench Canadian teens at least, certain sub-genres of hip-hop areassociated with different troubling behaviors. . The psychology of vandalism. Alan Krims (2 ) addresses hip-hop in ahigh-flying manner as the poetics of identity, and treats it as solemnly asan academic would treat the history of epics. Muhammad calls it a"maturity reversal." Sudden affluence merely increases the display of self-indulgence, and mocks the hard-won gains of black America. ReferencesReber, Arthur. in 2 2 --nearly 13 percent of all recordings sold, including this snatch of ghettopoetry: Copped my pistols, jumped into the ride. Beyond the profit circle, concernedblack leaders count the social cost. Similarly, the arm-slinging, hand-hurling gestures of rap performers have made theirway into many young blacks' casual gesticulations, becoming integral totheir self-expression. Dictionary of psychology. Social and sexual attitudes become expectations,Reber (1995) notes, and early attitudes harden into long-term memory(p.67). No black leader seriously thinks hip-hop claims of politicalrelevance are even remotely feasible. The heroes of hip-hop aretheir reference group. Fox (2 4) points out astudy published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence, of 35 male andfemale teens, researchers Dave Miranda and Michel Claes of the Universityof Montreal. Fist shaking is merely a hostilegesture the kids on the street can imitate, but they cannot build on starkhip-hop culture to escape the anger that blunts motivation and encouragesresentment. I'm 'bout to dust some cops off. It turns its facefrom the inspiring civil rights heritage and affirms despair as part of anew kind of young black identity. A sucka-ass nigga tryin to sound like me. .Goldstein, Arnold P. 67868 Hip-HopAPA style The Pied Piper of Hip-Hop Public conscience has dumbed down under electronically hyped butprimitive sounds, words, and social insults of hip-hop sneers and astomping beat. Hip-hop and the music video burst upon the public at the same time, andrapsters thrived on chance to show off--flashing jewelry, souped-up cars,weapons, obscene gestures. I got my headlights turned off. On a less theoretical level, Christine Hall Hansen (1995) reports thatstudies show the effects of gangsta rap on ideas and behaviors arepredictable. Disrespect becomes more importantthan self-respect. All subjects were bilingual. Arthur Reber (1995) distinguishes three aspects ofconformity: to behave the way a peer group behaves, to think the way thegroup thinks, and to bend one's personality traits in either manner(Psychology, 152). I got my 12-gauge sawed-off. They surrounded themselves, as McWhorter putsit, with "interchangeable, mindlessly gyrating, scantily clad women. .How is it progressiveto describe life as nothing but "bitches and money"? McWhorter contends that hip-hop culture is harmful to the blackcommunity, especially to the young and credulous; they absorb thepugnacious and women-cursing attitudes and those attitudes tend toperpetuate themselves. Got at the bar, copped some flack, Copped some cheeba-cheeba, it wasn't wack. . Rap music and the poetics of identity. Pg44.Kitwana, Bakari. The example of Puffy and the callow Shyne is apt. . I got my black gloves on. He draws an analogy betweenPuffy and Shyne in the hands of the law they hold in contempt, and arguesthat the popular phenomenon of hip-hop seems collectively immature. . Yet such a defense ispitifully weak. Predicting cognitive and behavioraleffects of gangsta rap. Mature black writers, psychologists, and family workers in thecommunity search for ways to overcome despair in concrete ways, but the hip-hop cultural sets up a psychological barrier of inflammatory slogans. The studycontrolled for the teens' exposure to violent media and influence of peergroups. The song's grim fatalism struck a chord; twice, I've heardblacks in audiences for talks on race cite the chorus to underscore a pointabout black victimhood. As perhaps thefirst scholarly study of rap and hip-hop, his study weaves togetherperspectives from music theory, musicology, cultural studies, criticaltheory, and communications. Two controlled groups watched "gangsta rap" music videos, andthe feedback from both suggests that the social themes contained in rapmusic videos can produce potent and predictable effects on viewers'subsequent impressions and social judgments through the mechanism ofcognitive priming. Almost all hip-hop, gangsta or not, is delivered with a cocky,confrontational cadence, becoming an exaggerated and slangy speech styleamong young black males. The National Council of Teachers of English, applauding theuse of hip-hop lyrics in urban public school classrooms (Oakland, LosAngeles, and other cities), proclaims that "hip-hop can be used as a bridgelinking the seemingly vast span between the streets and the world ofacademics" (McWhorter, 2 6).But we're sorely lacking in imagination if in 2 3 - long after the civilrights revolution proved a success, at a time of vaulting opportunity forAfrican Americans, when blacks find themselves at the top reaches ofsociety and politics -- we think that it signals progress when black kidsrattle off violent, sexist, nihilistic, lyrics. Issue: 1-2. ) Kitwana (2 5)suggests that the division between the hip-hop generation and the civilrights generations is as vast as the division within the country in 196 (p.22). He argues that a great dealof popular music scholarship dismisses music analysis as irrelevant or oflimited value, but that it is crucial to cultural theory. The problem with such speech and mannerisms is thatthey make potential employers wary of young black men and can impede ayoung black's ability to interact comfortably with co-workers andcustomers. Muhammad thinks the ghetto violence and abuse of womenborders on a pathological self-hatred born of desperate and violentcircumstances. (1995). This shit's been too long. Thelate West Coast rapper Tupac Shakur expressed the attitude: Ya gotta know how to shake the snakes, nigga, 'Cause the police love to break a nigga, Send him upstate 'cause they straight up hate the nigga.Shakur's anti-police tirade seems tame, however, compared with Ice-T'sinfamous "Cop Killer": I got my black shirt on. So did the warning it carried: "Don't push me,'cause I'm close to the edge," menacingly raps Melle Mel. Got to the place, and who did I see? They excuse its raw misogyny and women bashing as a burst offrustration. It