Overall, has Rap music had a positive influence on society?

[Kozmik]

Ashanti is the only female to have 3 singles in the Billboard Top 10. 50 Cent recently placed 4 singles in the Billboard Top 10. The last artist to have 4 singles on the chart was Elvis.

Remember that rap music is part of hip hop. It’s such a broad a topic so let me talk about the music. The music is about alot of things. But you can’t just read rap lyrics as if it’s poetry and that goes for generally all music. There is a reason it’s sung. Spoke word is poetry that is similar to rap without music but it is not rap and it is not music. People will listen for the message in spoken word but no one will be listening to every word in a song with rap in it.

50 Cent spoke about rap as being about the candence which is the “flow of verses”. What do you feel when you are listening to rap music? That is it’s social impact. It’s hard to deconstruct a feeling but it’s like this: your at a party with your friends, you are all cool, everything is easy going, no worries, don’t worry about nothing, you know who you are, you know what it’s about. I don’t know if I can explain it.

How can you describe a feeling? Two people can listen to the same songs and have completely different emotional reactions. But hip hop is more than a few songs. So the music is about feeling. There are feel good songs that are in the background when you are laughing with your friends. And there are those songs that make you want to dance.

What do you feel when you listen to the music? If you can answer that question, you might be able to find the answer to all this.

[Larry_Borgia]

@Thudlow Boink

Do you have any evidence or argument to back up your assertion that pop culture has virtually no influence on society? I find it kind of hard to believe.

Evidence, no. What sort of evidence could there be? What units would we measure influence in and what sort of experiments or observations could we do to investigate the influence of a given aspect of popular culture against a host of other influences?

As for arguments, well, popular culture has rarely been the noblest face a given society presents to the world. But crime, violence, and insolent youth have been complained about since the earliest civilizations. Human nature seems to be constant, and I doubt a musical genre is going to have much affect on it.

@brickbacon

But wouldn’t the fact that politicians feel the need to address the popularity of rap music mean that it has a measurable influence? Of course they may use it was a scapegoat or red herring, but the fact that it can be used in that way means it is on a few people’s radar.

Well, yeah, in that sense. But again, Politicians have been complaining about the more unsavory aspects of pop culture since the dawn of civilization. If they weren’t complaining about rap, they’d be complaining about something else. God forbid they should actually work on any real issues.

If wealthy kids are mimicking what they hear on rap albums, shouldn’t that be considered another thing rap music has influenced?

Again, sure. Rap has influenced fashion, slang etc. It is a taste, and if someone buys a rap CD, they’re not going to buy a different CD. These things come and go. I thought you meant influence on a larger scale, changing people’s fundamental attitudes or something.

Teenage boys are always looking for something to project a dangerous image. Today, rap provides that. If rap didn’t something else would.

[Scott_Plaid]

You know, I think I feel like siding with Larry Borgia on this. So what if many rap stars today have an outlaw image about them… Hell, a whole mysogonisitic attitude too. As I recall, Jerry Lee Lewis had a persona called “The Killer”, (Didn’t he have some sort of elegant dracula outfit to go with it?) and did that change society one whit? I would argue it did not, and he was simply picking up on old tales of Bluebeard, tales which would have spread without him, and are part of human nature.

[brickbacon]

@Larry Borgia

Again, sure. Rap has influenced fashion, slang etc. It is a taste, and if someone buys a rap CD, they’re not going to buy a different CD. These things come and go. I thought you meant influence on a larger scale, changing people’s fundamental attitudes or something.

I do, but often fundamental changes are an accumulation of small changes like the ones you mentioned.

[Askia]

This is coming from a die-hard hip-hop fan: a lot of rap is characteristically and flagrantly obnoxious, aggressive, misogynistic, violent, obscene, narcisstic, overly materialistic and often self-hating. It’s become much more extreme since the late 1980s and made this kind of behavior the norm – not just in the performers but in the fans.

Even more misogynistic, racist and violent than the music is rap video iconography: forget the lyrics and look at the images. Depersonalized shots of black women as exotic whore/bitch/babymama/freaks and black man-boys as updated versions of Bogle’s stereotypical bucks, brutes, coons, toms and tragic mulattoes. Forgetting society at large for a moment – its definitely a pathological cancer on African-American culture, period. Biggie and Tupca might have been lyrical geniuses but its kind of troubling that a severely obese drug-abusing performer and a workaholic rapper with an indiscrimate post-mortem discography are held up as culture heroes.

