Violent Murders Of Some Of Hip example essay topic

1. Rap: Culture & Identity (introduction) Serious social critics could once dismiss hip hop's purveyors as a bunch of crude vulgarians extolling ghetto-centric lifestyles. In spite of this, Hip hop has become one of the most influential U.S. cultural exports. In every city on the planet, there are hip hop communities that not only have adopted the percussion-heavy music and spoken-word vocals, but have appropriated the sartorial and attitudinal style of the black and Latino youth who created the genre. Perhaps the most exportable aspect of hip hop is its existential sensibility - its celebration of place, despite limitations.

With verbal dexterity, hip hop's creators transformed themselves from ghetto dwellers into esteemed characters involved in complex narratives. Hip hop infused their neighborhoods with cultural currency and mythical resonance. Hip hop culture renamed and re-imagined. Some 25 years after its birth, the genre has become a $5 billion industry but remains troubled at home. Beset by a growing chorus of critics who charge that its glorification of the "Thug Life" promotes misogyny, violence and crime, hip hop's advocates are on the defensive. This is not a new position; since its emergence from the ghettos of New York City in the late '70's, many mainstream critics have deemed hip hop a dysfunctional element of pop culture - a soundtrack for sociopaths.

The violent murders of some of hip hop's most popular artists give its detractors a powerful argument. A dedication to authenticity, or "keeping it real", is an important value that requires hip hop artists to stay close to the fears and aspirations of the community that birthed them. But since murder remains the leading cause of death for young black men, hip hop may be keeping things a bit too real. Commercial motives have warped and corrupted the genre. The record industry uses personal rivalries between rappers as marketing tools to increase sales. Rap "beefs" may acquire profits, but they also cause disorder.

Carlton "Chuck D" Ridenour, front man of the influential group Public Enemy, blames the East Coast-West Coast beef that virtually paralyzed the rap world in the mid-'90's on a "climate of violence" perpetrated by the record industry. "I think the culture has been mishandled by putting out violence", he told Newsday following the October murder of Jason "Jam Master Jay" Mi zell of Run-DMC in his Queens studio. The New York Times revealed the existence of a special NYPD unit designed to focus specifically on the hip hop industry, investigating violence and other crimes and consulting with "detectives who do similar work in places like California and Florida". The FBI is investigating whether Jam Master Jay's murder is linked to organized crime, reports the Ananova. com news service, and "federal authorities say several unnamed stars from the rap industry are under the microscope for possible criminal conspiracies". If the FBI is indeed sowing the seeds of division, the hip hop community is fertile soil.

Though these murders provoked temporary spasms of remorse and public gestures of self-reflection, little seems to have changed in the brutal, materialistic core of rap culture. Some of hip hop's most important innovators are Five Percenters: Rakim (whom some still consider hip hop's best lyricist) is a member, as are rappers Nas and Busta Rhymes and singer Erykah Badu. Numerous rap groups, including Brand Nubian, Gang Starr, Mobb Deep and the Wu-Tang Clan, are also affiliated. Much of the hip hop vocabulary ("word is bond,"represent,"show and prove,"dropping science,"cipher,"seeds", and "G") is rooted in Five Percent ideology.

Ted Swedenburg, a University of Arkansas anthropologist who has studied the Nation of Islam and its offshoots for many years, has compared today's "Islamic rap" to the spread of Afro centric ideas during the days of Marcus Garvey and Noble Drew Ali in the early 20th century. But through music, the Five Percenters' influence has been much greater. "What is interesting here is the fact that these heretical, esoteric teachings have been propelled, from their obscured places of origin, to the center of global culture", Swedenburg wrote in a 1997 paper titled "Islam in the Mix: Lessons of the Five Percent". But with greater visibility comes increased scrutiny. Corrections departments in New Jersey and South Carolina have labeled the group a "security threat" and treat it like a gang. There are several court challenges to that designation, but as long as the group clings to its Black Nationalist doctrine, there's little chance that its public image will be altered.

What's more, since there is no stringent membership process, some may use the group's ideology to commit, and even justify, illegal acts. The Five Percenters' race-themed gnosticism also is interpreted as black supremacy by some followers, which further taints the group. The alleged connection to the Beltway snipers is sure to increase the scapegoat. This musical genre dreamed up on the streets of New York has become one of the planet's most powerful - and enthusiastically embraced - forces of globalization. If hip hop's originators can harness just a portion of the genre's creative power to address the issues that uniquely beset them, hip hop can redeem its promise 1.2 Harsh reality-the roots of rap lyrics 1.2. 1 Society is corrupted by money Far from whining away about a world whose workings they do not understand, rappers present an overall view pervaded by revolt against an unjust, racist society, corrupted by money.

