Is rap music damaging (American) society?
- Thread starter CHRISHOGGALYPSE
- Start date
I think Ice T & NWA proved it, they already had the template set, they just moved it onto the "gangsta rap star" and got it to the idol worship level of rock music, leading to the corporate branding of today.
Don't blame the tool, blame how it's used and who is using it. Great songs in the underground with positive messages go unnoticed, but people like Rick Ross' most popular songs are basically ads, maybach/aston martin music. Even Nelly with Air Force ones. If it isn't a ad for consumers, its a dance marketed at children or very degrading to the communities who listen to it. There is great music with good messages behind it out there, but the opposite is put on the airwaves.
Don't blame the tool, blame how it's used and who is using it. Great songs in the underground with positive messages go unnoticed, but people like Rick Ross' most popular songs are basically ads, maybach/aston martin music. Even Nelly with Air Force ones. If it isn't a ad for consumers, its a dance marketed at children or very degrading to the communities who listen to it. There is great music with good messages behind it out there, but the opposite is put on the airwaves.
I guess it's reaping what it sows though. Not that there has been a spike in violence due to rap music but it's hard to gauge that too.
People say that movies and music don't have that much of an influence but when boyz in the hood came out, dudes came in to the theatre in Watsonville CA and told people to get outta here with guns. Supposedly one dude had an Uzi. People were crawling out and all that. What the hell does a movie have to do with that crap? People just started wildin out around that time. Same thing around the chronic album and doggystyle. Dudes changed up their whole wardrobe behind that in the places I lived in so I have seen it make cultural changes first hand. Most of it is harmless but some of it is not
People say that movies and music don't have that much of an influence but when boyz in the hood came out, dudes came in to the theatre in Watsonville CA and told people to get outta here with guns. Supposedly one dude had an Uzi. People were crawling out and all that. What the hell does a movie have to do with that crap? People just started wildin out around that time. Same thing around the chronic album and doggystyle. Dudes changed up their whole wardrobe behind that in the places I lived in so I have seen it make cultural changes first hand. Most of it is harmless but some of it is not
exactly. They would have no parental guidance suggested on music and no ratings on video games if that weren't the case.
I think video games might be more influential than movies or music actually
They also outlawed Joe Camel from Camel cigarettes because of how it influenced minors. That was saying that art influenced kids (lives)
I think video games might be more influential than movies or music actually
They also outlawed Joe Camel from Camel cigarettes because of how it influenced minors. That was saying that art influenced kids (lives)
If you believe that Hip-Hop is anything more than the current expression of American popular culture, you're already giving rap music more credit than it deserves.
Public Education is doing more disservice to American society than Rap music ever could.......
Don't blame Rap music for damaging American society, because Jerry Springer has contributed to the dumbing down of American values as well as most "reality" tv shows that dominate current television schedules.
Public Education is doing more disservice to American society than Rap music ever could.......
Don't blame Rap music for damaging American society, because Jerry Springer has contributed to the dumbing down of American values as well as most "reality" tv shows that dominate current television schedules.
certain pieces of art do make monumental changes in the way culture or segments of culture operate. DOesn't mean that those pieces of influential art necessarily kick something off, but they might lead to a surge in it. like all that 90's westcoast gang culture didn't start that shit in the WC, but it sure did help foment that shit in other places other than the west.
Oro:
there was nominally succesfull gangsta rappers before the Chronic, but there was also sucessful other kind of rap too. When the Chronic came out it did so well, because it was a bomb album, that it made the industry say this is what they want, if you aint this fuck what you doin. That hurt because it killed the positive msg in the mainstream, and left us with dope beats and rhythms but just straight nihilistic lyrics.
Oro:
there was nominally succesfull gangsta rappers before the Chronic, but there was also sucessful other kind of rap too. When the Chronic came out it did so well, because it was a bomb album, that it made the industry say this is what they want, if you aint this fuck what you doin. That hurt because it killed the positive msg in the mainstream, and left us with dope beats and rhythms but just straight nihilistic lyrics.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=la1ke_h-KRs
We've arrived from every corner of the planet to this nation to seek the fulfillment of a promise of America. We were promised a better life in our home countries, where we were told that privatizing water and electricity would make things run more efficiently. Instead, the quality remained almost the same and the price was increased until it became an unaffordable luxury.
Some corporations are more efficient than government, but their motivation is not to help the well-being of the people; it's only about profit. Everything else - their image, their human resources, their public relations - only exist to protect the reality behind them.
