rap culture - what affect is it having on youths?

[Ming]

[Doot]

I live in Atlanta, the first place IN MY LIFE I had ever been introduced to racism. I was raised in a family who respects every race, culture, creed, sexual preference, ideas... I was taught I may not always agree but I should always respect.

First off, bringing up subjects like this are always going to have underlying tensions of Black vs White. Let's take this back a bit. Anybody who appreciates music will know that a LONG time ago, when slavery was in effect, there were soulful songs sung by many a person who was in that situation. Some beautiful music came from hardship, and opression, and pain.

You have foundations of blues, soul, rock, r&b, rap, country, and practically EVERY genre of music out there. You'll have artists out there who plain suck, you'll have artists out there that will speak to you, you will have artists out there who seriously shouldn't be in the business only because he knew someone who would put them there. Music, any form, is a language that is universal. Period. It will be something that speaks to you, even if you don't understand the words it is sung in.

Music is the one thing that tries to teach tolerence, acceptance and respect.

Tolerence: As much as I have heard, and this is living in Atlanta, how much "black people are trying to be white" by listening to rock or country or whatever else that doesn't fit the r&b rap persona, I have heard 50 times as many people say that white people shouldn't listen to rap. When was this ever something that wasn't welcome? When was this such an issue? Is it not a goal to find a common ground and end any racial tension that preceeds us by many years of situations that NONE OF US were around to take part in? If you don't like it, don't indulge in it. But be tolerable of the people who do, it speaks to them, it reaches them in a way you won't understand because you never live the exact same life as someone else.

Acceptance: For the tolerence leads to acceptance of a person, their ideas, their beliefs. If you like someone, then fine, it's easy to make the exceptions to liking them, you bend your acceptance in favor of them because you believe they are generally good people. You accept the fact that you like something they may not, you accept the vice versa of that scenario, you accept each other as you are or else you wouldn't be friends, acquaintances.

RESPECT: Aretha Franklin can spell it. And spell it good. You wanna talk about the root of all that bugs you about rap and the "culture" of it? I'll tell you it's just as mirrored by anything you could get out of the rock community. Respect. Lack thereof. It's not the music's fault, it IS the parents fault. Children have a degenerated idea of respect. In many cases they disrespect their parents, their teachers, their siblings, their friends, and anyone else out there within their reach. Since when did everyone popping out the womb EXPECT the world to OWE THEM? So the music talks to them, gives them a view of life (true or not) but without giving respect you will not receive it.

To face the argument of the lifestyle of rap, people in hard times will want what they cannot have, they will want an easier life, and when they get it the will jump head first and indulge themselves in it. So they write about things you don't quite understand. Mos tof those people I feel are a disgrace to rap. I have heard a substantial amount of intelligent, well written Rhythmic American Poetry that speaks to me in volumes even though I lived not one second of that persons life. The rap I see about the bling bling and the videos with the scantilly clad women being doused with Cristal and the talking about "keepin it real" when in actuality there is nothing real to all the rented vehicles, women, and jewelry they have and it's dissappointing. I have listened to the lyrics of these and just rolled my eyes, because it seems everything they fought for to get where they are is forgotten in the sight of all the "riches".

There are TRUE artists out there that don't need to indulge in those theatrics or even mind sets to get their points across. We need to tolerate, accept and respect the lives they HAVE lived to get them where they are, although I find it lacking in character that they forsake all those times just to party down like cheap looking kings.

On the other hand, just like the old chain gang, soulful slave hymns were meant as communication between the masses of slaves out there, and not meant for the white people, much is seen as such via rap as well, like Razer said. In acknowledgement of that statement and idea, I find it utmost hypocritical of the rap society to belive that to be true. Are we not trying to edge toward a life where we all can accept each other? Where we all want to understand each other and not see things as black or white? We should be willing to share the new ideas, share the thoughts, share the respect. I may not have grew up a black child in the ghetto but I respect that someone has, and made it through all the hard times to be able to express it lyrically and rise above it. This doesn't include ho's, escalades and the like.

Respect is what it boils down to. And last time I checked respect wasn't any exclusive color.

[Righty The Wonder Ghoul]

Quote:

It's not the music's fault, it IS the parents fault. Children have a degenerated idea of respect.

i both agree and disagree with that. it is parent's faults. but it is the musics fault too. i mean, the music has the right to say things in it, but the music when you listen to it promotes disrespect. all that half of the commercial rap out there talks about is f***ing your ho, busting a cap up someones ass with your gat, smoking a joint, and then doing it all again.

