Hip Hop as a Freak
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“I said a hip hop the hippie the hippie to the hip hip hop, a you dont stop”. This simple sentence is the beginning to the song that would change the face of American culture. Hip-Hop not only has shaped the music industry but it has changed the way American Culture has functioned. The way the lyrics are interpreted in society and the way that the lyrics are so openly accepted by the mass culture. The majority of people in the country dont take any mind to the vulgar and degrading lyrics. They go to dance parties, they sing them in their car, and they put the songs on their Myspaces. They dont really analyze the difference between the songs that have meaning, songs made to help change the culture in a positive way and the songs about women, cash, hoes, drugs, crime and other things that are shunned upon. Rappers are getting away with say that they have killed people, beaten people, death threats, sold drugs, slapped women, spent millions of dollars on cars and jewelry and they are never arrested for this. They get tattoos of tear drops by their eyes, which means that you have killed someone, and some rappers have as many as 6 tears on their face and still nothing happens. Rappers instead of being punished of vulgar lyrics are celebrated. Rappers get shoes deals, movie deals, more money from their record labels, they do sponsorships, make clothing lines, make energy drinks. They are always under the microscope by the government but the public has an overwhelming demand for the music so the government does nothing to them. They are heroes and role models. The rappers who talk about peace From T.V. Shows to Alcoholic drinks to energy drinks to clothing lines. But it hasnt always been that way, and it does have its dark sides. The lyrics have been debated as much as which is better Shampoo or Conditioner. From degrading women, making money (legally or illegally), drugs, crime, life in the ghetto and many other topics. So are these rappers freaks? Do they serve the public any good or do they only damage it? Who is making the money out of this situation? In order to understand this situation that they are in we must first go back, way back, back into time, to find where it all began.
Hip-hop is a cultural movement that began amongst African American and Latino communities in the South Bronx in the late 1970s. Portions of the culture began spreading into the mainstream during the early 1980s; by the 1990s, hip-hop culture had spread all over the world. The movement is said to have begun with the work of DJ Kool Herc, though the word \\\”Hip-Hop\\\” is believed to have been first used in the song \\\”Rapper\\\s Delight\\\” by The Sugar Hill Gang as shown at the beginning of the essay. Old school hip hop is the very first hip hop music to come out of the block parties of New York City in the 1970s and early 1980s. It began in the early 1970s in New York with the advent of break beat DJing, in which DJs including Kool DJ Herc and Grandmaster Flash extended the breaks of funk records, creating a more \\\”danceable\\\” sound. The old school era ended and the golden age began with the popularity of Run-D.M.C.\\\s 1986 album, Raising Hell. The point when Hip-Hop took the steps out of the shadows of society was when a group by the name of N.W.A released their Straight Outta Compton. This album helped to popularize the style of \\\”gangsta rap,\\\” which would become massively popular from the \\\90s to the present. Gangsta rap become popular because of its “No holds bared” lyrics. For instance “[Cop] Pull your god damn ass over right now [NWA] Aww shit, now what the fuck you pullin me over for? [Cop] Cause I feel like it! Just sit your ass on the curb and shut the fuck up [NWA] Man, fuck this shit [Cop] Aight smartass, I\\\m takin your black ass to jail!” As you can see, the lyrics not only talk about the police in a negative way but it also show black people in a negative way. It shows that they believe police to be racist and that black people are rebels and they have a problem with authority. The crazy part is the guy who wrote the song, Dr.Dre, has never actually been to jail. It seems kind of ironic that a guy who has never been to jail is writing a song about the police arresting him for no reason. But this was just the beginning of the Gangsta rap era and also the beginning to the up rise of Hip-Hop music in our culture.
Tupac Amaru Shakur, also known as 2pac and Christopher George Latore Wallace also known as The Notorious BIG are the two main reasons why Hip-Hop is where it is. The two rappers had been respected by their respected coasts, 2pac on the West Coast and BIG on the East. On November 30th, 1994, Shakur was shot five times in a recording studio lobby in Manhattan. BIG and his entourage were upstairs at the time working on BIGs debut album Ready to Die. Following the incident, Shakur grew suspicious that other rappers were involved in his shooting; the controversy would help spark the later East Coast-West Coast feud. The Notorious B.I.G. would release a track called \\\”Who Shot Ya\\\” in late 1995; 2Pac interpreted it as Biggie mocking his shooting, and claimed it proved that Bad Boy had set him up. In early 1996, 2Pac released the infamous diss track \\\”Hit \\\Em Up,\\\” in which he claimed to have had sex with the Notorious B.I.G\\\s wife Faith Evans and threatened the lives of Biggie and Producer Puff Daddy. The song was viewed as taking the feud to another level. With such lyrics as “First off, fuck your bitch and the click you claim Westside when we ride come equipped with game You claim to be a player but I fucked your wife We bust on Bad Boy niggaz fucked for life Plus Puffy tryin ta see me weak hearts I rip Biggie Smalls and Junior M.A.F.I.A. some mark-ass bitches” Such lyrics had never been recorded, some of these disses had never even been said before. On September 7, 1996 Tupac Shakur was shot several times in Las Vegas, dying a few days later on Friday, September 13th. Then on March 9, 1997, Notorious B.I.G. was shot and killed in Los Angeles, California. Both murders remain unsolved, and numerous theories (some of them conspiracy theories) have sprung up. These include, most notoriously, that Shakur faked his own death. The outcome of the feud would shake the culture of hip-hop; it changed the way rap rivalries were viewed, especially when the media was deeply involved. The two rappers have since been dubbed “the greatest two rappers ever”. Even though they are both dead there seems to be Life after Death (Notorious BIGs last CD). 2pac has had CDs released numerous after his Death. Some songs have even claimed he is still alive and that he is just hiding. On