Is Hip Hop a Cause or a Message

This week, we focused on hip-hop and the connotations that come with it as well as the messages behind some of its premiere artists over the years. This topic was one of great interest to me. As a long time fan of hip-hop and focusing on lyrics within the music, I have a deep appreciation for the art and the power that it has with much of the African American culture. One of the activities we did in class this week was watch a Ted Talk featuring somewhat unconventional gospel hip-hop artist, Lecrae. In this talk, Lecrae discusses the history of the art form and the perceptions of it throughout the years. He explains that to many people, hip-hop has a negative connotation of being villainous music that has a bad influence on the younger, impressionable generations by glorifying things such as drugs, violence and misogyny. Although some music can fit this creteria, Lecrae noted that the genre wasn’t always this way and in fact, the early years of the genre were aimed are relating a message to the public that was heavily anti-drug as well as anti-violence and was used as a way to inform people of the issues faced in most urban areas around the country. The culture of the music changed with the times, but many artists today still use their platform to do similar things. Artists such as J Cole, Kendrick Lamar, Childish Gambino and Joey Bada$$ among others use their talent to create informative, quality art that explains the issues the African American culture faces regularly, something that past artists such as 2 Pac, Nas, Method Man and others were able to accomplish. The aforementioned artists are polarizing icons in the industry because of their ability to have great storytelling and lyrics in their music, a rarity in the grand scheme of things. And having artists like these prove that the nature of hip-hop hasn’t always been nor is currently aimed at positioning the youth or spreading venomous messages as some may believe. Hip-hop is about telling a story the way the artists best see fit, and it makes for a beautifully complex work of art that isn’t for everyone, but is surely for me.