Once upon a time, we were told that nationalization would prevent growth by limiting competition, that our countries were nothing without the companies that invested in us, and so they privatized everything. Everything in our country was owned by people that had no connection to our culture, by those who never had our interest at heart. They didn't care about our survival or our well-being, they just wanted to turn a profit by raping the land, by exploiting our people, our industry, and our resources. They took everything we built and made it theirs, first by creating racism and justified slavery, building the capital for capitalism; and then, when they gave us what they called "liberty", everything we had was still owned by them.
Our governments told us that socialism was the real enemy, and that we would have freedom, but the foreign cowards and corporations were the ones with the real freedom: the freedom to take all the wealth generated by our work and our land and give us only a small percentage of the scraps from the table. Their lust for power and their greed told them to betray not only us, but themselves and the word of their own god.
And while some used missionaries and donations to offset this abuse, other countries and companies were blatant with their crimes, using war, disease, and sanctions that killed millions. They supported corrupt governments that were almost like the old slave masters in their oppression of the people, because their loyalty was to those that enabled them, installed them, and kept them in power. They became the bastard children of American industry: kleptocracies, governments of thievery. They protected the corporations and went to war against their own people to preserve those profits. The puppet rulers were given billions of US tax dollars to fund civil wars; right wing death squads execute political dissidents, sympathetic clergy, and even overthrow democratically elected governments.
And so the age of revolution began again.
They painted it as godless terrorists versus the free world and the free market, but the free market has never been free, because the market does not regulate itself. It is manipulated like a puppet, and it survives because of its image. Destroy the image and the enemy will die.
Such as the same in the rap industry, for the major label superpowers treat the underground like the third world: when they need new assets, new artists to prostitute or side and put on the shelf to use their songs, when they needed new concepts, music and publishing to steal from producers, they came to the underground, to the third world. They took our culture, our property and our industry, and our resources, even using our own people to help them exploit us. But behind the mask of efficiency they claim we need to succeed, they're no better than us. Their economic advertisement was always a lie. A few got rich, but most were given an illusion of wealth, almost as if it was designed for failure; opportunity comes at the price of the soul and the music.
So remember what they are underneath the fancy architecture, glittering rented jewelry, the cause, the IMF loans, the seeds with suicide jeans, twenty year contracts and oil blood money. Build your defenses, my independent brothers and sisters. They'll stop at nothing to get what they want. They paint the third world underground as savage and backward, but the superpowers are no less corrupt, they've just learned to disguise it better. Because they fix elections too; they embezzle tax money; they go to war for resources; they fund terrorism for their own benefit; and when there's enough at stake, history's taught us that they'll even assassinate their own presidents!
Open your eyes before you die
We've arrived from every corner of the planet to this nation to seek the fulfillment of a promise of America. We were promised a better life in our home countries, where we were told that privatizing water and electricity would make things run more efficiently. Instead, the quality remained almost the same and the price was increased until it became an unaffordable luxury.
Some corporations are more efficient than government, but their motivation is not to help the well-being of the people; it's only about profit. Everything else - their image, their human resources, their public relations - only exist to protect the reality behind them.
Once upon a time, we were told that nationalization would prevent growth by limiting competition, that our countries were nothing without the companies that invested in us, and so they privatized everything. Everything in our country was owned by people that had no connection to our culture, by those who never had our interest at heart. They didn't care about our survival or our well-being, they just wanted to turn a profit by raping the land, by exploiting our people, our industry, and our resources. They took everything we built and made it theirs, first by creating racism and justified slavery, building the capital for capitalism; and then, when they gave us what they called "liberty", everything we had was still owned by them.
Our governments told us that socialism was the real enemy, and that we would have freedom, but the foreign cowards and corporations were the ones with the real freedom: the freedom to take all the wealth generated by our work and our land and give us only a small percentage of the scraps from the table. Their lust for power and their greed told them to betray not only us, but themselves and the word of their own god.
And while some used missionaries and donations to offset this abuse, other countries and companies were blatant with their crimes, using war, disease, and sanctions that killed millions. They supported corrupt governments that were almost like the old slave masters in their oppression of the people, because their loyalty was to those that enabled them, installed them, and kept them in power. They became the bastard children of American industry: kleptocracies, governments of thievery. They protected the corporations and went to war against their own people to preserve those profits. The puppet rulers were given billions of US tax dollars to fund civil wars; right wing death squads execute political dissidents, sympathetic clergy, and even overthrow democratically elected governments.
And so the age of revolution began again.
They painted it as godless terrorists versus the free world and the free market, but the free market has never been free, because the market does not regulate itself. It is manipulated like a puppet, and it survives because of its image. Destroy the image and the enemy will die.
