Hip Hop and Rap

Commercial hip-hop has worsened what singers in the past decades tried to establish. A new culture of music, attitude and dance. Today hip-hop culture is identified with cash, cars, violence, war, diamonds, racism, guns, sexual promiscuity, and drugs. By promoting illegal activities, is far away from delightful and peaceful lyrics. Hip-hop can be explored and used as a valuable tool in examining gender relations. Hip Hop was a movement and in the present is an obligatory tendency for most of teenagers. Hip-Hop has undergone changes that traditionalist would consider degenerating to our civilization. I like the beats, chorus, the honest way that portray reality of the conditions they were exposed to and the way it takes me to “the top of the charts”.

The culture associated with the music has drastically changed. Hip-hop represents race, ethnicity, class, gender, and generation. Hip-Hop culture has always been popular among young people, and the rappers don’t seem to be concerned about their music effects on kid’s behavior. Although created by black youth on the street, hip hop's influence has become worldwide. The issue is that Hip-hop is spreading everywhere, is all pervasive in the charts and fills the clubs and homes of people from all genders, ages and ethnics. Many other types of music can be a culture too, and each person feels if it is a culture to them or not.

As stated by Light, Alan, ed. The Vibe History of Hip Hop. New York: Three Rivers Press, 1999. "In the late 1970’s a new, popular form of urban youth culture emerged in the Bronx that changed the face of popular music and American culture." According to the Wikipedia, Hip Hop began in New York City predominantly among African Americans, arose during the 1970s when block parties became common, especially the Bronx. Rap continues to be popular among today's urban youth for the same reasons it was in the early days: it is still an accessible form of self expression.

Music deserves as much scrutiny and discussion by educational scholars as television, movies, or other media. The music industry plays a huge role in today’s society from many different angles. I am addicted to music. People that don't listen at home probably listen when driving or at a bar. With the actual technology, everybody can download music for free on the internet and update their mp3 players and iPods. Rap music has a major effect on the violence that teens involve themselves in today. The negative aspects of rap music is revealed through artists not setting good examples, the disrespectful, explicit and violent lyrics Rap music influences teenagers negatively by increasing violent attitudes and promoting sexual aggression against women. Talking about the ladies, Lauryn Hill blends all that is good about hip-hop, soul, reggae, and rock without the self-consciousness of other genre hoppers. She has the best voice in the world and she knows how to talk about freedom. She used to sing only hip-hop but not in an aggressive way, she says that "we must destroy in order to rebuild", and she sings about rebellion but in a reality form that brings progress for her listeners. Her last CD acoustic had this lyric:

"Yo, there's a war in the mind, over territory
For the dominion
Who will dominate the opinion
Skisms and isms, keepin' us in forms of religion
Conformin' our vision
To the world churches decision
Trapped in a section
Submitted to commiting election
Moral infection
Epedemic lies and deception
Insurrection
Of the highest possible order
Destortin' our tape recorders..."

She is an example that you can talk about real issues and still be triumphant in the public eye.

Popular music, for teens has always been controversial, but sex, violence, beatings, and suicide are considered extreme ideas. Entertainment corporations, record labels, producers and directors give the sensation that they think this is very normal. Today's teenagers would not read poetry and comprehend the message, but, they would listen to rap and be able to understand the idea that the artist is trying to express.

Now Hip Hop has become a symbol of corporate America, and it is unlikely Hip Hop will have the free expression and voice it used to have. All musicians have a right to say whatever they want in their music. Listening to famous artists who have become successful for singing about their struggles helps kids to deal with their problems, because this form of music was formed in this poverty stricken areas, the lyrics tend to be somewhat provocative and politically incorrect. Most of the rappers are distorting an interpretation of what actually happens on the streets, because they don't live there anymore and are full of money in their pockets. From films to magazines, to music, to fashion, the Hip-hop business has impression on all atmospheres of American mass culture.

What hip-hop culture has essentially done is make explicit the very crisis of identity that the black public at large faces. According to literary scholar Sharon Patricia Holland, “identity only becomes an issue when it is in crisis, when something assumed to be fixed, coherent and stable is displaced by the experience of doubt and uncertainty.” (See Sharon Patricia Holland, Raising the Dead: Readings of Death and (Black) Subjectivity [Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000], 137). The word “nigger” is one of the many popular words of hip hoppers. They use the word as a term of affection, contrary to the standard insulting meaning of the word. Post Civil Rights, post LA Riots, post MTV, the hip-hop generation has been less concerned with the sound of the term “nigger”.

