The Influence of Rap Culture: The Hip-Hop Era

In the mid 1970’s the South Bronx in New York gave birth to a form of expression that has sparked a cultural revolution; enter the Hip-Hop era. Teens and adults alike have embraced the Hip-Hop culture like none other in recent American history. Hip-Hop is composed of four basic elements: graffiti, break dancing, scratching or disc jockeying and the most popular and notarized element, rap. Unfortunately, the most notarized element, rap, has also been the unwarranted target of individuals who use this art form to perpetuate their own prejudices. Rap artists have now been accused of creating a negative influence that promotes violence, drug use and crime among urban youth. Although those issues are often the subject of many recent songs, rappers did not create those problems. Social, economic and political disenfranchisements are issues that critics must address if they wish to ‘clean up’ rap. What these critics of rap fail to realize is that the artist are simply the product of the venue they have been exposed to their whole lives and this is evident through the stories they tell.
Over the course of history music has been influenced by all aspects of culture. In fact, many historians believe that music predates written language. Prehistoric music was influenced by the sounds of nature; birds singing, wind whistling, waves crashing and perhaps the sound of the leaves rustling on a cool summer night. The composers of such music utilized their milieu as a canvas to paint musical renditions of life as they knew it. Much can be said about music today.
Although, since prehistoric times the evolution of human civilization has developed technological advances in communication such the telephone, internet, television, and satellite radio; music is still looked upon as a reliable form of expressive communication. The formula for creating music is still, to some extent, primitive. The artist uses an array of sounds that compliment the experience the artist wishes to impart with his/her audience.
So, if it has been proven that music, regardless of genre, is primarily influence by the experience of the composer or artist, it would be only logical to assume that rap artists are no exception to the rule.
Since the times of slavery in America, the communication among blacks has often been viewed as a threat to those who wished to suppress the progression of the oppressed. It seems that over one hundred years later history is not without repetition. Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia states, “Rapping in hip hop music can be traced back in many ways to its African roots. Centuries before the United States existed, the griots (folk poets) of West Africa were rhythmically delivering stories over drums and sparse instrumentation.” They go on to say, “Blues music, rooted in the work songs and spirituals of slavery and influenced greatly by West African musical traditions, was first played by blacks (and some whites) in the Mississippi Delta region of the United States around the time of the Emancipation Proclamation … and others have argued that the blues were being rapped as early as the 1920s."
People will always find something wrong with the music that they cannot relate to. Rock and roll and Elvis Presley are no strangers being criticized by individuals who where out of touch with their genre. “Parents hated it, Clergy condemned it, and Teenagers craved it. Despite the criticism, Rock 'n' roll during the 1950s drastically changed popular music and became an influential element in teenage culture across the nation …” This is how Leonie Pompa (2005) described the early perception and later impact of Rock and Roll. The attitudes and feeling that teens felt during this time period differed greatly from what their parents where used to. The artist during the 1950’s could relate their own experiences with the audience. Any time an art form can connect to the heart or soul of the fan, it no longer becomes art; it becomes a means of release or a way to cope with everyday life. What Rock and Roll did in the 1950’s was show empathy through music as Rap music does today.
Even such musical and dance art forms such as the Waltz still had opposition. Lori Heikkila (1996-2007) the author of an article about The Waltz explains “The waltz was also criticized on moral grounds by those opposed to its closer hold and rapid turning movements. Religious leaders almost unanimously regarded it as vulgar and sinful. Continental court circles held out obstinately against the waltz. In England, (a land of strict morals), the waltz was accepted even more slowly.” It is evident that religious and political leaders have opposed many art forms that derived from the less privileged. The Waltz was originally created by peasants, but has now become a dance of the elite. People fear what they don’t understand and that is why tolerance is important.
Western societies have always adapted to forms of music that were at first condemned. William L. Benzon (1997) the author of Making Music History: Africa Meets Europe in the United States of Blues, tries to tie in how root form of music created by African Americans has been embraced non-blacks only after the culture of the music was understood.
The author goes on to say “European-American racism has used African America as a screen on which to project repressed emotion, particularly sex and aggression. One aspect of this projection is that whites are attracted to black music as a means of expressing aspects of themselves they cannot adequately express through music from European roots. Thus 20th century expressive culture in the United States has been dominated by an evolving socio-cultural system in which blacks create musical forms and whites imitate them. It happened first with jazz, and then with rock and roll …The emergence of rap, from African America, and minimalism, from European America, indicates that this system is at a point where it is ready to leave Western expressive culture behind as history moves to the next millennium.”
