Link:http://bpe.org/btr/index.html


Greetings:

To understand the impact of Hip Hop today one must understand its history which is barely 37 years old.
Most of us know and can appreciate the entertainment aspect of it which is fine, but I am going to hopefully shed some light on the social aspect.

Therefore let’s pick up from the end of the 60s beginning of 70s weakning of the civil rights era and the climaxing of many black grass roots organizations such as the Black Panthers. However these proud organizations isolated themselves from empathetic white in regards to the black struggle in big cities and the infiltration of by local police, FBI and CIA led to their quick demise.
Clearly what happen is that it left a huge void in the communities, because many of their brightest, most charismatic and leaders were jailed, killed or exiled. However, their community consciousness remained in what many within Hip Hop refer to as The Struggle. With that in mind the void left began to be filled by the Street Hustlers which was mostly dealing with the underworld hustle mostly gambling and prostitution.

Hip Hop grew out of this environment inner city, poverty, struggles, hustling, competing etc, etc. Like Tupac said if a rose grows out of concrete you are not going to critisize it having scratches, instead you would probably marvel at it for actual growing out of cracks of concrete.

I digress, Rapping is actually the last pillar of Hip Hop to gain fame commercially (Graffiti, Djing, Breaking). It goes something like this:

In the 70s Hip Hop was mostly about entertaining like a show picking up where Disco left, but with the emergence of the MC raping in the 80s was conscious about commentating about the Struggle. The topics were about addressing community issues, emergence of crack etc. Towards the 90s with the increase drug epidemic in the inner city the gangster element began to be expressed in music. However, now rappers are now acting like gangsters or hustlers. This is as if the actor has convinced himself that he is the actual character he is portraying.
The point that I’m making is that rappers are entertainers by in large who brings to life through music the messages of those in the struggle mostly incarcerated from the movement, the hustlers and gangsters.
When this distinction or separation is shown there is no problem but once this distinction is blurred then violence or problem arouses.

In conclusion, arguably the biggest gangster actors ever would probably be Al Pacino and Bobby Deniro however they never claim to be gangster or are depicted as one, instead they are considered great actors. However, today in Hip Hop some of the entertainers conscious and unconsciously blur the line. The result is that most of the younger consumers fail to understand this point.


Link:http://jassstewart.com/index.htm

Thank you Kiko for this post, very ilucidative!

This topic is interesting and of great importance to help the understanding of values. To me the values portrayed through the rap culture are, without a doubt, negative. I see people trying to make it OK swearing, cursing, degrading their human equals to EXPRESS? Obviouslly, the consequences are that the easily influenced - the youth - without the power to critically discern between the messages, to follow a path that will only hurt themselves.

This has been defended by some as being part of the Black culture / black philosophy / struggle but this has nothing to do with Black, but bad Black. The worst is that because it is violence in action, which sells very well in America, it is comercialized by the media who sees nothing but money, which will turn these THUGS into milionaires and become a role model under the premises:

"EVERYBODY WHO HAS MONEY IS COOL"

It can't be right for a RAP STAR to be caught by Police several times with charges of drug dealing, substance use, guns, etc.

Cabrala

usa hip hop is dead; now french hip hop is taking the power

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Santo Antao,

Why do you always want to fight? Is it something in you or you are not in peace with yourself, sir?

I can recognize your need to fight. I am in the area of psychology!

It is not about fight. It is about PEACE!

We can help!

Cabrala

listen to this one, too hardcore

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cabrala,

really? can you help? How? Do you know who I am?

Whoever you may be, one thing is clear about you:
you're an angry and conflicting lunatic in need of serious therapy.

cv2k,

I proved what I had to prove, my goal is to go from the bottom to the top...

What is the bottom? What is the top?

anyway listen to this underground french rap, you can learn a lot from it

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Santo Antao, if you tell me few things about you (like your age) I should be able to help.

I took some time to go over the video that you sent for us to check on and I said:

"bingo". That's what I am talking about!

Guns, bad languages, masks, bad attitudes in gestures, thug attitudes, etc, etc.

