In the beginning of the hip hop culture the style of art was freestyle based, always proving a knowledgeable point. Through spoken word, dance, graffiti, and song, viewpoints were expounded upon political, social, economical, and other issues that dealt with our everyday lives.
"Hip hop has always been a reflection of society, backed by drugs sex and violence; the difference was the balanced level of content," said Bryan Turman, a professor at A&T who teaches a popular course on hip hop.
"Then you chose what to listen to, there was variety you can jump from a Niggas With Attitude gang tip, to a tribe called Quest storytelling tip, and end on a political level with Public Enemy."
The Problem today is that the youth "dont have a choice of what mainstream hip hop artists to identify with.
The level of influence on our youth is high, and current day mainstream hip hop continues to feed a narrow lane of messages, he said.
“Children and teenagers these days mirror whatever is popular in mainstream media” said Shawanda White," a library security officer, who is concerned about the music her children listen to.
"Consequently these messages consist of drugs, violence, sex, gang affiliations, and degrade women," she said.
UNC TV posted a fact stating, "More than 90 percent of record lables, magazines, tv stations, radio stations and retailers disseminating hip hop related products are white owned."
Could this possibly be the problem, African Americans not owning their own art?
Darius Pandy, an A&T student who is also a hip hop fan, noted the current issue concerning mainstream hip hop and connected it to a historical connotation saying, "Even back in the 80's you had your conscious hip hop music and your party hip hop music; but once mainstream media got a hold of it the style became less artful and more of a minstrel show."
"There’s been a depreciation for the art, it use to be both conscious and party but now it’s just party, party, party, let’s all get wasted," said Pandy.
Pandy noticed the disrespect for the art in the song "Wasted". It Sends out an negative implication of being under the influence, but it's one of the more popular songs today.
"We need to get back to our roots making songs about bettering our society, and meaningful issues that we can relate to," said White.
"Today’s popular hip hop is still a form of art. The only issue is the lack of diversity", said Turman. "The art of hip hop has been co modified to fit one style and only that style is receiving high quality funding."
Due to this modification many aspiring rappers feel that the road to success is to perpetuate common stereotypes, said Turman and others interviewed for this article.
“It would be better if all of the different range of artists got the same type of funding, the same amount of money put into artists such as Lil Wayne and Gucci should be put into artists such as Lupe Fiasco and Common," said Turman.
He said, if such equality existed among hip hop artist within the mainstream industry, then the youth would be able to pick and choose who to identify with and who not. Teenagers who are into politics could listen to political artists, same with subjects such as Afrocentricity, spirituality, dance, and lots of others.
"Artists that truly speak about issues within our community and abroad that are different with styles and subject matter still make hip hop music you just got to find them" said Madison Bowden, an A&T student. The mainstream media makes such artists hard to find.
For more info go to Hip Hop Issues.
Special Thanks to Bryan Turman, Shawanda White, Darius Pandy, and Madison Bowden
By Giancarlo Spells
No comments:
Post a Comment