Can bad or tasteless lyrics be confined to one musical genre? Sex sells no matter what musical genre you refer to and most often the indulgence of drugs can be linked to almost every genre (depending on what the listener considers a drug). Garth Brooks has had a few pretty provocative songs in his day. Does this mean that if inner city youth hear his music they will want to “have friends in low places where the whiskey drowns and the beer chases their blues away.” Or if trailer park youth in Alabama heard that song they'd want you to “give [them] an hour and they'd be high as the ivory tower.” I feel that given their situation and social setting they are exposed to it is more than likely they taught Garth a thing or two. "A little less talk if you please a lot more loving is what I need. Lets get outta here and start interacting," from Toby Keith's song "A Little Less Talk and More Action" I don't think Toby Keith is talking about networking over the internet here. Many of those who oppose rap would say that rap advertises to the listeners that sex and drugs will make them cool or popular. Or that perfecting your skill in bed will make you more popular with the opposite sex and that this leads to many problems that are found in the inner-city. Is this the case for Toby too? I could quote literally a million songs other than rap that use provocative content to sell records yet, rap is still looked upon as the cause of violence, drugs and crime to many people. Rock and Roll, one of the earliest music forms to use drugs and sex as selling points was once looked at the same as rap. Yet every year at the company picnic or Christmas party.... There it is. Is it safe to say that music has no influence what so ever on people and that if people were going to do something there are far more contributing factors than who they listen too on the radio?
Many lobbyist claim that rap music is responsible for violent and drug related crimes in urban communities. They fail to realize that the rap or hip-hop community is only a product of its environment. To end the negativity in rap, we must first tackle the issues that dwell within the urban setting.
To clean up the negativity in any music one must first clean up the artist environment. Conditions of the American ghettos before rap are evident in urban crime rates before rap, the influence of drugs on crime before rap and the history of disenfranchisement toward African American males before rap. Disenfranchisement is the cause for crime, drugs, teen pregnancy and other social issues; in any race. I believe that race and social class are used to keep the masses from realizing that we're all in the same boat irregardless of the latter.
According to Teenpregnancy.org, "When asked about the reasons why teenage girls have babies, 78 percent of white and 70 percent of African-American teenagers reported that lack of communication between a girl and her parents is often a reason teenage girls have babies.1 " That's only an 8% variance. They go on to say that, "The birth rate for black teens aged 15 to 19 fell 48 percent between 1991 and 2006. Hispanic teen birth rates declined 22 percent between 1991 and 2005." So if the “trampy” lyrics of the hip-hop genre are deemed to be responsible for negativity, how does one explain this decline? Teenpregnancy.org says, "Teen pregnancy is closely linked to poverty and single parenthood." Poverty is in fact a very serious cause of teen pregnancy anywhere, any race. They go on to say, "Out-of-wedlock childbearing (as opposed to divorce) is currently the driving force behind the growth in the number of single parents, and half of first out-of-wedlock births are to teens. Therefore, reducing teen pregnancy and child-bearing is an obvious place to anchor serious efforts to reduce poverty in future generations." They make no relation to these claims and race or the music they listen to. However, in almost every situation poverty is an issue. Ceci Connolly wrote an article in Washingtonpost.com (2005), As Teen Pregnancy Dropped so Did Poverty. Although the author is saying that to reduce poverty you must first reduce teen pregnancy (almost the opposite of what Teenpregnancy.org says) we can see that they are closely related. Again, music is not a factor but poverty is.
I feel that rap does not negatively affect the black communities because the communities we are referring to are already doomed due to the issues I previously named. I feel that the true propaganda resides with the political and other “supremist” groups who "doop" all races into thinking that one race is less venerable to the ills of society than others. Tim Wise, Anti-Racist activist states, "According to racial separatist Jared Taylor of American Renaissance a relatively highbrow white supremacist organization, black crime rates are so disproportionate relative to those of whites that it is perfectly acceptable for police to profile African Americans in the hopes of uncovering criminal activity. His groups report The Color of Crime which has been touted by mainstream conservatives like Walter Williams purports to demonstrate just how dangerous blacks are, what with murder, robbery, and assault rates that are considerably higher than the rates for whites. That these higher crime rates are the result of economic conditions disproportionately faced by people of color Taylor does not dispute in the report. But he insists that the reasons for the disparities hardly matter. All that need be known is that one group is statistically more dangerous than the other and avoiding those persons or stopping them for searches is not evidence of racism, but rather the result of rational calculations by citizens and police. Although in simple numerical terms, whites commit three times more violent crimes each year than blacks, and whites are five to six times more likely to be attacked by another white person than by a black person, to Taylor, this is irrelevant. As he has explained about these white criminals: “They may be boobs, but they’re our boobs.” This type of behavioral justification affects us all. Inequality hurts everyone and there are factors that contribute to the issues in urban communities but rap or any other music form just doesn't. The fact is that such claims are purely subjective in nature. The facts are that social issues in our country and others (such as the UK) contribute the most. This goes back to my original statement; rap artist are a direct reflection of the venue they've been exposed to their whole lives. It's like the age old question "What came first, the chicken or the egg?" In this case, the environment rappers have been exposed to is the proverbial egg, laid by disenfranchisement, that has hatched a generation of music that is reflective of its surroundings. We need to tackle the issues that cause such turmoil and stop pointing the finger at the wrong source.
Being a child of the inner city and a major connoisseur of the art form, I can definitely say that crime and drugs have been around far before rap was even thought of. Personally knowing that rap artists are direct products of the environment they’ve been expose to through economic, social and political disenfranchisement will weigh heavily on my decision to be dedicated to fixing these issues. Knowing that many people who hate rap and cannot quote one verse or name one current artist are using rap as a vice to perpetuate their own prejudices will be a challenge. Also, knowing that if it wasn’t for these artists telling the stories of what inner city youth are and have been exposed to the world may still be turning a deaf ear to the situation.