generates a billion dollars in sales, thereby winningfriends in high commercial places. Fans, rappers, producers, and media commentators defend hip-hop'sviolence. On the other hand, some intellectuals attempt to elevate popularpassions to their own service. Cambridge (UK): Cambridge University Press..McWhorter, John H. "Music critics fell over themselves to praise "The Message," treating it asthe poetry of the streets -- as the elite media has characterized hip-hopever since. Violence, alley sex, drugs, andlawlessness flourish as cultural values. Therise of nihilistic rap has mirrored the breakdown of community norms amonginner-city youth over the last couple of decades. John McWhorter (2 6) argues that many writers and thinkers mistakenlysee a kind of informed political engagement, even a revolutionarypotential, in rap and hip-hop. Volume: 16. The lesson and the bravadoare not lost on black youngsters. Basic and Applied Social Psychology. How hip-hop holds blacks back. (1995). Teenagers who listened to Americanrap, however, were less likely to commit theft than teenagers who preferredgangsta/hardcore rap. And why isn't part of grooming young hip-hop artists preparing them for the fact that they will have to control their emotions in public and private settings as they will undoubtedly be approached by fans and others who will on numerous occasions hurl insults their way?No hip-hop artist can stand an insult from anyone who looks like him orher. . The study found that adolescents who listened to Frenchlanguage rap were more likely to use drugs, commit crimes, and be in streetgangs than those who listened to English language hip-hop/soul. ..Keeping the thug front and center has become the quickest way to become astar" (2 6). The black community has gone through too much to sacrificeupward mobility to the passing kick of an adversarial hip-hop "identity"(McWhorter, 2 6). . The places you play and where you stay Looks like one great big alleyway. www.rense.com/general41/hip.htm The Manhattan Institute http://www.city-journal.org/html/13_3_how_hip_hop.html Accessed March 12, 2 6.Muhammad, Cedric. I'm 'bout to bust some shots off. (2 2). The ultimatemessage of "The Message" - that ghetto life is so hopeless that anexplosion of violence is both justified and imminent -- would become a hip-hop mantra in the years ahead.The angry, oppositional stance that "The Message" reintroduced into blackpopular culture transformed rap from a fad into a multi-billion-dollarindustry that sold more than 8 million records in the U.S. Cedric Muhammad (2 6) thinks rapsters and hip-hoppers ought to stopbehaving like strutting juveniles and grow up. The hip-hop generation: young blacks and thecrisis in African American culture. Alternatively, to tellimpressionable black kids, who'd find every door open to them if they justworked hard and learned that blowing a rival's head off is "real"? Cop killer. (1996). Howhelpful is rap's sexism in a community plagued by rampant illegitimacy andan excruciatingly low marriage rate? London: Penguin Press.Fox, Rebecca Leigh. Hip-hop is 3 years old--act like it. March 12,2 6. Psychology today, Sept-Oct,2 4. http://www.daveyd.com Accessed March 12, 2 6. I got my ski mask on. New York:Springer.Hansen, Christine Hall. However, by "teaching young blacks that athuggish adversarial stance is the properly 'authentic' response to apresumptively racist society, rap militancy retards black success." Thevenom that suffuses rap had little standing in black popular culture --indeed, in black attitudes - before the 196 s: The hip-hop ethos can trace its genealogy to the emergence in that decade of a black ideology that equated black strength and authentic black identity with a militantly adversarial stance toward American society. Every individual feels pressures to conform to the values of a group,and teenagers, adolescents, and even pre-pubescents are notoriouslysusceptible to fads, crazes, and risk-taking. Manhunt. It was just as gangstarap hit its stride that neighborhood elders began really to notice thatthey had lost control of young black men, who were frequently drifting intolives of gang violence and drug dealing.The attitude and style expressed in the hip-hop "identity" keeps blacksdown. Observers have made the same assumption for years.Mainstream media critics and religious leaders have labeled gangsta rap asintensely violent, sexually explicit and sexually violent, misogynistic,drug and gang oriented, and politically radical, if mere attitudes make apolitical program. (2 6). Thecrisis in hip-hop today, he protests, is that in the past 3 years seemsunable to learn, and cannot tell a friend from an enemy. You'll admire all the number book takers, Thugs, pimps and pushers, and the big money makers. For those who insist that even the invisible structures of societyreinforce racism, the burden of proof should rest with them to explain justwhy hip-hop's bloody and sexist lyrics and videos and the criminal behaviorof many rappers wouldn't have a powerfully negative effect upon whites'conception of black people.Far from decrying the stereotypes rampant in rap's present-dayblaxploitation, many hip-hop defenders pull the "whitey-does-it-too" trick.They point to the Godfather movies or The Sopranos as proof that violenceand vulgarity are widespread in American popular culture, so that singlingout hip-hop for condemnation is simply bigotry. Thus, as McWhorter points out, "witnessing a privileged star behavelike a street thug tells kids that there's nothing more authentic thanghetto pathology, even when you've got wealth beyond imagining" (2 6). In the angry new mood, captured by Malcolm X's upraised fist, many blacks (and many more white liberals) began to view black crime and violence as perfectly natural, even appropriate, responses to the supposed dehumanization and poverty inflicted by a racist society (2 6).But rap took a dark turn in the early 198 s, as this "bubble gum" musicgave way to a "gangsta" style that picked up where" blaxploitation" leftoff. Muhammadframes the persistent question: Why is it so important for artists to never suffer an insult and never tolerate being offended? Even thesuperstars use aggression to mask their anxieties. Muhammad lamentsthat the old star could not constrain his protйgй and so Shyne heads forjail at age 2 for the kind of aggression hip-hop glorifies. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.