Since the late 1980’s rap music has been called the Anti Christin our culture, because of it’s so-called influence in people’s life.
Peopleswear up and down that the music is why people, specially the youth resort toviolent crimes. I think by saying this they are trying to cover up the realtruth by giving simple answers. Rap is defined as a style of popular musicconsisting of improvised rhymes performed to a rhythmic accompaniment. The firstrap song was made in the late 70’s, the songs were seven to eight minutes longand was mostly used in small clubs to dance to.
It didn’t really become popularuntil the early 80’s. Over the years it has become mainstream music, everyone islistening to it. In the last four years rap made up 60% of music bought instores in the United States. In 1989 a local group called N.
W. A. (Niggaz WitAttitudes) came from out of L. A. and changed rap, which was the start of GangstaRap.
In their lyrics they talked about crime, street violence and killing. Oncethey were a huge hit, it caught on, and really that’s when all this madnessstarted. Everyone started rapping Gangsta style. More and more people startedrapping about police brutality and killing people and with that crime rose tohigh levels. In my opinion it’s not the artists or the record company’s faultthat crime rose. It’s not their responsibility to look after every person wholistens to their music.
In all these years of rap though there are three peoplewho took the most criticism from the public. Dr. Dre was one, after N. W. A.
brokeup he went on to do his own thing, and after he released “The Chronic”he became a star. He took rap to a higher level where it never been before and Ithink that scared a lot of people. He was rapping about drive by’s, having sexwith hundreds of women, drinking alcohol all day and so on. By this time thecrime rate was sky high and a lot of people where looking for easy answers. Itwas mostly those few who just didn’t like rap from the start that spoke out andtried to ban it. Most rappers loved the style Dr.
Dre created, and so they triedto take the style and create something of their own. Along with Dr. Dre hehelped a rising star Snoop Doggy Dog to become a big star by guest staring onhis “The Chronic” album. Snoop released “Doggy Style” and itwas a hit. His style similar to Dr. Dre made it a hit.
It was his best-sellingalbum to date. Congress tried every way they could to keep youth from listeningto this music because they felt it was making them commit crimes. Snoop wascharged not to long after his release for murder which he soon was found notguilty. They made a label for CD’s and tapes that said “Parental AdvisoryExplicit Lyrics” which actually in my opinion didn’t do too much.
This wayparents could be aware of the type of music their kids listen to and couldchoose if they would like to allow them to listen to it. If you sit down andthink about it, when you buy a CD you by it because you want to listen to it,you don’t really pay attention to that little label. Besides you see little kidsno older then 11 walking around listening to Lil’ Kim, Tupac, and all other rapartists cussing up a storm . .
. what’s with that? Why didn’t the parents sayanything about that, they have control over their children, yet critics andcongress blame the rappers. The third man to take the most heat and who stillcontinues to is Tupac Shakur. They say he was the best rapper alive and the mostsuccessful which I also believe is true.
He has been in trouble with the law andpublic since his first album to even now after his death. He was arrested fornumerous charges such as battery, attempted murder, and rape. In 1994 two17-year-olds shot some police officers and said they did because they heard itin Tupac’s music. Critics blamed him from the start with his to raunchy lyrics.
Why blame him he didn’t tell them to go shoot police officers? For the pastthree years, C. Delores Tucker has been talking and protesting rap lyrics sayingthat they are harmful to the spirit of black youth. She also filed a $10 milliondollar lawsuit against the estate of Tupac Shakur claiming that his songssurrounding her in two songs on the 1996 album “All Eyez On Me” makeslander remarks. She went into a court and said that the pain she suffered fromthose songs has affected her sex life with her husband. What kind of since doesthat make? Just another person trying to bad mouth rap music for they’re ownpersonal gain. Congress says they are “concerned about children’s exposureto music with adult content,” but really can’t do too much because theyhave to respect the first amendment which says we have “Freedom ofSpeech.
” In two states they have announced plans to possibly ban minorsfrom attending concerts or buy things that could contain”objectionable” materials. I’m not going to say that some youth won’tlisten to some rap music and get the wrong idea, but that also can happen withother types of music such as Alternative music which artists like Hole, MarilynManson, and the group Korn are big stars. If you notice Korn is the group thatthe “Trench Coat Mafia” listened to before they decided to go shoot upa school. In the beginning the president, and all other high profile people saidthey should put a stop to all this music referring to Korn and Marilyn Manson. This was last year how many times have you heard about that now. Sen.
