Popular blogs music entry (Article Sample)

Popular blogs music entry Blog Post: Hip Hop Music as Resistance against Racism and Discrimination By Name: Art, be it literature, music or film, is a powerful vehicle for conveying important issues that are of significance to society and its members. As a form of entertainment, critical commentary and personal expression, artistic work uses various strategies to engage the audience and force them to relook at their lives and society from a new perspective. Music, and specifically hip hop, is my favorite category of music due to the powerful way in which it not only portrays social issues, but also demonstrates the resilience and defiance of victims of injustices in society. This blog entry discusses the dynamics of hip music that makes it an interesting genre for critics and lovers of music. It is easy for the casual music fan to mistaken the popularity of hip hop artists like 50 Cents, Kanye West, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Jay Z and Eminem as a result of their celebrity status and great music. While this is partly true, the real reason is that the style and message of hip hop music resonates with the aspirations and life experiences of marginalized and oppressed groups in society, especially in the American society where racism has for a long time been a characterizing feature of Black-White relationships. In the days of slavery, the natural self-preservation instinct of the oppressed was to submit to the will of their oppressors, and in doing so become willing participants in the all the evils of slavery. This acquiescence to enslavement helped to give slavery the mask of legitimacy that guaranteed its survival for many centuries. However, as later descendants of slaves would learn, accepting oppression gives way to more oppression as best exemplified by the passage of the Jim Crow laws in the south, which legitimized racial discrimination and segregation. The black race, collectively succumbed to the whims of their white masters, making themselves vulnerable to more exploitation. Hip hop music presents a departure from this soft stance towards oppression and the emergency of a generation that recognized music as a platform to resist racism. While the antislavery movement had resorted to political activism and mobilization of the masses to end slavery, their successors in the fight against racism and social injustices turned to music to as a form of self-expression in resisting racial discrimination. In this regards, I consider hip hop as a form of resistance music because of its language and message, which express deviance against the continued existence of racism in America long after the end of slavery. The generation of hip hop music that sprang up from around the 1970s was vocal in condemning racism such as police brutality against blacks. The deviance of hip hop music towards racism is best brought out by the N.WA. (Niggers With Attitude) group comprising of Eazy-E, Ice Cube, and Dr. Dre. The group’s songs portrayed the deviance of African American youths towards law enforcement no just because they were victims of police brutality, but also because the legal justice system was part of the institutionalized discrimination of blacks. The NWA group also represented the youth’s rebellion against existing societal values because they were marginalized and not part of the mainstream society whose values they were expected to uphold. The antagonism between African American youths and the police vividly comes out in the song “Fuck the Police” in which Ice Cube disses the police for harassing them without reasonable cause. The lyrics of the song asserts not only the nature of police brutality, but the determination of its victims not to put up with it. Ice Cube raps: Fuck the police! Comin' straight from the underground A young nigga got it bad ‘cause I'm brown And not the other color, so police think They have the authority to kill a minority Fuck that shit, ‘cause I ain't the one For a punk motherfucker with a badge and a gun These lines express are not simply expression of anger and bitterness towards the police, but expression of the black youths’ realization that they are victims of police brutality because of their color. Equally important, they identify themselves as the underground gangsters who are beyond the reach of the law. Personally, I interpret the vulgar language of hip hop music as a manifestation of what racism, police brutality and discrimination had produced; bitter youths who have no faith in or respect for law enforcement. The popular attitude towards hip hop music is to dismiss its vulgar language as a demonstration of its low status as a genre of music. As noted above, however, that is the route only casual listeners can take. In contrast, a critical listener will consider the social context and socioeconomic factors that push the artists to express such deviance and rebellion. As victims of poverty, social and economic discrimination, it is understandable why African American youths can rebel against the values espoused by the White American society. Society wants its members to respect the rule of law and to pursue financial success through legitimate means. The question that the hip hop culture of rebellion raises is, what is a section of society is denied the opportunity to pursue success through legitimate means as result of discrimination and marginalization? Analyzing hip hop music this way enables one to understand the issues that hip hop music portrays. Simply put, the message is that social discrimination, racism and marginalization breed deviance, crime and rebellion. The gangster identity that hip hop artists project, accordingly, is a bold assertion that they are rebellious against the law because the law that is supposed to protect them and promote social equality is the same law that is used to victimize them. Katie Barnes makes this point clear in “Straight Outta Campton: Another Step in the Legacy of Erasing Black Women,” by comparing the way the law is selectively applied in America with the experiences of African American youth who are victims of unjustified police brutality. This is because blacks are suspected of being criminals simply because they are black. Barnes draws a parallel between the harassment of black youths with the experiences of black motorists who are randomly and unreasonably stopped by traffic police for committing the offence of “driving while black,” (Barnes 2015). Richard Brody is more spot-on in his review of the movie about the NWA group, Straight Outta Campton. In explain police harassment against black youths, he observes that their crime is almost always “standing while black” (Brody 2015). This characterization of police brutality- as a phenomenon that is informed by racism- explains the source of the anger and bitterness that one sees in hip hop music. It is bitterness born of discrimination, marginalization and poverty, which makes the youth to lose faith in social institutions. It is a tall order, therefore, to expect black youths to respect the same institutions that the regard as the source of their problems. One hip hop track that illustrates the rebellion of the youth against social institutions and values is Eazy-E’s rap “Boyz-n-the-Hood.” The song demonstrates the youth’s realization that respecting the laws and social institutions will not uplift them from poverty or protect them from racism, police brutality and discrimination. Consequently, they rebel against social values because they are not stakeholders in the mainstream society that promotes social order and respect for law. In place of social values and social order, they adopt an alternative lifestyle, one that allows them to cope with discrimination and racism. the sense of alienation is evident in Eazy-E’s rap song “Boyz-n-the-Hood” in which he raps: Jus' Thought That I Had To Be In Compton Soon I Gotta Get Drunk Before The Day Begins Before My Mother Starts Bitchin About Ma Friends Eazy-E’s desire to go and get drunk with the boys before his mother starts bitching illustrates young blacks’ rebellion against family and social values. This song helps to show that the problem with black youths was not just an issue of deviance against the law, but a reflection of a bigger problem whose cause is the racial discrimination that made them to lose faith in the right way of doing things, such as getting an education and securing a job. The portrayal of Dr. Dre in the movie supports this idea after he rejects his mother’s pleas to secure respectable jobs. Instead, he becomes a Disc Jockey (DJ), which implies the allure of the...