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Hip-Hop vs. The Law

ballerz1	Date: October 6, 2004 @ 3:36 AM Why is it that every successful hip-hop artist needs to project themselves as being criminals, even when they grew up in suburbia? Take Ja Rule for example. He was raised in a suburban community but then started projecting himself as a hard-core gangster. Then a song came out (“Hail Mary”) by 50 Cent, Eminem, and Busty Rhymes that dissed him for the fact, and his sales started to slide. It’s also interesting to see how the law enforcement deals with these young artists, such as the NYPD setting up a special “Hip-Hop Task Force” that monitors their every move. I thought to bring up these topics because I just saw a preview for an upcoming hip-hop special on Court TV being produced by Russell Simmons. It’s called “Hip Hop Justice” (I think), and airs Wednesday (10/06) @ 10pm. It looks really interesting and hopefully will help put hip-hop in a more positive light. Peace, Trevor
Cryxan	Date: October 6, 2004 @ 5:40 AM I've wonderd the same thing. The lyrics must be hateful or else the album won't sell. It's as if violence was a requirement of the genre. There are a lot of underground hip hop artists in the DMusic community, and just about all of them have some choice things to say about mainstream hip hop. But then many of them turn around and do their best to imitate the very artists they criticize. They'll sing about guns, killing, gangs and doublecrossings but have no actual experience with any of these, just like the popular artists you mention. Also in the independent music communities such as this one, many Battles are fought. After observing several of them it seems that the whole point is to insult your opponent for fun until someone really gets offended, and then get people to take sides and argue even more. It's mostly about hate. We recently held a music contest at DMusic. The finalists in the Hip Hop category included only one song that had something nice to say (that's the one I voted for). The artist of that song was bashed and called a wuss and other things by several from the hip hop community. I think what it comes down to is that violence and hate is part of the image. It's cool to look and act like a gang member who's killed people, as if that deserved respect. Those that have actually been involved with the law live off the glory that earned them, and it's publicized until everyone's heard about it. Even if there is no criminal record, the marketing strategy will still include that sort of image. I just know I'm gonna catch some crap for some of the things I said here... I tried to phrase things so I didn't generalize my statements, because I know there are many exceptions. But I'm still gonna catch crap.
Bloodstaind-...	Date: October 7, 2004 @ 2:42 PM Thats like asking why do people scream on all death metal songs and talk about killing someone... or why did rock and rollers wear such tight pants with goofy lookin hair and do drugs all day. Obviously you dont know much about hip-hop. Ja-Rule is mainly a singer. Anyone who listens to his music could tell you that. I'd say 1 out of 4 of every one of his songs is about girls or relationship issues. Not everyone talks about the same thing in rap otherwise it'd boring and no one would be listening to it. But as you can see with the success of hip-hop artist... that isnt the case. Even if there not selling a huge ammount of albums they still have other ways to monopolize themselves from their popularity... for ex. LL Cool J, Marketing fubu... There's plenty of artist showing positive sides of hip-hop. But like always, people only look at the bad points, never the good. I could name a hand full of artist that send out positive messages to the world: Mase, Kanye West, P Diddy (maybe he had a bad past but the things he's been doing resently like running a marthon race to raise money for kids and other deeds... stuff like that kinda out weighs the negativity), Talib Kwelie , LL Cool J, Jadakiss ( contridictary at times but still delivers a good message when needed, same goes for Tupac, and DMX when you listen to his ablums... Theirs a pray song in all of them.) Slum Village, Nas ( at times ) And im sure theres more that I missed, and im not even gonna touch on r-n-b artist, that would just add on to the list even more. Even on dmusic theirs hip hop artist that send out positive messages http://enfa.dmusic.com/ or you'll have some artist that make plain old fun party music for people to listen to. Not every artist delivers bad messages... For every negative you can find a positive. It Doesnt hurt to look around. As for myself, I enjoy listening to that type of music, same as people who listen to death metal and other forms of music to that degree... but you wont see me on the news with a gun in my hand shooting at someone and saying the music made me do it. Most people arent dumb enough to go do something simply because a song told them to... common sense with tell you that. And if you are one of them that do listen and do what everyone tells you I suggest theorapy.

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