There is no better with this picture. There is all things that you don't want your kids to watch. According to humanistic and social learning theory, It makes children see it as Ok to swear, to kill, to put others down, etc. You can argue its art, its a social revolution, but certainly not educational one. That's not the kind of social change Martin Luther King advocated for. We are talking values portrayed by rap music in general, and for what I can see from this excerpt, they all have the same standard and tone!

Cabrala

cabrala,

I am almost 30 years old.

Concerning these rap videos, I see them more like a report about a realistic situation rather than a bad example for kids. The kids will not follow the example of the video because their environment is different. If they live in a ghetto, they don't need to watch these kind of videos to be influence.

What do you show to your kids? when I was a kid, I was rather watching this

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Young Kids imitate. They follow model. they don't have yet the critical thinking to discern between good/ ok/ and bad; legal / ilegal; violent /non-
violent.

This is a report of violence in the reporters are the actors themselves, holding guns and negative languages attitudes. Is this how you prefer to be reported of the ghettos?

Children seek for things to identify with, especially if they are teenagers when they are in so much need to have a role model. Media have power to mobilize mass thinking, and that is why Companies pay so high for advertisements. With these videos coming so often on the screen and your children watching them, their reasoning wil be the following:

If nobody is worried whether this is wrong, then it must be right because they are showing it to us on tv. Besides, it is cool.

Then, don't be surprised when your son begin to swear at you and think he is expressing himself, shoot other kids because he is angry and frustrated, and so on. Actually, that is what is happeneing, even in schools.

To my kids, I will show them things that will add to their knowledge of the world they are living in, to interpret it accordingly, but at the amount and complexity their psych can attain and digest. If they are frustrated they should take the right steps and proper way to resolve and voice themselves.

Thanks,

Cabrala

cabrala,

hopefully in europe we cannot by a gun in a supermarket. Gun crimes are very limited.

I understand what you mean by your willing to control what your kids can watch. But at the same time from what I have observed, there is a parte of innate in the behaviour of a kid, and that the ones that could be criminals start to act brutally from their very young age, no matter what you show or tell them.

There is also a second factor that is social discrimination, if a group of person is ostracised, then the smartest between them will organise themselves into a gang in order to bring money for their families to survive, that was what the two french rap clips were about...

In my opinion, whoever is a critic in this topic need to make a reality check when distinctions are being made.

I do not believe Hip Hop and rap create violence.
Hip Hop could be argued as a culture and rap is a genre of music. Folks it’s entertainment and entertainment is about making $$$$$.
Violence and crimes in this country existed way before rap came about and it will continue to be here after rap fades away.
However, due to the economic effect these entertainer have a great influence in our society and some of them set trends.
With this said I do empathize with some of these criticisms of commercial rap music of today in which I believe is becoming intellectually bankrupted with each year that passes.
Even, these rap acts are becoming more and more cartoonished which is comical.

If U want to address violence in the inner city, start at the home with parents’ responsibilities, the evil cycle of lack of family structure.
Then look at the community itself, the neighborly relationships, look at poverty, and the deteriorating public education.
We should ask where are these guns & drugs coming from and who is bringing them. Why are there so many liquor stores and fast food restaurants in the poorer neighborhoods?

In the beginning Hip Hop and specifically rap music was the biggest critics of these issues, and through commercialization it has become mute on these issues for the most part. Adding, insult to injury at times it even advocates these very things, nevertheless one must not deceive the fact that it is entertainment.

However, poverty is one of the biggest issues and until we find a fairer way to act as a society these issues will continue to fester.

From my point of view if anyone wants to realistically address this issue honestly, he/she must be allowed to ask the right questions. Otherwise we will never work for the right solution.

cv2k,

are you sure that you understood your lesson?

What you wrote above is true but you misunderstood it. Social environment is a very important factor for the devloppement of violent behaviour, but were you misunderstood the theory, is that social environment is an amplifier of the innate tendancies for violence. The theory you cited applies to a group of people who have innate tendencies for crimes.

PS: I will confuse you if I talk about a "gaussian distribution" curve representing the tendencies for human being in respect to violence...are you aware of this gaussian distribution?

With all due respect Kiko, but I believe many rap lyrics, does have to do with violence.

