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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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