Rap And Violence Essay Example For Students

Rap And Violence Essay Since the late 1980s rap music has been called the Anti Christin our culture, because of its so-called influence in peoples life. Peopleswear up and down that the music is why people, specially the youth resort toviolent crimes. I think by saying this they are trying to cover up the realtruth by giving simple answers. Rap is defined as a style of popular musicconsisting of improvised rhymes performed to a rhythmic accompaniment. The firstrap song was made in the late 70s, the songs were seven to eight minutes longand was mostly used in small clubs to dance to. It didnt really become popularuntil the early 80s. Over the years it has become mainstream music, everyone islistening to it. In the last four years rap made up 60% of music bought instores in the United States. In 1989 a local group called N.W.A.(Niggaz WitAttitudes) came from out of L.A. and changed rap, which was the start of GangstaRap. In their lyrics they talked about crime, street violence and killing. Oncethey were a hu ge hit, it caught on, and really thats when all this madnessstarted. Everyone started rapping Gangsta style. More and more people startedrapping about police brutality and killing people and with that crime rose tohigh levels. In my opinion its not the artists or the record companys faultthat crime rose. Its not their responsibility to look after every person wholistens to their music. In all these years of rap though there are three peoplewho took the most criticism from the public. Dr. Dre was one, after N.W.A. brokeup he went on to do his own thing, and after he released The Chroniche became a star. He took rap to a higher level where it never been before and Ithink that scared a lot of people. He was rapping about drive bys, having sexwith hundreds of women, drinking alcohol all day and so on. By this time thecrime rate was sky high and a lot of people where looking for easy answers. Itwas mostly those few who just didnt like rap from the start that spoke out andtried to ban it. Most rappers loved the style Dr. Dre created, and so they triedto take the style and create something of their own. Along with Dr. Dre hehelped a rising star Snoop Doggy Dog to become a big star by guest staring onhis The Chronic album. Snoop released Doggy Style and itwas a hit. His style similar to Dr. Dre made it a hit. It was his best-sellingalbum to date. Congress tried every way they could to keep youth from listeningto this music because they felt it was making them commit crimes. Snoop wascharged not to long after his release for murder which he soon was found notguilty. They made a label for CDs and tapes that said Parental AdvisoryExplicit Lyrics which actually in my opinion didnt do too much. This wayparents could be aware of the type of music their kids listen to and couldchoose if they would like to allow them to listen to it. If you sit down andthink about it, when you buy a CD you by it because you want to listen to it,you dont really pay attention to that little lab el. Besides you see little kidsno older then 11 walking around listening to Lil Kim, Tupac, and all other rapartists cussing up a storm . . . whats with that? Why didnt the parents sayanything about that, they have control over their children, yet critics andcongress blame the rappers. The third man to take the most heat and who stillcontinues to is Tupac Shakur. They say he was the best rapper alive and the mostsuccessful which I also believe is true. He has been in trouble with the law andpublic since his first album to even now after his death. He was arrested fornumerous charges such as battery, attempted murder, and rape. In 1994 two17-year-olds shot some police officers and said they did because they heard itin Tupacs music. Critics blamed him from the start with his to raunchy lyrics. surgery EssayBibliographyOpposing Viewpoints: Culture Wars p. 143-154 Opposing Viewpoints: Censorshipp. 33-35 The Web Courier: Rap ; Hip Hop Comment: http://www.cs.fsu.edu:/80/projects/sp95sug/group1.4/russ.htmlCensorship of Music by Politicians: http://sac.uky.edu/~ywkho0/politics.html