What's So Bad About Hip Hop?

In the essay from the book Writing Arguments entitled "A Woman's View of Hip Hop" the author, Tiffany Anderson, starts off by posing the question "Is there anything good about hip hop?". Anderson states, "I found the aggressive, ego-driven, star-powered, competitive male image of hip hop devoid of value, especially the beat and the strong language." Today, hip hop is constantly criticized for its "vulgarity" and "lack of substance". Many argue that all hip hop has to offer are rhymes about sex, money, cars, and drugs on top of basic, uniform cadences. These slanders against hip hop are used to defend the claim that hip hop is not music. Before we can decide whether it is or is not music, we must first define what "music" is.


By definition, music is an art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, and color. Does hip hop incorporate the stated elements? The answer is yes. Since the creation of the genre, hip hop has served as an artistic depiction of the everyday lives of America's working class. Songs like Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five's "The Message" displays the struggle of all people, not just African Americans, living from paycheck to paycheck. The chorus states, "It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder how I keep from going under." Here is an example of hip hop portraying emotions.

Hip hop also expresses ideas, for example, the song "Self Destruction" provokes the idea to start a revolution of the mind, stop violence, and embrace all people. This song warns the generation that the things that were happening in the community were contributing to destruction of their people.

Another example is Tupac Shakur's "Keep Ya Head Up", a song glorifying the strength of women encouraging that men evaluate and change the way they treat them. 

 

Many argue that hip hop music is solely about the gangster lifestyle. These opponents obviously have not listened to works by rapper, Lupe Fiasco such as "Kick, Push", a song about a skater who does not fit in with society; or "Day Dreaming", a song about a boy taken with a female. There is also rapper Eminem who has songs that tell stories like "Stan" and "Loose Yourself". There are also hip hop songs about love like Wyclef Jean's "911".

Lupe Fiasco

Eminem

Hip Hop is music because it presents variation of songs expressing diverse emotions and ideas. It is a form of music that many can relate to no matter what race or walk of life. 


Works Cited:

Anderson, Tiffany. "A Woman's View of Hip Hop". Writing Arguments. A Rhetoric with Readings 8th Edition. Longman. 2009.
 

Bgjoker. 2Pac –Keep Ya Head Up. Youtube. 2006.
 

Darquekyss. Self Destruction. Youtube. 2007.

Shubhammaurya12. Grandmaster Flash: The Message. Youtube. 2010.