Razer, i think you misconstrued my point only to prove me correct beautifully. there is no point in "our" people (as you put it) idolizing this crap (for lack of a better word) that promotes things that people shouldnt do in the first place. the problem isnt that they are saying these things directly, its the way they are saying things and the fact that people are idolizing it as they do. Its one thing when a song says fuck eleventynine times followed by the phrase the bitch, which is wrong in and of its own right, but its something totally different when 10,000 white kids in one town start wearing their throwback jerseys and talking to people like they are worthless turds, and treating girls like they picked them up on a street corner. this is wrong.

oh and ming, limp bizkit and blink 182 didnt make fun of creed for having faith, they made fun of the lead singer for being an asshole...

join the biting

[Ming]

I don't understand how you can classify Scott Stapp (lead singer of Creed) as an asshole. He keeps quiet, and doesn't bother anyone. When Creed came out, immediately people chastised them for being cheap "Pearl Jam" rip-offs, when in reality, they sound NOTHING like Pearl Jam, nor does Scott Stapp sound ANYTHING like Eddie Vedder. Then they got criticized because they compared themselves to Led Zepplin (I think it was them, although it may have been some other really popular older band). Automatically, people called them idiots for doing this, and how could this NEW band possibly compare themselves to this OLDER band, and no one can ever be better than the old stuff. That's what pisses me off about rock music. People don't give ANY credit to newer bands because they have this stigma that no one can EVER come close to older bands. But back on topic...then the religion stuff came out about Creed, and the s*it REALLY hit the fan. And this brings up my point exactly. They compared themselves to someone else, and maybe expressed their disapproval for how some acts behave and the negative messages they convey. And what happens? Automatically, Scott Stapp is an asshole. Instead of just accepting that someone else may not like you, bands like Blink 182 (who's music I do like) and Limp Bizkit (who I used to like) insist on talking shit, and starting problems. And why? It all boils down to the fact that someone had a belief different from them. Its so hard to break from what has already been established because people ridicule you for it.

[Righty The Wonder Ghoul]

i dont remember Blink182 ever saying shit about Scott Stapp, so if you can point me to some articles please do. i do agree with you about the whole new rock is just as good as old rock thing. but in this case i think what he said proves it. why does he have to go out there and say "we're as good as led zeppelin" why? is there any purpose to say that? yes its because hes an ego maniac who needs to get off himself. i like creeds music, and i like limp bizkits music, and this really has nothing to do with rap... also, if you are gonna stop liking LB over this i have news for you. it was 2 years ago. get over it. also, for anyone who wants to see this, i know ming saw it, cus he said half of it, i have a new thread on this subject.

but back to the subject yeah, im mad about the culture that people are idolizing, and you should be too, because im always right and if you disagree with me you are wrong and therefore you suck at life (note, that was SARCASM)

join the biting

[Razer]