Such as the same in the rap industry, for the major label superpowers treat the underground like the third world: when they need new assets, new artists to prostitute or side and put on the shelf to use their songs, when they needed new concepts, music and publishing to steal from producers, they came to the underground, to the third world. They took our culture, our property and our industry, and our resources, even using our own people to help them exploit us. But behind the mask of efficiency they claim we need to succeed, they're no better than us. Their economic advertisement was always a lie. A few got rich, but most were given an illusion of wealth, almost as if it was designed for failure; opportunity comes at the price of the soul and the music.
So remember what they are underneath the fancy architecture, glittering rented jewelry, the cause, the IMF loans, the seeds with suicide jeans, twenty year contracts and oil blood money. Build your defenses, my independent brothers and sisters. They'll stop at nothing to get what they want. They paint the third world underground as savage and backward, but the superpowers are no less corrupt, they've just learned to disguise it better. Because they fix elections too; they embezzle tax money; they go to war for resources; they fund terrorism for their own benefit; and when there's enough at stake, history's taught us that they'll even assassinate their own presidents!
Open your eyes before you die
I agree with you that education is failing our young americans. The schools in the hood have crappy funding which doesn't help. But for instance, here in oklahoma, there are really good schools compared to somewhere like california and kids are just choosing to be ignorant.
Jerry Springer doesn't have anywhere near as many viewers as rap has listeners
Jerry Springer doesn't have anywhere near as many viewers as rap has listeners
That's quite correct, what made The Chronic so successful was the g-funk sound, not so much the gangsta theme, which had been around for 6-7 years at the time. In a way, it was unfortunate, that the two had to be paired in such a way...
Anyway, I think a lot of people are completely missing the point though, when they go for the simplistic "gangsta rap is the cause for society's problems" frame. Couldn't it be the other way round, i.e. society is the reason why hip-hop is in the state it is right now? Because that's not a phenomenon exclusive to rap. Just compare pop and rock music from the 80s and the 00s, R&B is dead, there is hardly anything on TV that won't make you dumber if you watch it, etc. It wasn't anywhere nearly as bad 20 or 30 years ago.
Everything has been basically reduced to the lowest common denominator, and that's a predictable result of the media deregulation that happened in the 90s. It doesn't even have to be some conspiracy behind all that, if you let things on their own, with the people who produce the entertainment, news, etc. having to think about how well they do in "the market", you inevitably reach this point, where everything is dumbed down to the level of the dumbest portion of the population (which also happens to be the largest), the rest of the population gets dumber as result, and you get a vicious self-reinforcing loop that there seems to be no way out of.
In the case of gangsta rap, what many people don't realize is that the problem with mainstream gangsta rap isn't that it's gangsta, it's that it isn't gangsta enough. A lot of hardcore gangsta rap, especially in the past, before absolutely everyone, even in the underground, started trying to make radio songs, was either too violent, or actually had quite a lot of depth in its lyrics (even if they were violent and sometime materialisticl) to be played on the radio. And that kind of music has never sold well. Yes, the Geto Boyz went platinum in 1991, but the only thing they got on the radio was "Mind playing tricks on me" and that's precisely the kind of gangsta rap you want people to hear. But pretty much nobody as hard or harder than that ever really sold a lot of records (Season of da Siccness type of material will never be popular among white 14-year old girls).
The problem began when rappers started making music that was both soft enough to be played on the radio and had the gangsta image and materialistic nihilistic message in it so that it was accessible to the large public. Which is a transition that happened due to the above-mentioned market demands and the deregulation of the media markets, which resulted in the death of the local radios that used to play a lot of the independent music where the creativity and innovation resided most of the time. But it wasn't anything inherent to gangsta rap as it existed in the late 80s/early 90s, in fact it was rare to have a gangsta rap album those days without a dose of serious message in it, even the likes of N.W.A. and Too Short. Something that was possible because the pressure to sell millions of records and be all over the radio and TV didn't exist at the time.
So where the blame has to go is society itself and the transformation it imposed in hip-hop, not the other way round. Of course, at this point, it is more complicated than that, as the two things (the shallowness of music and the shallowness of people) feed into each other, but it's useful to remember how it started.
Anyway, I think a lot of people are completely missing the point though, when they go for the simplistic "gangsta rap is the cause for society's problems" frame. Couldn't it be the other way round, i.e. society is the reason why hip-hop is in the state it is right now? Because that's not a phenomenon exclusive to rap. Just compare pop and rock music from the 80s and the 00s, R&B is dead, there is hardly anything on TV that won't make you dumber if you watch it, etc. It wasn't anywhere nearly as bad 20 or 30 years ago.
