Saturday, February 11, 2012

How much influence does hip-hop have on its listeners?


I know that hip-hop and rap lyrics can be inspiring and meaningful, however I feel like those types of songs are less frequently played. The songs that everyone ends up hearing are the songs about getting high, doing drugs, sex, violence, and misogynistic behavior.  The other songs with lyrics that critique different things about society get little to no airtime. This ends up helping to add to the negative image that some people have of rap and hip-hop music.  I feel like this needs to change. I feel like radio stations and other media should start playing more of the meaningful rap music in attempts to reach out to their listeners. After all can’t young children turn on a radio and listen to music? If inspiring lyrics were put on the air it could inspire the next generation. 

Examples of inspiring hip-hop songs: 


5 comments:

  1. Naomi, this is a really cool point to bring up. You are right- there are tons of influential rap songs with positive, encouraging messages. Yet, obviously with exceptions, the rap songs about sex and violence tend to be more popular. I'm curious as to what this says about human nature and the way our interests work.

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  2. Naomi. I'm totally with you on this topic. In particular, the song "Gold Watch" by Lupe Fiasco has some very subtle but powerful themes. One of the lines goes, "But my most coveted thing is my high self esteem/ and a low tolerance for them telling me how to lean/ see the most important parts are the ones that are unseen/ the wings don't make you fly and the crown don't make you king". If I lyrics with that kind of power growing up, I would have been a hip hop fan much earlier in my life. Radio needs to be revolutionized in order to inspire society and move away from misogyny, drugs, violence, and crime.

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  3. I agree with you 100% because most of the songs played on the radio are the ones with the least meaning. I have found that the most powerful and inspirational tracks are the obscure ones. Instead of playing the same 10-20 songs, radio stations should play more of a variety of songs in order to introduce their listeners to songs with meaning and inspiration.

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  4. This is a very valid point that you make, but today's society is about going against convention and breaking rules--everyone wants to be bad. In fact this isn't something unique to today; even the Beatles were not approved of by the older generation. We want to hear things that we know are bad to show that we aren't afraid and we aren't vulnerable.

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  5. This is EXACTLY what I'm writing my, end of the year 10th grade, research paper on I completely agree with this. :)

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