Well I like Creed.
Anyway, I didn't mean Rap was for US and not YOU as in Black and White. I meant it as in Urban and Suburban. See, Rap has always been regional (where it counts). Rap started in NYC way before Sugarhill made a record. They did simply because they had record connects. Back then it was, like slave songs, all about expression. It was a form of art that "we" had. Anyone outside of NYC was fake if they rapped. Hell, if you were in the Bronx, then anywhere else in the WORLD was fake. I lived in Manhattan and I will tell you we had White rappers (tho they weren't much good) in the Village even tho it was primarily Black and Puerto Rican involved. It wasn't a racial thing then.
Now it's all commercial. Like 50 said himself, if he wasn't making money rapping he wouldn't even bother. It's simply a job. I give all the credit in the world to Em. He's clearly among the most creative artists in music. Only those who want to see him as trash or whatever will see him that way. He created three personas (Eminem, Slim Shady, & Marshall Mathers). If you listen to his music (as well as the three albums, all named after his personas) you'll see. Em is not trying to make a statement, he's telling stories from three different points of view. It's no different from an author writing stories of different characters. Do we crucify Stephen King for writing horror? Musicians are actors, for the most part. I listen to all types of music, being a DJ, and I can differentiate between real artists and REAL artists. The former being a person who is a complete artist (Eminem) and the latter being a person who is a true-to-the-craft artist (Billy Joel, for instance). Creed, for example, make music based on how they feel as far as I know. Most "folksy" singers do. Rappers tend to paint pictures akin to movies. They embellish them in whatever way people will be entertained and purchase. No one attacked Tom Hanks for playing a hitman in Road To Perdition because they understood he was acting, just playing a role that someone created. Same is true in most Rap sadly. For this reason I defend Rap as an art form, not neccessarily the Rapper. However, I get PO'd any time I hear someone say how the music /artist has responsibilities. No, they have ZERO responsibilities in raising any children but their own. I have a seven year old (and eleven year old) son and he listens to the radio so he hears all the popular stuff from 50 Cent to Celine Dion to Limp Biskit. It's up to ME to make sure he understands that 50 is not telling him to come out to Da Club, Celine is not in love with him, and Fred Durst is not Rollin' with him. I listen to VERY explicit Rap but I do not listen to it when the kids are around. Being a DJ I have access to every type of music and that makes it my responsibility to adjust for each person that may come in contact (thru my doing) with music I play. I keep a case of 24 CDs in my car and there is never a time when anyone is in it that they don't hear a form of music that is at least non-objectionable to them. If I drive my mother or aunt, I'll play smooth jazz. If it's the kids, I'll play Pop. If it's my friends, I'll play Rap or R&B. Hell, if it's one of you guys I might bust out my SFII (Japanese) soundtrack. It becomes my job to enforce when I put someone in that situation, never the artist. I rap what I know. When I freestyle I talk about kicking your ass, being nicer than you( meaning rap skillwise), and girls (yes, I talk about f*cking), I don't rap about guns or selling drugs cause that's not what I know but if it was then I would have no problem in saying it. Still, it's not any Rapper, sports athlete, Politician, or other person who raises my child. Asking how the culture affects kids is pretty ridiculous.

Also, White kids have just as much right to wear throwback jerseys as anyone else. It's just clothes. Like Doot, my offense would be at anyone purposely trying to "stay in the ghetto" or talk dumb (heavy street slang). We all want to do better but if the rappers who made money said how to make it (aka act like how you want to see them) then everyone would and no one would buy their records. And for the record, Will Smith IS soft. Not to say he can't make entertaining records and he's still being true to himself (I have tapes of him in Philly before he got big and he's always been about comedy) but he is soft. "Soft" just refers to his battle skillz. In Rap you have to be able to battle and flow from the head or you ain't nothing. And I don't mean those wack rappers on the 8 Mile DVD. Not one of them could hang with any of the old school NYC rappers. You have studio rappers and street rappers. Street rappers have the quality. There's about 10 rappers outside of NYC that can battle...and I can't name one besides Em right now...unless you count me in there.
Anyone can sit and write a record if they have a month to think and rethink it. If you can't flow off the head tho, you ain't shit.

Me people who shift responsibility

[Doot]

Well put Razer. Very well put.

Righty... and not to sound like I'm pulling the age card but seriously it truly does make a difference in your opinion and views when you have had to be responsible for someone else in your life aside from yourself. Razer puts the point quite frankly and states it quite clearly and truly. It is HIS responsibility as a parent, friend, son, uncle, neighbor to maintain his relationships with responsibility with people he is around. Does this mean he is selling himself short and not being true to himself if he listens to one set of music over another in the presence of others? No. It means he's a multifaceted person, who accepts everyone's views that he is in contact with and knows what is offensive and what is not. THAT is prime example of how a parent should be.

Too often, all the rappers you are talking about spouting off about drugs, hos, guns, are talking the biggest piece of poo in the world. Most would even cower and their heads would explode if they were ever posed in any of the position they rap about. If you don't like it, don't listen to it, change the channel, but the number one thing you have to realize is that YOU cannot raise or be responsible for someone elses children.

Righty... if I tell you to jump off a the Empire State building because it would make you cool, would you do it? I would hope not, because I would give you more credit for your personal resolve and intelligence not to. Granted music may paint a picture of all these things in life but it is ultimately up to a parent to make sure the child has a healthy view on what he/she should expect out of life. I don't agree with the rappers who go on about the bling bling and such, it seems to me very shallow, and not worth my time to listen, watch or indulge.

THAT is my personal choice. It does not speak to me in any way than showboating and bragging, so I make the concious decision to not subscribe to that method of thinking.