Everything has been basically reduced to the lowest common denominator, and that's a predictable result of the media deregulation that happened in the 90s. It doesn't even have to be some conspiracy behind all that, if you let things on their own, with the people who produce the entertainment, news, etc. having to think about how well they do in "the market", you inevitably reach this point, where everything is dumbed down to the level of the dumbest portion of the population (which also happens to be the largest), the rest of the population gets dumber as result, and you get a vicious self-reinforcing loop that there seems to be no way out of.
In the case of gangsta rap, what many people don't realize is that the problem with mainstream gangsta rap isn't that it's gangsta, it's that it isn't gangsta enough. A lot of hardcore gangsta rap, especially in the past, before absolutely everyone, even in the underground, started trying to make radio songs, was either too violent, or actually had quite a lot of depth in its lyrics (even if they were violent and sometime materialisticl) to be played on the radio. And that kind of music has never sold well. Yes, the Geto Boyz went platinum in 1991, but the only thing they got on the radio was "Mind playing tricks on me" and that's precisely the kind of gangsta rap you want people to hear. But pretty much nobody as hard or harder than that ever really sold a lot of records (Season of da Siccness type of material will never be popular among white 14-year old girls).
The problem began when rappers started making music that was both soft enough to be played on the radio and had the gangsta image and materialistic nihilistic message in it so that it was accessible to the large public. Which is a transition that happened due to the above-mentioned market demands and the deregulation of the media markets, which resulted in the death of the local radios that used to play a lot of the independent music where the creativity and innovation resided most of the time. But it wasn't anything inherent to gangsta rap as it existed in the late 80s/early 90s, in fact it was rare to have a gangsta rap album those days without a dose of serious message in it, even the likes of N.W.A. and Too Short. Something that was possible because the pressure to sell millions of records and be all over the radio and TV didn't exist at the time.
So where the blame has to go is society itself and the transformation it imposed in hip-hop, not the other way round. Of course, at this point, it is more complicated than that, as the two things (the shallowness of music and the shallowness of people) feed into each other, but it's useful to remember how it started.
Props:
milkky and milkky
Good post ^^
But I personally think it was cause/effect/cause. Society caused hip hop to go that direction because it's always been connected to the streets. The streets changed in the 80's into the 90's but that street mentality then expanded into places where it hadn't been. Maybe that's not a good way to say it, but you have kids idolizing the mentality of other hoods now because of hip hop.
People always refer to compton or the marcy projects etc... and in turn try to live up to those expectations of what it means to be hood, in turn, turning their hood into a mini compton to an extent, you feel me?
But I personally think it was cause/effect/cause. Society caused hip hop to go that direction because it's always been connected to the streets. The streets changed in the 80's into the 90's but that street mentality then expanded into places where it hadn't been. Maybe that's not a good way to say it, but you have kids idolizing the mentality of other hoods now because of hip hop.
People always refer to compton or the marcy projects etc... and in turn try to live up to those expectations of what it means to be hood, in turn, turning their hood into a mini compton to an extent, you feel me?
ThaG broke it down. A lot of art that we think is inherently bad, devoid of anything useful, actually stars of genuine, fresh, unique, etc.. When this art takes off and shows market value is when you see corporations sink their hand into the art and make a machine off of it's mold, so to say. What happens though is you miss out on the individual pizzaz or whatever you call it that made the art interesting in the first place, it has become a commodity.
HEGEMONY: THE PROCESS IN WHICH THE STATE SUBSUMES POWER BY PERVRTING NON-BOURGEOISIE CULTURE/INFLUENCE/POWER
Capitalism, Gramsci suggested, maintained control not just through violence and political and economic coercion, but also ideologically, through a hegemonic culture in which the values of the bourgeoisie became the 'common sense' values of all. Thus a consensus culture developed in which people in the working-class identified their own good with the good of the bourgeoisie, and helped to maintain the status quo rather than revolting.
The working class needed to develop a culture of its own, which would overthrow the notion that bourgeois values represented 'natural' or 'normal' values for society, and would attract the oppressed and intellectual classes to the cause of the proletariat. Lenin held that culture was 'ancillary' to political objectives but for Gramsci it was fundamental to the attainment of power that cultural hegemony be achieved first.
GAMSCI'S THOUGHTS ON THE ORGANIC INTELLECTUALS: YOU CAN CALL RAPPERS THIS AT LEAST THEY STARTED OUT AS THIS
Gramsci gave much thought to the question of the role of intellectuals in society. Famously, he stated that all men are intellectuals, in that all have intellectual and rational faculties, but not all men have the social function of intellectuals. He claimed that modern intellectuals were not simply talkers, but directors and organisers who helped build society and produce hegemony by means of ideological apparatuses such as education and the media. Furthermore, he distinguished between a 'traditional' intelligentsia which sees itself (wrongly) as a class apart from society, and the thinking groups which every class produces from its own ranks 'organically'. Such 'organic' intellectuals do not simply describe social life in accordance with scientific rules, but rather articulate, through the language of culture, the feelings and experiences which the masses could not express for themselves.