NTM, for instance, makes this general statement: "Everything's for sale, everything can be bought / Even governments Are ready to lick asses / For money Turning coat / Depending on the weather Weapons, apparently Have priority over / People's lives The world is full of bombs / that will dig our tombs Now you know what they do with the dough That would be enough to end famine in Africa" ("L'argent pourri t les gens"/"Money corrupts people", 1991). Two domains particularly personify the perverse reign of money: television and politics. The former is perceived as an entirely commercial world in which artificial stars parade around: "Too many faithless, talentless people, string-pulling above all Unfortunately for them, they walk ass first Systematically, automatically, purely and simply Manipulated by the wind, by the smell of money, read my lips, You feel it, I feel it, and yet, that's the way it is That's the way the sham goes" (Supr^eme NTM, "Sur 24 pistes (remix) "/"On 24 tracks", 1993). The latter is perceived as a world dominated by corruption, and is rejected all the more violently since politicians are supposed to have the power to make things change.

"Corruption is a weapon not to be neglected If you want to succeed in politics Remember, swindling is a "technique" / An illicit tactic And it's always the same, the pillars of the system, that get the benefits" (ibid. ). 1.2. 2 Vital feelings of injustice and domination Analysis of the lyrics also points to the vital dimension represented by the denunciation of injustice, domination and oppression. According to Bachmann and Le Guennec, "the symbol-lism, in the universe of the suburbs, is one of a manichean divide: the sad, humiliated poor against the powerful, envied rich. On the one hand the socially dangerous, and shame. On the other, those who have everything, wealth and success". This judgement confirms a state of affairs that is absolutely self-evident for rappers.

It should be added that there are two closely linked dimensions to injustice and domination, as they see it: material poverty and being the children of immigrants. Material poverty is measured by the contrast between their families and the families of other people living in the same country, the same city, sometimes in a close-by neighbourhood. Equal opportunities is a modern lie: "Why fortune and misfortune, why was I born with empty pockets, why are his full of bread Why did I see my dad go off to work on a bike Just before his father, in grey three-piece suit and BMW" (IAM, "N'es sous la m^eme 'etoile"/"Born under the same star", 1997). "It sure all began / The day I was born The day I didn't meet the good fairy Who would " ve made me / What I'm not One of the people I envy sometimes People who life gave a chance" (NTM, "J'appuie sur la g^ache tte"/"I pull the trigger", 1993).

But the injustice that strikes the poor is not a fatality. Behind the material injustices, rappers see a system of social segregation aimed specially at the youthful descendants of immigrants: {ra perry sunt in toate tari le. in fr, de ex. ; multicultural ity} "Always the same who win, always the same who lose [... ] France is organising a plot against foreigners Everything is being done to make us go under, everything is premeditated From anti-integration schools to the first make-believe guidance From the pseudo-jobs to the advice to slave-drivers looking for workers for the country Don't ask questions: it's automatic" (Rocca, "Sous un grand ciel gris"/"Below a vast, grey sky", 1997). This two-sided feeling of discrimination naturally peaks in the perception of relations with the police. 1.2. 3 Feelings of being left to themselves The Supr^eme NTM rap group clearly stated the reasons for its violence from the start, when their first album came out in 1991. They were violent because of the general malaise, the feeling of being abandoned by the rest of society, and left to their sad fate: "And if that's the way it is It's because for too long, people have been turning their back On the crucial problems, the social problems [...

] Is this really Liberty, Equality, Fraternity? I'm afraid it is! Oh yes, it's sad to say, but you never did understand Why the kids in my neighbourhood have the mentality they do Delinquency goes on, and it all has a meaning Because when you " ve got hate, violence runs in your veins" ("Le monde de demain"/"Tomorrow's world", 1991). 1.4 Conclusion: violence is always meaningful The best known feature of hardcore rap is no doubt its calls for violence, in which the mass media often revel. Rappers have of course often copiously insulted and threatened the police. What does it mean?