Look violence doesn't start in the street. They surely start inside the homes, and in that you're right. It also has to do with poverty and neighborhoods have certainly some to do with it. If you forgive me the language ( fucking lady, I will shoot you, sounds of guns in the form of music, I will kill, shooting is fun) has to do with violence.

Researches have demonstrated that the innate tendency of people with characteristics to become more violent than the other is just a dormant aspect of human nature and that can only develop if found and triggered by certain environment - meaning it will need to be shaped, just like intelligence.

Yes, no single factor is the sole responsible for a social phenomenon but it may add or subtract to the factors to one or other direction. In the case of bad rap, violence is expressed trough the words, gestures, and attitudes while what you would call violence is expressed in the form of aggression in the streets, at social encounters, at work, or at home.

I think this kind of entertainment that kiko refers to is an abuse on a stressed community that is prone to revolt against social unjustice in anyway. I advocate for a law should to be established to press against this kind of social exploitation. The same kind of exploitation that you would find in drug smugling, prostitution, child pornography, violent cartoons, or other form of social exploitation. Do you see any connection between these kinds of things and rap?

Kiko, you are a fan of Chomsky and you know what he thinks about the media role and the capitalist system. Make the connections and you'll see. Many studies have been done to show that watching violent beahvior on tv makes people become more violent. There has been studies that showed that men watching pornographic movies become less respectful to women. Social learning thory explains how these operates. Violence does not have to be physical( It can be verbal, emotional or psychological) In the case of rap on the screen is just a form of addicting communities in distress to a form of life which will lead them to drop out of school to swing from one side to the other when walking, put their pants down with the clear meaning - I can't work like this, hardly make it through college, and never have a decent job or been accepted to a decison-making position. This very community is the greatest consumer of rap. it just became a vicious cicle. Anger needs not to be exercised because you'll become addicted to it. Psychological researches have proven that too.

Is it all about making $$$? Yes it is. To the benfit of whom? Tell me.

Because the willingness to the freedom of speech for the sake of freedom is so in need in America, it is not clear the boundary line between freedom of speech and verbal attack/abuse. In the present case, rap, the verbal abuse are the negative languages that your son or daughter or even older people adopt as their regular form of expression and life, which is just wrong.
Do deep religious African-American sing or support rap too?

As you said, they are gone banckrupt. That is true. They never were different than that. It, probably, is more and more clearly becoming evident that additction to this form of life is yielding negative results for their own consumers. A psychologist who has done a research on rappers, whom I do not recall the name, even defend that rap itself is a form of addiction. Yet, violence continues to be part of human nature and more evident with revolted communities, but don't feed these egos with a dosage of addicting anger-prone form of expression.

Cabrala

cabrala,

did you try to fly after you watched superman-returns, did you go to a boat and sreamed I am the king of the world after you watched titanic?

So you can understand that you took the shortest way by concluding that the raps will have a bad influence on kids. The majority of the kids who listen to rap will not try to emulate rappers, they will listen to rap just as an entertainment. The very few who will go into thug culture don't need to be influence by rap they would already be commiting crimes by 14 year old...

I beleive there is an innate tendency in some people for crimes, just has much ronaldinho or zidane have an innate skill for playing football. You can try all your life to be as good footballer as ronaldinho, you will never manage to reach is level, because it is innate for him. In term of crime and violence, it is the same some people have innate tendencies for crimes and the rap will just be an amplifier for those tendencies.

Just this one!

Have you heard that on the same week that the hanging of Sadam Hussein took place in Irak, several kids hung themselves out in US?

We don't need theories when we have facts.

Cabrala

yes,

but it is impossible to avoid having people doing such things. I really don't understand you cabrala. There was maybe 10 kids out of a population of 300million who did what they saw on TV, how can you reach a conclusion from that? This fits the gaussian distribution curve of human behaviour and we can't go against it.
If I dig a little bit in your last message, I could understand that you want to stop the TV showing something, just because 0.01% of the population will want to do the same...this goes very close to the fascism idea of control of information and thus is unapplicable.

Are you aware that your last message was close to "fascism theories" of control of information...

Man,

We have the right and obligation to protect our kids. I wouldn't care if you are watching pornographic movies, doing orgy or anything of the kind, but would care if it is a child or my child. So do not compare what I advocate with control of information in the media. It has nothing to do with it. It has to do with exposure. For the same reason that you wouldn't give your child alcohol, guns, car to drive etc.