I have my younger sister, as you know as Sakura on this board. She is 14 years old and I am 24. I have always played a MAJOR part in her growing up. And she is living testimony that even though you are surrounded by all of these ideas, all of these facades, me and my parents playing as active a role in her life has kept her from being some of the typical 14 year old girls who believe that their bodies are the only way to gain things in life, that because of the ACTIVE interest we have had in her life she isn't runnning off and getting high, smoking, drinking, feeling that she needs something as shallow as the "commercial rap" to justify her being.

[Righty The Wonder Ghoul]

if you looked at it from my point of view perhaps you would understand. i have no problem with people wearing a style of clothes. if you ever saw me youd probably classify me into a style in two seconds flat. clothes are just that, clothes, they cover your body. i have no problem with white kids from rural connecticut wearing throw back jerseys. i do have a problem with them acting like they grew up in the ghetto begging for food. they didnt, and its really annoying that they think they did.

Razer i do agree with you that rappers are persecuted for what they do and thats said. as an aspiring artist i firmly agree that no person should ever be persecuted for expressing themselves. i do think that these 15 year old kids who have never seen a mean street in their life should stop acting ghetto. they arent ghetto, and chances are they never will be. (oh and, heh, im saving up for turntables , but im probably into different things with them)

doot, i think you dont understand the purpose of me saying this, and thats what hurts me. i dont need to be 30 years old and have children to understand what im saying it and why im saying it. what im saying is that, purely from the kids point of view, they are wrong for idolizing and personifying this attitude that in general opinion is wrong.

i have never done much wrong, besides get in a few fights and light a few fires i shouldn't have, and i have really had no interference in my life from my family, and all my family is much older than me, my sister being 23, and my dad being 55 and everyone else inbetween. i was able to make out so well because i am able to make decisions that i know are right. i realize not all people can do this, and maybe thats what im really upset about. i just think these kids should start thinking for themselves and realize some of the things they do is wrong. if i had a quarter for every time i listened to some kid who thought he could be ghetto try to rap, id be more rich than bill gates, and it gets annoying.

and razer, i know what the bronx is like i have been to south bronx on numerous occasions, and my cousin whos house i used to go to a lot lives in canarsie (brooklyn). so dont think i dont know what its like there, i have seen enough to form an educated opinion upon it.

[GAAZ]

Jeebus H mother of Crap you people write a lot.

Basically it all boils down to rap/rock/R&B/not so much Ska/punk music being bad influences but at the same time parents aren't beating it into their kids, or beating too much, that they're all fake people and we're real.

Just like sports idle's these peopls don't play the game because they LOVE the game they play the game cause they get paid about 100,000 a game and more for royalties. Music people (Well, publicized) are basically in there for the money..If they weren't then they'd take about 100 K a year and whatever's left give to charities or some kind of organization.

But people like LL Cool J buy diamond belt buckles worth over $100,000. Or other singers buy multiple cars, houses, etc. Back in the day when rappers like Run DMC were topping the charts their sound was good and they didn't go out and pop caps or what have you.

The Genre's have evolved to a point where drugs are cool, ho's are disease free (And if they aren't who cares they'll be remembered like Easy E), and killing people is more of a sport then a bad thing.

But parents are sitting back and letting all this crap filter into 10 year old childrens ears. WHERE do these 10 year olds get their CD's and CD players? WHO's house do they go to when they're with *Friends*? WHAT are they doing while outside your home? These are all valid questions that are in fact never questioned by parents. I myself am not a big music officianado..There are maybe 10 bands I like and 60 songs I can stand listening to (Not counting Wierd AL). Mainly EVERYONE steals EVERYONE's sound. No band is *On the Edge* any more because it's all the same garbage put through a different sifter. I'm more drawn to the AM dial of me radio these days cause I find intellectual (And lets face it NON-intellectual) talk radio cause it's ideas being exchanged and goals being accomplished. Most music today consists of no goals and accomplishments that no one should ever be proud of.

So In conclusion I have been rambling for about 10 minutes and have NO idea what I said...hehehe Damn my short attention span.

[Razer]

Maybe you have no idea what you said but I agree. I listen to more "old music" (10 years and back) than new and I rarely listen to radio. I check new CDs by artist mostly. It is the same crap (mostly) and 99% of artists are in it as a job. But that isn't wrong. We all need to pay bills. I think the "fault" lies in Righty expecting kids to buck the system. Peer Pressure has always been around and always will. Just because you have common sense Righty, doesn't mean anyone's giving it away with every Big Kids Meal.