JoeLiebermann, and Raymond Kuntz, a Burlington, N. D. , man said his 15-year-old sonkilled himself after listening to the controversial rock group Marilyn Manson. Bands like that are noted for explicit lyrics and concerts, how many times haveyou heard about stopping them. They don’t put that much power in trying to banRock or Alternative music, but will use all their energy to stop a form of musicthat sells more then half of the United States music. John Woods, co-founder ofa grassroots anti-censorship organization said in a statement that most attackson the music industry are fueled by politicians and groups such as the ChristianCoalition and the American Family Association.
Later he also said “Quitesimply, the federal government, state governments and local governments are veryskillfully using the controversy created by religious organizations in an effortto completely render the First Amendment of the United States Constitution to bea relic from the past in the interest of gaining greater control over society asa whole. ” I for one agree with that statement. Dave Marvin, a spokesman forstate Sen. Dale Shugars, said the Michigan Republican is working on a bill to besent to the state Legislature in July. The bill would fine site owners whopermit minors unless accompanied by an adult to attend concerts or buy musicthat has offensive acts or speech. The manager of Pearl Jam, L-7, Rage Againstthe Machine, and rappers like JayZ, Ice Cube, Master P, and Russell Simonsrecently said that they will boycott any state that passes a law such as that.
“It’s up to the artists to provide a much-needed spine for the industry byusing their celebrities’ status to effectively draw the line in the sand to tellthe would-be censors to stuff it if they are offended because we have a FirstAmendment guaranteeing our freedom of expression,” Woods said. One man theyasked off the street said “Why do I hate rap? Well I guess the number 1reason I hate rap is the lack of talent that a rapper needs. All the music issynthetic, made on machines. Another thing I don’t get about rap is that manyrappers use the “Gangsta rap” theme. Then when a rapper gets killed,it’s a shock! They only rap about what they know! Yes, have someone murdered ishorrible, but if they rap about it and they say how they were brought up in it,is it really a shock?” Lately a lot of questions have been asked to anyonetrying to take up for rap music.
Does rap music promote violence? The mostcommon answer was yes, and the murder of Tupac Shakur and Notoruis B. I. G. provesit. Those were some sad deaths but you can’t blame just rap alone for thathappening. Tupac didn’t kill Biggie, and Biggie didn’t kill Tupac some dumbpeople who had nothing else to do did.
When you think about it, doesn’t radio,movies, and television promote violence also, so you can’t try to ban one thingof violence and not another. There was another question that was Should rapmusic be censored’some answers were yes, but most were no. They couldn’t do itanyway it would be against the first amendment. Another was Does rap music makea positive contribution to society? No one answered that question but I think Iwill.
Yes it does, rap isn’t just a money making thing to me it not only helpsus relate to people who have gone through things we have, but it shows peoplewho don’t know the things that really goes on. Also rap artists don’t just makealbums and stay in there own worlds they also give lots of money to charitiesand sponsor programs that help inner city youth so violence can stop betweenyoung people. Does rap promote violence, gangs and drug use? Yes it does, butthere was violence, gangs, and drug use before rap even came along, so you can’tpin that on rap, it’s something that has always been around and don’t see itgoing anywhere. Is rap music degrading to women? In a way yes it is, I don’tthink any rapper would call there own mothers “bitches,” and”hoes” but out of know where women rappers are coming out of theirshell and they are doing the same thing, So really everyone is degrading eachother so it balances out. You can’t blame rap for everything that goes on, I’mthinking if they could find a way to blame rap for every death they would. Eventhough they swear up and down that rap is like the worst thing, it has done alot for the music industry and youth in general.
Before rap all kids knew wasthat you had to know how to sing to become a big music star, but now for thosewho actually have talent for rapping they can dream of becoming a rapper. Youwould be surprised at how much more violence would be going on if rap wasn’there. Youth would be out in the street selling drugs and killing people all thetime, now half of them are working on demo tapes and their talent so they canhave a career of there own. Also rap helps out inner city youth so they can getoff the street and play sports and go to camp, it’s like for every bad thing yousay about how rap is bad and how it should be banned, there is another positivething that can get thrown right back into your face that would blow your mindand actually make you want to say “hey rap is doing more for us then whatthe public really tells us. ” It would be the truth.
You don’t ever hearabout how LL COOL J started a camp for youth in Brooklyn, or how Puff Daddydonated 10 million dollars to Biggie’s children. No you hear about how someonegot shot and the killer was listening to Tupac right before he did it. Peopleit’s time to wake up, even though I can’t force you to change your mind on anysubject I’m hoping I gave you some type of information that will make you justthink before you speak about rap music. BibliographyOpposing Viewpoints: Culture Wars p.
143-154 Opposing Viewpoints: Censorshipp. 33-35 The Web Courier: Rap ; Hip Hop Comment: http://www.cs.fsu.edu:/80/projects/sp95sug/group1.4/russ.htmlCensorship of Music by Politicians: http://sac.uky.edu/~ywkho0/politics.html