Would you expect to see 10% of American children to die before you can conclude that the statistic of media negative influence on children is significant and do something? came on!!! Google Bandura (By the way one of the best psychologist in America) or Noam Chomsky ( a linguist and media expert) and you will have an insight on about social learning studies, role modeling, how children learn through modeleing and his theory is applied in so many social espheres.

Do not confuse science with your own insight on how society operates. You insight is no better than anyone else but social science is peer- reviewed, meaning, it has been tested and re-tested its validity before it became accepted as a theory.

So, media negative influence is affecting society big time. The biggest victims are the poor people who have less positive influences to balance the negative ones, like home environment, education, positive self-perception and the kind, therefore, in the case of rap,(I should say negative ones because not all of them are negative) the victims are the rappers themselves and their followers (children). This is not dealt with as a political debate only because there is money involved.

I am a genuine born-raised proud capeverdean who have an insight into the merican culture. Your view that people are born with innate tendency to be bad and will be bad anyway has been disproved by so many studies long ago. So you need to catch up on your readings or we should stop believing in sciences, and follow you.

Cabrala

I am very serious cabrala,

your explanation on why we should protect our kids, his very similar to the fascist control of information, the goal of the facist is to do a perfect society in which the deviant behaviour are forbidden, this is made by the total control of information and also by censuring.

A fascist idea would be to stop to sell alcohol in the supermarkets because we think that some kids will manage to buy it.

Concerning the innate abilities and tendencies, you can acknowledge that it is only 0.1% of the kids who listen to rap/hip-hop that become thugs, the vast majority of the population under the same lifestyle, don't become thugs or don't have the abilities to become a thug

another clip

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kiko are u dropping another cd anytime soon...u dropped some serious stuff last time u recorded.

I find the discussion on the influence of hip-hop and the more general question what we as parents and the society should do or not do to protect our children quite interesting.

This is my view on the matter:

1) Of course children (and, to a lesser extent, adults) may be influenced by external factors which trigger violent behavior that would not otherwise occur. Different individuals might be biologically differently predisposed to use violence (e.g. through varying levels of testosterone production), but to say that people will become a certain way (e.g. violent) regardless external influence is not only cynical, but also quite absurd. It would be like saying that child soldiers would kill innocent people ruthlessly regardless how they are brought up. (Or, to state it differently, using the example from above, there are many many Ronaldinhos out there who never make it to spotlights. And likewise there are many kids who will become violent, drug addicts or suicidal unless parents and society steps in.)

2) We have an obligation, as parents and citizens, to try to minimize such influence that we consider harmful to children. (Perhaps we could at least all agree on THAT).

3) It is sometimes difficult to find the balance between what should be left to parents to decide (whether hip-hop is appropriate or not for instance) and where society needs to step in (e.g. banning guns and drugs). Some of these issues therefore need careful consideration.

4) Special attention should be given to those children who don't have parents or whose parents are unwilling or unable to take responsibility. This has to be a key responsibility for society.

5) If you could save just ONE kid’s life by banning hip hop (or other music – or why not TV shows, books, video games…) with a violent message, I'd say DO IT. The problem is that it would be almost impossible to prove that a specific kind of music (or any other form of media such as a violent video game) triggers a certain behavior, or causes someone’s suffering or suicide. One must be very cautious before taking action on censoring media, since it might backfire (e.g. through infringing on the freedom of speech).

Finally, on “freedom”: The freedom of my neighbor to use his lawnmower on a Friday evening infringes on my freedom to have a nice quiet evening on my terrace. The freedom of a company to pollute at will infringes with other peoples freedom to live in a clean environment. The freedom to drink and drive infringes the freedom of those who might be killed or injured due to drunk-driving.

Consequentially I consider certain freedom restrictions for the majority justified IF they are relatively minor, and if these restrictions can be proven to have large benefits for a certain group of people (such as children, or people who more easily become addicts that others).