If you don't agree with the Marxists' prescriptions for the problems of capitalism, you damn sure have to agree with their diagnosis.
Capitalism, Gramsci suggested, maintained control not just through violence and political and economic coercion, but also ideologically, through a hegemonic culture in which the values of the bourgeoisie became the 'common sense' values of all. Thus a consensus culture developed in which people in the working-class identified their own good with the good of the bourgeoisie, and helped to maintain the status quo rather than revolting.
The working class needed to develop a culture of its own, which would overthrow the notion that bourgeois values represented 'natural' or 'normal' values for society, and would attract the oppressed and intellectual classes to the cause of the proletariat. Lenin held that culture was 'ancillary' to political objectives but for Gramsci it was fundamental to the attainment of power that cultural hegemony be achieved first.
GAMSCI'S THOUGHTS ON THE ORGANIC INTELLECTUALS: YOU CAN CALL RAPPERS THIS AT LEAST THEY STARTED OUT AS THIS
Gramsci gave much thought to the question of the role of intellectuals in society. Famously, he stated that all men are intellectuals, in that all have intellectual and rational faculties, but not all men have the social function of intellectuals. He claimed that modern intellectuals were not simply talkers, but directors and organisers who helped build society and produce hegemony by means of ideological apparatuses such as education and the media. Furthermore, he distinguished between a 'traditional' intelligentsia which sees itself (wrongly) as a class apart from society, and the thinking groups which every class produces from its own ranks 'organically'. Such 'organic' intellectuals do not simply describe social life in accordance with scientific rules, but rather articulate, through the language of culture, the feelings and experiences which the masses could not express for themselves.
If you don't agree with the Marxists' prescriptions for the problems of capitalism, you damn sure have to agree with their diagnosis.
I think people who say music doesn't influence society are completely missing tons of research into the stength of influence "art" can have on our conscious.
At very least, it seems very apparent that art and life are locked into a self reinforcing - positively amplifying cycle.
As societies problems gets worse - art becomes worse - which further influences societies progression toward more problems - which makes the art even worse - etc
I have compared and frankly pop music from the 80s is as bad as pop music from today.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1950–51_United_States_network_television_schedule
I don't know about you but NOTHING on that entire lineup compares to the value of shows on just the Discovery Channel of today, let alone the dozens of other educational channels available to us.
I disagree and resubmit the argument of the lineup above.
If anything the lowest common denominator is now lower than it once was (I love Money) and the greatest common denominator is equally higher than it once was (Planet Earth)
While it is true marketing will seek to identify a target market that represents that highest revenue potential, it is also true that when one segment becomes the primary target, the neglected targets become attractive market segments - which is the very reason that we have such a wide spectrum of choices in all of our markets. Dumb people don't read the same books - watch the same movies - go to the same cultural centers as smart people.
1) That is pretty big assumption - any evidence to back that up?
2) If populations are actuality getting dumber - and we have an established correlation between intelligence and wealth - and we now relative wealth is decreasing - how could we know it was not simply a general reduction in wealth that was causing this perceived increase in dumbness?
3) If the population is truly getting dumber, how does technology continue to progress at such a rapid rate? If we were getting dumber at some point we would have to decelerate innovation and eventually begin progression backwards until we had devolved back to the intellectual level of our ancestor.
Have you been to a horrocore concert?? Season of the siccness type material is very popular with 14-year old girls (particularly white girls)
I agree with this, but I think it is inaccurate and certainly unsubstantiated to claim that this is making us dumber or negatively impacting society.
I agree with this as well. It is not Soulja Boy's fault he is popular, it is societies fault. However you have yet to provide any evidence of the societal progression you suggested in your post.
I would do like KMK did and take the advance and recording money Capital gave them and use it to start my own shit and record my album in a bathroom or cheap studio. It worked great for them and Royal Highness is a dope sounding CD. I couldn't tell it was recorded the way it was when I first heard it. I'm not rich, but I think like I am. Expect the worst, but hope for the best.
Outkast and Lil John did or still do this. Lil jon doesn't even have a booth. He said he records with a matress propped up in the corner of a room. It works. I record in my closet, you can't hear outside noise it's just my eq isn't as good as theirs. If it was, you couldn't tell a difference I assure you