Firstly, the targets of this violence are relatively specific It's well known that, the rappers recriminate against politicians, the police and the criminal justice system, but never against businessmen. Similarly, they denounce the power of money as a corrupting factor but not as the instrument of social and economic domination in a capitalist society. In other words, it seems that these generations of young people from the lower classes do not run the risk of being alienated by work inasmuch as they live very much outside of the working world and of employer-employee relations. One of the many consequences of this state of affairs is the fact that these youths have nowhere else to turn, but to the public institutions. The latter are the only interlocutors against whom they may defend their injured identity, and cry out their distress and anger. Secondly, it seems that this violence (exclusively verbal, it should be remembered) is actually an outlet for and a defensive reaction against the very negative vision of the world that grows out of their experience of life as well as what they see on television.

This vision of the world is grounded in many objective facts (poverty, the harsh realities and violence of everyday life, the slim chances of climbing the social ladder, the geographic segregation of the projects, cut off from the inner city, the racism of a great many American people, the humiliating pressure of police identity checks, the sometimes disproportionate punishment, particularly when compared with how police violence are handled), but it is also, and perhaps most importantly commanded by such a strong feeling of injustice that it often tends to weave imaginary plots. Whereas Rocca speaks of an organised "plot" against the children of immigrants in the schools, the KDD group, concludes that: "We deal and we fight, and that's what they want To give us a bad image, to make us look like savages After, that justifies the fact that they put us in cages" This conclusion shows how deep a gulf has developed between part of today's youth {culture} and the rest of society. It also points to the foreseeable failure of all public policies as long as they do not restore a dialogue with these young people, and win their trust. 2. Empowerment by Music 2.1 Increased Racial Awareness Hana Choi immigrated from Korea when she was eleven years old and attended a high school in New York City which was about one-third Asian American.

Still, the relatively greater number of Asian Americans did not shelter her from the realities of racism. "I was influenced by Public Enemy and it was a perfect form for expressing anger. I wanted to stir shit up", Choi says of those days. (25) The other rappers grew up in areas where Asian faces were few and far between.

Darrow Han immigrated to the United States from Korea at the age of one. He grew up in northwest Pennsylvania, and then in the Washington, DC suburban area, both middle-class, white communities. Kevin Sakoda, a fourth-generation Japanese American, was born in Los Angeles and grew up in Huntington Beach, which was predominately white middle-class. "I felt a little bit of racism, not a lot", Sakoda, who now works in marketing, says.

"I wasn't beat up or anything, but I felt like I didn't fit in". (26) Sakoda treated school as a duty and made his friends through the Buddhist church. The ethnic church provided him a means of "escape". (27) That was where he met the friends who formed in-cite. The group performed in 1990-91 at many Asian American clubs in Los Angeles, with the help of promoter Doug Kanagawa. They also traveled to perform at the Cherry Blossom Festival and Cow Palace in San Francisco, Stanford University, University of Oregon, and Oberlin College, always receiving positive responses from their Asian American audiences.

2.2 Rap groups as spokespeople for their neighbourhoods Rap is now a social, cultural, media and commercial phenomenon of the first order. As an indication, the latest survey conducted by the Ministry of Culture in 1997 reports that 28% of 15-19 year-olds listen to rap music, and these youths are not all from the lower classes, or among the least educated. With the popularity of groups such as MC Solar and IAM, it is a fact that the phenomenon is no longer confined to those relegated neighbourhoods (prevalently in the Paris area) from which practically all of the early rappers originated. Today, the groups themselves, as well as consumers and distributors of Rap ge-ne rally distinguish at least two trends: "Hardcore" rap and "Cool" " rap. Rappers and most listeners agree that it is only the former that continues to embody the socially critical edge that was so instrumental in introducing this type of music in France in the late 1980's. At present, it is still hardcore rap that is most listened to and taken as a model by young people in the relegated neighbourhoods.

It is because of this very close bond between the groups and their public that rappers view themselves as spokespeople for their social group: "loud-speakers" (as NTM puts it), "journalists" or "sentinels" (IAM). The D'emocrates D group called their first record (in 1995) "The voice of the people". The explicit aims of these rappers are to represent (their family, their gang, their neighbourhood, their suburb, the oppressed), to bear witness (to the bare facts of everyday life and the revolt of young people in the "cit " es"), and to stimulate awareness. It was this "Hardcore" rap that we investigated, then, mostly through a collection of over 200 songs written by ten groups over the decade now coming to a close. The present paper presents a r'esum'e of the themes they have in common, as determined by content analysis, without going into the differences between the various groups.