In direct contrast to the public impression of hip hop, some authors have positive messages: “Hip hop is a cultural form that was originally created by African Americans and was once owned and controlled by them. More recently, however, the culture has been hijacked by white music executives who have transformed its message into a glorification of violence, crime, drug abuse, and misogyny. As a result, the white establishment in the music industry has perpetuated false and negative stereotypes of black people. This has proved damaging not only to the African American community, but the nation as a whole.” Nelson George, Hip Hop America. Nelson George has written a history of hip hop culture. He discusses its origins, the influences , the businesses that grew up around it. I read his book and I realized that are many Hip-Hop artist that put out a positive vibration in their music, the main problem is that those singers are currently absent from many major radio stations that predominantly play songs dominated by futile, pointless, senseless, insignificant, meaningless, and trivial lyrics. Not that there’s anything wrong with that sometimes. There are days and nights where you just want to dance. But this generation needs a bigger vision.

Hip hop culture is really amazing and people who listen to rap and hip hop in the radios today may hate it, but they don't understand the history that comes behind. Also, many individuals can confuse hip hop singers, which have political awareness, with bad rappers. The glorification of drug dealing, pimping, pot smoking and violence is common in gangster rap but many hip hop songs talk about love in an entertaining way. Many times many of these rappers like 2pac contradict themselves talking about killing each other in one lyric, and changes and better days in other. He would engage in a speech against women, and then protect them bravely. He was a tremendous inspiring and fantastic singer/men, even though controversial. Still 2Pac had profound and heavy letters; he used his feelings from his unstable childhood and life in the inner city. Today is hard to find a rap singer that talk about issues so well like he did. I'm not going to say that some youth won't listen to some rap music and get the wrong idea, but that also can happen with other types of music such as Heavy Metal.

From my experience I see that Hip Hop is huge in California and New York City, where was originated. East and West coast have introduced the most famous rappers from the past to today. Regularly new songs and artists are presented in the media, and there is plenty space for all the ex-amateurs. There is a big sphere for the talented ones. By listening to Hip Hop in the radios is realizable that there is a mixture of rhythmic sounds, since the technology these days has all kinds of devices, sometimes you can't differ a real voice from one created in studios or a instrument from a machine tool.

Society has always been able to move on and eventually accept different ways of expressing oneself, and hip-hop should be no different. Music has a very powerful influence on our emotions, moods, and behavior. If more artists concentrated on positive messages, since Hip-Hop is the main money maker in the music industry, the impact could be revolutionary. Regardless of how many rap artists land in jail or end up dead, this music will live on.

Sex Roles

The most common and traditional gender roles imply that men are supposed to be “masculine” and women are supposed to be “feminine.” Defined using dictionary.com, masculine means “having qualities traditionally ascribed to men, such as strength and boldness,” while feminine means “having qualities traditionally ascribed to women, such as sensitivity or gentleness.” The society regard that women accept what happens and allows what others do, without response or resistance, and that they require someone for financial, emotional, and other support, all of this by its nature. On the opposite side, men should have the courage to face extreme danger and difficulty, without retreating, and have the power to perform physically demanding tasks. Many social scientists are interested about studying these stereotypes. How do these gender differences occur? Is it because of the cultural influence or the biological condition? Do their hormonal differences influence their behaviors and attitudes? Does culture determine gender roles?

Men and Women have different chromosomes and the genetic structure is a decisive factor for the physical development of the human body. In earlier periods was understandable roles, man had to hunt and women were limited to the domestic sphere. Today with developed industries and suppose equality among any gender, this role should not be the reality .Gender roles are what men and woman learn as the way they are supposed to act.

Jerry Levy of the University of Chicago has found differences in the way male and female brain are arranged, in a systematic way, and he said that these differences in brain function are caused by the hormonal effect. As far as the theory that hormones or genes may control the personality traits or behaviors of each gender, so far, there has been absolutely no direct evidence that this is the case (Renzetti & Curran, 1989). Professor Steven Goldberg, Chairman of the Department of Sociology at City College of New York has written a book with the provocative title, Why Men Rule-A Theory of Male Dominance. He believes that the high level of testosterone in males drives them toward dominance in the world, while the lack of high levels of this hormone in women creates a natural, biological push in the direction of less dominant and more nurturing roles in society.

