Final Draft

Rufus Osby

03-01-11

English 4

Stein

Hip-Hop's Negative Affects

I made a sharp left turn, And there was my crew lookin' for a def jam in order to rock Because it's gonna hit the fan at 12:00 o'clock
Then there was this flygirl, she said she wanted to know
Why are you all dressed up with no place to go? 
She said she'd take us to a place where we could hear some hip hop
But little did we know she meant the house that rocked. (Grand Master Flash)

This is how hip-hop was stated on the streets and in the neighborhoods of urban America. When Hip Hop was born and wrapped by the founders, I bet they would have never imagined that it would be where it is today. However, things have changed. For example in 2006 the academy award winning song was, “It’s hard out here for a Pimp,” the lyrics are, “it’s hard out here for a pimp, when you tryin to get the money for the rent, Cadillac and gas money spent, it’s a whole lot of women jumpin ship,” (Three 6 Mafia and Cedric Coleman). Hip-hop has transformed from a fun and vibrant hobby to a highly recognizable culture that represents violence, integration, abandonment, alienation, self hatred. Very few have held on to the expression and art that it was intended to represent.

There are many definitions and thoughts on the origination of hip-hop. According to Source

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Magazine 2009 September issue titled Hip –Hop is dead, hip hop is a culture and form of ground breaking music and self expression. If the words of hip hop are taken apart one may grasp a better understanding of the meaning. Hip means to know, It's a form of intelligence; to be hip is to be up-date and relevant. Hop is a form of movement, you can't just observe a hop, you have to hop up and do it. Therefore, hip-hop is more than music it is knowledge and movement creating intelligent or relevant movement through expression.  The origins of the term hip-hop are questioned, but many attribute it to the late Cowboy of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. (Ricks 34)

In today’s times hip hop has changed its face in society and the meaning that it holds. In popular culture today hip hop is a form of rebellion that inbreeds violence, self hatred and alienation. One of the major ways that this genre is used to portray this message is through movies. In the movie Heat starring Al Pacino and Val Killer there is a specific shooting scene that is very intense in. As it leads into the bank robbery scene you hear a consistent thump coming from a slow malahtic hip hop instrumental. The instrumental ability to slow and speed up changes the mood of the film. However, what changes the emotions of the viewer is the type of music that is playing and what that music represents. When a bank robbery is taking place the director of the film does not play up lifting music such as gospel. Rather he adds hip hop music in the back because he knows that hip hop represents violence and that when this music is playing it will create emotion in the viewer that makes the scene believable. According to Greg Tate in a 2005 article The Village Voice, “like me and those disturbed by the violent, misogynistic and self destructive lyrics in hip hop’s music,” (page #). Since the hip hop

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culture has developed the image of violence and self hatred it will be hard to convince the producers to use other genre in their scenes if they want to make the scene and the movie appealing to the viewer. Using a different genre would not only lose its appeal and feeling to the viewer. However, according to Spike Lee in Vibe magazine 2010 June issue, “Using hip hop or rap in a movie is not to betray the violence that is occurring but to appreciate the art of music and film coming together. The art of both elements completing each other is an appreciation not a depreciation nor representation of the violence or degrading content in the fictional film,” (53). He also goes to talk about the hip hop music and the genre in which it comes from is a area for mass interpretation of the listener. More over violence and negative images hip-hop has represented throughout the media and in movies can also be seen on t.v.

In today’s urban America culture music videos have made a dramatic change. They are going backwards instead of forwards. Hip-hop music used to be about making things better, then the gangster revolution came around and the culture changed. It used to talk about many of the same types of subjects: survival, love, friends, but in a different way. Survival used to be about the struggle from poverty and oppression. But now it represents survival from gangs, violence, and drugs. Love is not about family but about the love for money cars and “bitches”. Friends are not friends from school but rather friends from the block or the jail cell. Each music video exploits this. It gives a false sense of hope to the viewer of what life is really like, and how they should feel about it. This is important because studies show that music has a prefunding affect on ones mood. Music, according to Donald F. Roberts, Peter G. Christenson, and Douglas A. Gentile, in the book The Effects of Violent Music on

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Children and Adolescents state, “For most young people, music use is driven primarily by the motivation to control mood and enhance emotional states. Music’s ability to communicate emotion and influence mood has been widely noted; even preschoolers and infants as young as eight months can reliably discriminate ‘happy’ and ‘sad’ music,” (4). If this is the case watching this type of music on television changes the mood of each viewer to a place of violence and the degrading of one’s character. Why is watching it a bigger impact than listening? It’s because when ones listen to lyrics it leaves the room for interpretation, however, when one listens and see the act taking place at the same time they have less room for interpretation and the visual images and narratives of music videos clearly have more potential to form attitudes, values, or perceptions of social reality than does the music alone. Because they add additional information and rely less on imagination, watching and not merely listening means that music video viewing needs less intelligibility and interpretation can vary across different listeners, much less interpretation is needed to understand a violent image. Even if the word that is used is not understood like “my heat,” which will normally be understood but it’s difficult to miss such visual standbys as threatening displays of weapons or fighting. The meaning of the song as shown in the video can become self-reinforcing—if viewers listen to the song after seeing the video, they are likely to flash back to the visual images from the video. All of these affects and impacts play a huge role in the behavior that is displayed on less monitored sites such as the World Wide Web.

The use of Hip-Hop on the web almost ties exactly into the use of Hip-Hop in t.v and movies. Internet is a data base and source for many projects and albums streaming and video websites. Websites like Youtube, Pandora, and WorldStarHipHop.com allow artist throughout the world a chane to be seen

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and heard. Rich or poor, famous or an unsigned hype, these websites give artists accessability to market themselves. For example, “When I shot my Rap video and uploaded it to Youtube in 2007 it created a buzz around town and even the central valley of california. After the word spread that I had good lyrics and could hold a crowd I began to get shows.” Also, with the internet being uncensored it has many affects on the viewer as the videos. Because the internet is uncensored it has as many affects on the viewer as the music videos. Having the violent language mixed with visual images reinforces the negativity, violence and rebellious nature of the genre hip-hop. However, even though you can find some of the most explicit material in relation to hip-hop on the web you can also find hip- hop at its posit form. Onsite like save the music. Hip-hop is used as a positive light. Given people the opportunity to express themselves through music and create positive emotions and feeling in those that are listening and watching. Although if researched there are just as many positive hip hop artist as there are negative ones, because of main stream culture and the revenue that is created from playing negative hip-hop, positive artist don’t get radio, movies and or video time.

Hip-Hop has transformed from being a fun vibrant hobby to ahighly recongnizable culture that represents violence, integration, self hatred, and self-destruction. The way Hip-Hop is used in relation to films and action scenes portrays an image of violence, sex, or drugs. In reaction, the media and t.v. Shows continue to play music videos that exploit negative images to the public. The internet continues to give artists marketability, exposure and networking. In which can lead to riches and fame. The internet also streams some of the most graphic uncensored videos in the Hip-Hop genre. Saying that, no matter if hop is the essence of your soul and being which carries all of your emotions and life to the

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world to hear and experience, or if it is the way to get rich quick by joining mainstream and creating music that depicts violence and drugs. Each song and video is the image of someone’s story. Maybe instead of trying to hide the negative we should embrace it and realize that some people do live these lives and they are merely expressing what they had to go through to make it where they are today.