MESSAGES PROMOTE IN HIP HOP MUSIC

Introduction

Hip-hop, cultural movement that attained widespread popularity in the 1980s and ’90s;
also, the backing music for rap, the musical style incorporating rhythmic and/or rhyming
speech that became the movement’s most lasting and influential art form.

Hip hop music, also called hip-hop or rap music, is a music genre developed in the
United States by inner-city African Americans in the 1970s which consists of a stylized
rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that
is chanted. It developed as part of hip hop culture, a subculture defined by four key
stylistic elements: MCing/rapping, DJing/scratching with turntables, break dancing, and
graffiti writing. Other elements include sampling beats or bass lines from records, and
rhythmic beatboxing.

A. DICUSSION

Hip Hop music has long had a reputation of being a form of music that represents
violence, sexual exploitation as well as celebrating street warfare and gangs, consumption
of drugs and alcohol, sex and negative attitudes towards women. Another notion
prevalent in society associated with rap music is the frequent, strong profanity used in the
lyrics. Despite all this, hip hop has generated a huge fan base around the world with a
wide demographic of listeners, mostly among youths. The media often portrays rap music
as negative and focuses on rap music more when it is related to something undesirable.
Many media stories identify rap music as a catalyst in problems such as teen pregnancy,
crime or some other negative social issue that existed long before rap music became
prevalent. The truth of the matter is that there is rap music that is positive and can serve
the purpose of improving social consciousness by increasing awareness of some of the
issues that many residents of our nation’s inner cities face. Just because a rap artist speaks
of less than desirable subjects in his or her music does not mean that they intend to
corrupt the minds of the audience. Rap music is entertainment and should not be treated
any differently than any other form of entertainment out there. The bottom line is that all
rap music is not degenerate and consideration should be taken when analyzing the
message that the music is presenting.

The message of hip hop music could give a negative impact and a positive impact on
youths;
a. Positive Impacts
1. Unification and Education

Hip hop has been vital in promoting social and political awareness among the youth of
today. Rap music educates people from several different perspectives and raises many
social issues. Rap is channel for people to speak freely about their view on political or
social issues and by doing so, it engages teenagers to become concerned and aware of
these issues. This is important in making the youth aware of the world around them and
the conditions they face in society, enabling individuals to discuss ways in which they can
make a positive change within society.

2. Hope

Many rappers rap about poverty and their struggles in inner-city America while growing
up. Once they achieve success, they talk about overcoming obstacles and rising to the top.
This message can give hope to many youths across America who live in similar
circumstances. For example, when a rapper raps about his challenged childhood or about
succeeding despite living with a drug-addicted parent, a teenager in a similar situation
may believe that he, too, can get through his struggles.

3. Social Awareness

Through education and understanding, rap music has spurred social awareness in
communities around the country. Rap music has served as a tool to speak out against
negative aspects of life such as violence and guns. Many artists use their musical talents
to promote peace and anti-violent acts. By communicating messages about violence and
discrimination, and relating to youth people, it provides an opportunity for them to make
positive changes in their own life. There is some rap music that is created with the
intention of sending a positive message to its audience. There are songs that denounce
violence and call for more peace and togetherness in the inner city in an attempt to
improve the quality of life.

b. Negative Impacts
1. Sexualisation

A topic that has heated up recently is the sexualisation of women not only in the lyrics of
rap music, but more importantly the visual representation of women in music videos. The
popularity of music videos has reinforced the overt sexuality found in hip-hop music.
Women in these videos are often scantily clothed and use their bodies to get material
things. Young women are surrounded by these negative images, and many have adapted
their lifestyles to fit them. Black Entertainment Television (BET) broadcasts
approximately 15 hours of music video each day. According to the research of Carolyn
West (University of Washington), " many of the young women who watch these videos
do not believe they can be successful without using their bodies." This is a terrible
consequence and degrading women should not occur in society.

2. Drug Use

The promotion of drug use is consistently found through rap verses and often glorified.
Rappers fail to show the negatives and the consequences of using and doing them. You’ll
hear in multiple rap songs how they hustled in the corner to gain streetcred and eventually
become wealthy and live “large” as they would say. Young and poor youths from the
ghetto are the most impressionable. If he can do it, why can’t I. The music videos only
exhibit the women cars and houses, who wouldn’t want that. 2008 article on
sciencedaily.com found that drug references in rap songs had increased sixfold since
1979. The same study also found that drug references had evolved from cautionary tales
to stories that glamorised illegal drug use.

3. Egotistical

There are a number of rappers that are quite egotistical and many rap songs can be
basically be boiled down to "I'm the best, toughest, and hardest. Don't agree with me, I'll
prove it"?. The scary thing is that this mentality seems to be contagious and when
combined with the glorification of violence, we have people murdering other people for
inconsequential slights. We've gone from "words will never hurt me" to "stick and stones
may break my bones, but words will cause me to get a bunch of friends, drive by your
house, pepper it will bullets, kill you, maim your girlfriend, kill the little girl playing out
front, and get myself imprisoned throughout the formative years of my adult life so I have
destroyed whatever opportunity my life may have held. "

B. CONCLUSION

Hip Hop is not all bad. Hip Hop music, in-spite of the negativity and controversy that
often surrounds it, can have a positive influence on listeners and expand their
consciousness and musical horizons. Hip hop culture has long been the poster child for
negativity in society for a number of decades.

Messages promote in Hip Hop music has bad and good sides. On the bad side, hip hop
music that most of mainstream rap tends to promote counter-productive things to the
society that may dampen the growth (e.g drugs and sexism etc). But on the good side, it
also promotes pretty much an equal amount of enlightening messages that may prove to
foster the minds (e.G awareness of surrounding world and positivity etc).
 Reference

https://www.britannica.com/art/hip-hop

https://impactofrapmusiconyouths.weebly.com/negative-impacts.html

https://impactofrapmusiconyouths.weebly.com/positive-impacts.html