Thursday, November 1, 2012

Pre-Reading Week 11


  • When I think of hip-hop I think of people of color, mostly black people coining the word hip-hop and making it famous around in our American society. So when it comes to hip-hop, race can be considered one factor of hip-hop. Hip- hop can be also associated with social justice. Some singers or song writers writes music or hip-hop music that contains social justice and every people can listen to it which then gets the point across. 
  • I think of the purpose of hip hop is one way to rebel against inequality in the society. Also, hip-hop can be a way to educate people about the Black people's lives, how they live it and how they encounter differences amongst their race, gender, and their beliefs in their own society. Its goal or agenda can be to educate and let people know their hardships that they've been through and also their life story. It can also be about their emotions which then can be expressed through writing songs. 
  • As I've said in the first question, I think hip-hop plays an important role in race because mostly Black people are the ones involve in any type of hip-hop whether it's a song or dance they are the ones that are familiarize in hip-hop. Also when someone said hip-hop most people see a picture in their head of Black or African Americans emerging in that industry. African American are the majority when it comes to hip-hop artist, although other race and people of color can be a hip-hop artist. The consumers of hip-hop are racially diverse because all of us listens to hip-hop songs whenever it comes in the radio. I see white folks buying CDs of Chris Brown, or Trey Songz because it's catchy and they like the music. My mom like Bruno Mars, not because he's half-Filipino and half African American but because his songs are catchy and most of the songs have meaning on them.
  • I didn't know hip-hop can be problematic. I'm not sure about this portion of the question because I didn't know hip-hop can be problematic. I think people still buy or listen to hip-hop because most of them either like the tone, the beat, or the rhythm of the hip-hop music. 
  • Well white artists are (I think) not that problematic than hip-hop. Like Taylor Swift, she can write good quality songs but she has never been in a controversy that her songs are racist or sexist or any kind of problems before. I think white artists are different from Black or hip hop artists because they can't be that problematic. I'm not also sure about this question because I haven't really looked in depth of what hip-hop is and how they can be problematic.
  • Now I understand why people are stereotyping rap or hip-hop because they think that it's not art at all. People think it's garbage like what Rock said in his speech. Rock feels like he needs to defend Rap because people still doesn't care about the rappers. It can also be that the government hates rap. For example that Rock has given in his speech, Tupac was shot at Las Vegas in front of circus circus and there were no suspect, police reports, and no one ended up in jail. The use of bad language is one problem that a rap or hip-hop has. 
  • Most problematic of hip-hop is its use of graphic language. I think people that hates rap thinks that it's bad to listen because of its explicit language. 
  • The role of women in hip-hop is that they are always described as 'bitch' (Sorry for the language), or they are often described as 'sex' materials that man use. Most of the hip-hop music I hear nowadays always describe women in a bad image. In my opinion, I think hip hop or rap can be misogynistic because they give women a bad image calling them names like 'bitch'; I think it degrades women in the society. 
  • Gender intersects with race because in hip-hop, white folks degrades African Americans because they think that their music is all about 'sex' and other bad language. While in gender African Americans that are rappers or hip-hop artists degrades women by describing them as 'sexual materials' in their songs. 
  • Jay Smooth thinks that rappers should identify the problems first before they look at other aspects of hip-hop, and rappers should be aware of the choices they made because they are still responsible for the consequences in return. 
Word Count: 759

2 comments:

  1. Hi Kriselle!
    I think it is interesting to think about how race plays a role in hip hop. It does seem that hip hop artist usually tend to be black, but I think a reason for that might be that most white people are told that they can't rap or compell hip hop well. I think it's the stereotype that hip hop artist are black that is stopping other races from pursuing or even being able to start a career in hip hop. How can an asian or a white become a rapper if they are told they can't do it? You have interesting thoughts and I appreciate the fact that you have an open mind and are able to look at both pros and cons of this type of music.
    -Justina

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  2. Hi Kriselle,
    As usual, thank you for a thorough and reflective blog- this week we are going to spend some time looking at some of the problematic aspects of hip-hop; it would be interesting to see what you learned in your post-reading blog. You bring up an interesting point when you say that white artists are never seen as controversial. I don't know if they never do, however, I can see that sometimes hip-hop, and it's largely person of color demographic, can be unfairly targeted- as if these issues are unique and endemic to them! This is especially interesting when we see that the producers and primary consumers of this genre are white men, so in some ways these issues aren't even coming from the artists in the first place! A good conversation to be sure...
    --eas

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