So yes, I support what someone called a “fascist idea” of banning sales of alcohol in shops (selling them in a controlled environment in special stores instead) and making alcohol expensive through high taxes. It is a good example of a small sacrifice for the majority (in which I include myself) who are lucky enough to be able to handle alcohol without becoming addicts, to the benefit for those who are biologically predisposed not to, as well as minors. In fact, such policies are carried out in Sweden, and it saves many lives and stops numerous kids from becoming alcoholics. Every day. Likewise, Sweden has a law that prohibits TV commercials interrupting children’s programs. This too is very sensible, since it protects children from undue influences from which they cannot handle or avoid.

And, by the way, Sweden is not a fascist country.

uffe,

1) you can put a gun in the arms of some children and they will never use it...just because they don't agree with doing such things. Others will be very please to have a gun and figth in one army and I believe that these ones are over represented in armies which have kids in between them.
Concerning the footbal, there is very few ronaldinhos or zidane outside, there might be some 10 guys with such skills every generations and I agree with you that only that maybe three of them will reach the global stage (well the 7 others live in india and china or the usa and footbal is not popular there).

2) We have the obligation as parents to minimize what can hurt children. The law is there for that purpose, there is parental guidance for violent movies, violent rap, age limit for alcohol or driving licence. Children are not allowed to travel unaccompanied, have to go to school untill they reach 16...
there is a limit in the regulations and we cannot forbid everything, there comes what is called responsability. Our responsability as adults is to make sure that children don't listen to strong-language hip-hop untill they reach the age of 15, that they don't watch porn movies before 18, they don't drink alcohol.
A lot of children (the majority) will not even be a slightly attracted by hip-hop strong language, or porn movies, or alcohol too early. there will be a small minority that will want to do all this at the same time, and we are focusing on them as if they were the majority...

3) the balance is made between the law, the responsability of adults, and the authority of the parents on their kids. And I believe that the majority of the kids obey the rules, only a minority don't.

4) On that matter there is a lot of capeverdean born kids who are orphans or don't have familly and would be pleased to be adopt by a scandinavian familly, or more globally by too good parents...

5) I don't aggree with your last idea because it is the first step of fascism. In this idea there is the willing to control everything, and to make the society a perfect society by forbidding the freedom of the citizens. That is why we can't accept that...

So you can understand that for me the most important part of freedom comes from the law, but gives initiative to individuals to decide on whether they will do the things right or not, this is called responsability.

Greeting:

Kriason1 thanks for the acknowledgement and Mr. Uffe thank you for your thoughts on the matter as you made some valid points.
It is true that our environment has a significant impact on one’s personality and the adult the child is to grow in to. I personally advocate on the side of nurturing and merit, nevertheless, I disagree with the thought of protectionism or in general strong conservative view point imposed on the mass or population.

With that in mind I believe that many of the conservative view points are great and full of virtues, however it is the imposing or implementation of these view points that I am in conflict with.

Children should be protected only to the point where as a group they are in real danger, instead they should be prepared or trained to make good conscious decisions as early as possible. Parents should know the reality of our societies in which we are bringing our children into and we should be prepared to gain our children’s trust as early as possible instead of using scapegoat and censorship on most of the adult contents many children are exposed to today.

The problem at its core is that parenting now days is becoming more complex and time consuming due to the types and quantity of external influences faced in our society.
With this in mind, many parents with difficulties coping with one child are bearing two, three or more. The economic or financial aspect of bearing children most times is not even contemplated and at its core it leads to a failure of family planning at least from a financial point of view.

Freedom is not free, in fact there is an expensive price for freedom and the governing body of any rational society should fairly apply this price tag. One way is to discourage through taxation instead of censorship.

In closing, getting back to the topic of Hip Hop as urban culture or rap as a genre of music. They are in-fact art forms which is a form of human expression. If one doesn’t like it don’t buy it, don’t listen to it and certainly don’t experience it, however don’t impose your subjective feelings on those who do.

Live & Let Live

I have been looking in dailymotion to the kind of things I was watching when I was a kid, here are my favorites ones at that time (no rap or hip hop )...

the mythical three musqueteers

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and booba

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and maya

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and ulyse31

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and robotech

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From my own experience, I know that hip-hop doesn't reach kids, kids are more interested in funny colored animations...

rien a voir avec le reste,

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