As long as I can remember, music has always been a powerful influence in my life. Similar to any other type of art form, hip hop evolves personal struggles… from our fight for civil rights to our acceptance into society. The pioneers of this movement have strengthened, encouraged, and empowered my people with the positive messages communicated through lyrics. Critics of this movement believe that this type of music affects today's already troubled youth and that some rappers tends to deliver violent images and to depict women as sexual objects.
I strongly believe that hip hop should be only recognized for what it is, an art form nothing more nothing less. Furthermore, we as individuals must keep open minds and realize that many artists of the past were ridiculed for their art. We now consider many of these people visionaries and their works, masterpieces. Once my uncle asked me why I listen to such a polluted music and I told him probably the same reason you watch action movies.
What good is art if it can’t take you to a place that you haven’t been? In an article written by G. L. Wodlu, he defined hip hop as “a term used for urban-based creativity and expression of culture. ” Thus hip hop is a unique blend of music and attitude. This attitude is usually positive, reflecting not only the feelings and beliefs of this generation but also a story-like expression about inner-city living experiences within some African-American communities.
In addition, it is a voice in the community that glamorizes some negative actions and the consequences that go along with these actions. If one listens to rap, one acquires an accurate description of the experiences and realities of today's youth.Critics of hip hop should seek out the direct and indirect messages about the need for social programs in inner-city communities. Social injustice has contributed to self genocide, unemployment, police harassment, and crime. And Russell Simmons said it best in an interview with Paul Zahn: “We're a violent and oversexed country.
That's our sad truth. And rappers are sometimes reflections of our sad truth”: Now the question we should asked ourselves: “Is rap a poisonous influence of our youth or is it an artistic way to describe what’s going on in our inner city?Before you answer that question let me point out an interesting definition about poetry that I found on About. com: “Poetry is an imaginative awareness of experience expressed through meaning, sound, and rhythmic language choices so as to evoke an emotional response”. Furthermore, in Black Noise, Rose describes hip-hop’s beginnings in the urban context as propelled by Afrodiasporic traditions to later expand into more traditional form of art in dance, vocal articulations, and instrumentation between raps. With that being said, hip hop is an art that is based mostly on sounds.
Because it is art, it is an expression of the self, and because it is poetry, the best expressions use sound to make clear what is being articulated. Many poems rhyme for this reason, but rhyme is not the only tool of sound that a poet can use; two other major tools are meter and stress. Let’s be honest the best poems are the one we can read out loud or hear in our heads, where the sound and meter create a definite, unique impression that communicates some of what the artist intended. Just because black African Americans are the majority of rappers does not mean it is raw vocabulary or slang and it does not mean rap is bad.