Women and men are settling into predetermined cultural molds when it comes to gender in American society. The notion that women are more emotional, and men more logical and mathematical, is mostly stereotype. Women just are more concerned than men about the quality of interpersonal relationships. Part of the masculine gender role is to be independent and assertive.

According to Hamilton McCubbin and Barbara Blum Dahl, the writers of the chapter “Sex Roles " , from the book marriage and family: Individuals and life Cycles (1985) "most differences between females and males are learned through family interactions, socialization in schools and the mass media." Men are more likely to be perceived as aggressive and competitive, women are more likely to be viewed as passive and cooperative. Traditionally, men have been viewed as financial providers, whereas women have been viewed as caretakers.

In the past decades, men were defined through their employment; women were identified with reproduction or domestic labor. In terms of gender roles, a functionalist would argue that in preindustrial societies, such as those which depended on hunting and gathering, men and women fulfilled different roles and took on different tasks because it was most useful or functional for society to do so.

Women and men communicate very differently. Communicative behaviors that are acceptable for gentlemen, for example, may be considered completely inappropriate for ladies. When women have to make a decision they will often process and look at options out loud while men tend to process internally until they come up with a solution. One of the most traditional hypothesis is the one John Gray wrote about in his book Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, which essentially points to differences in brain structure, hormones, and socialization as the cause of such an enormous gender gap in communication. The attitudes and differences for men and women towards communication are starting to increasingly get better through each decade. Much of this change can be explained by social changes.

Sport on television is ruled by men and this determines men in relation to rivalry and power. When we watch TV ads we see that women are always connected somehow with ads for soap or for food products that need cooking. The men tend to be focus in any ad involving something mechanical. The media influences children into traditional stereotypical roles, because of the prevalence of such images on TV, which offers a wide range of potential role-models, both positive and negative. According to Van Evra, Repetti (1984) found no relationship between the amount of viewing time, and the amount of gender stereotyping in children. What Repetti did find, however, was that the amount of viewing was found to be negatively associated with stereotyping.

Women have had equal rights in the United States for quite a few years now but most societies are not used to women being in roles that men traditionally hold. The impact of these prejudices reach into the lives of all women as they make decisions about what to aim for, what to study, how to support themselves and their families economically, and what they might contribute to their communities at the local, national, and global levels.

As soon as a baby enters the world, it receives messages about gender. Culture dictates, at a very young age, how boys and girls are supposed to act, feel and respond to certain situations, in the United States, for example, disposable diapers come adorned in pink for girls and blue for boys. Girls study faces while men are obsessed with sports.

A women's role has changed in a impressionably way and is creating its greatest impact in our society today. Years ago, women's contribution to society was limited and managed by men. Women’s impact is simply due to the fact that they are now educating themselves. They are now involved with the improvement of their own position. Women are fighting for their rights and are slowly progressing and participating in activities that they were not allowed before; they have achieved power and now have an appetite for it.

Women find maturity younger than men for physical and emotional reasons. They are more advanced in all social skills since childhood. Girls start to show interesting in boys while they still want to play with toys.

I am young and never experienced myself marriage and the problems that comes with it, but I hope in the future the duties of a father will vary greatly throughout the world. Is important for the father to share the household tasks, be ready to help, even though it's something women are usually better at, mom and dad should share household responsibilities.

Communication between the genders has become more prevalent in society, as norms have changed. When one adds the mobility of the American population and the differences among the cultures they represent, both the importance and difficulty of effective communication increases. Men prefer just the facts, women tell the whole story.

Since scientists would have to use a lot of evidence in order to establish the male/female differences, I find hard to get in a conclusion. Males and females play very different roles and these differences are apparent in our everyday lives. These differences are not the same as they used to be. Society has changed the way it treats men and women over time. The role process depends on the education people had and that can determine the "part in a play”, in this case, real world. Gender relations are a part of the socialization process, and parents should teach their children certain important values since their beginning in the social life. Our society has seen numerous changes in these roles.