Back when legitimate gangbangers went from actually being in drive-bys and dealing drugs to just singing about drive-bys and dealing drugs, I thought rap was a good, cathartic thing. As a genre rap can be innovative, even evocative – but you have to know I mean the Old School. But when gangsta rap and bling-bling became the mainstream, the commercial pap since the early 1990s that has slowly morphed into something I don’t listen to much anymore.

Thank God for Timbaland, The Neptunes and Dre.

[Thudlow_Boink]

@Larry Borgia

What sort of evidence could there be? What units would we measure influence in and what sort of experiments or observations could we do to investigate the influence of a given aspect of popular culture against a host of other influences?

Maybe somebody in the advertising business could tell us? WIth all the vast amounts of time, money, and effort spent trying to influence people through advertising, surely they have some way, however limited, of getting some idea how successful their attempts to influence people actually are.

Anyway, if a 30-second TV or radio spot can influence people enough to be worth the big bucks spent to produce and air it, surely it’s not that hard to believe that a 5-minute rap song could have some influence over the people who listen to it.

[Larry_Borgia]

@Thudlow Boink

Maybe somebody in the advertising business could tell us? WIth all the vast amounts of time, money, and effort spent trying to influence people through advertising, surely they have some way, however limited, of getting some idea how successful their attempts to influence people actually are.

Anyway, if a 30-second TV or radio spot can influence people enough to be worth the big bucks spent to produce and air it, surely it’s not that hard to believe that a 5-minute rap song could have some influence over the people who listen to it.

With advertising you do have a measurable quantity, the sales of the product being advertised. If Duff beer’s sales spike after the introduction of a new mascot, the advertisers can assume they have a successful campaign.

But even here, people have been drinking alchohol since time immemorial. Advertising may influence people to buy one brand over another, but the factors which cause people to drink in the first place apppear pretty complex, but also seem to be pretty constant.

Rap music certainly influences people to buy Rap music and it influences teens to dress and act in a certain fashion. I don’t see that it or any other genre of pop music has had any influence over the deep structure of the behavior of American youth.

There are several factors giving rise to the pop music phenomenon. First there is the invention of adolesence, about which a lengthy social history could no doubt be written. Then there is the development of technology, which allows for music to be portable and mass produced and allows for market saturation. But all these are greater influences on pop culture. To speak of pop culture influencing society is to speak of the tail wagging the dog. Also, this is speaking of pop culture in general, not about ephemeral trends. A hundred years from now our pop music will be known only to a few cultural historians. Human nature will still be the same.

I’m a bit hesitant to respond to Askia’s point because I don’t really know alot about rap. But it seems to me that within any genre an artist can only be responsible for their own voice. A good rap artist can’t be degraded by a bad one, nor can a bad rap artist be uplifted by a good one. Also, as I look at my Slayer CD’s, it occurs to me that Rap doesn’t have a monopoly on disturbing imagery or vulgarity or stupidity.

[Hippy_Hollow]

The question, in of itself, is quite interesting: brickbacon, are you asking the same question of other forms of popular music? It often strikes me that rap, as a subset of hip hop, is held to a higher standard and stricter scrutiny than heavy metal, country, etc.

Like Askia, I will self-identify as a fan of hip hop, particularly what is termed “old school” that emerged in the late 1980s - early 1990s. I don’t listen to a lot of hip hop now. As others have noted, the music industry is precisely that; an industry. Innovation is rarely where where A&R invest - they’d rather churn out five artists that fit a proven market niche and will make them money than someone who is innovative and different. There’s (commercial) risk involved there. Hence the proclivity to promote artists that fit a certain image or genre (think 50 Cent or The Game) and neglect those who are different (the Jurassic 5 example was a good one).

America has always been fascinated with the lived experience of Black folk - from the popularity of the Fisk Jubilee Singers in the 19th century - and typically, these authentic forms of music have been exploited and reduced to the most essentialist, caricatured versions (think Al Jolson). We saw this with the blues, rhythm and blues, and jazz, to name a few genres. Sexuality, drug use, and violence were reflected - along with love, uplift, and messages of peace - in all these genres. In the case of jazz, for instance, the most popular music of the day became vilified because of the “immoral” behavior of artists (think John Coltrane and his publicized drug use). But in any urban center in America, you’ll find jazz musicians playing music with a variety of themes. Similarly, hip hop is alive all over the country - you can see people of all races and ages in ciphers, relating themes that can be construed as “positive” or “negative.” Just because the money is being made highlighting misogyny and ghetto stereotypes does not mean that this is what constitutes hip hop in its entirety.

Unfortunately, to experience the diversity of hip hop (and its brilliance) you have to listen to underground stations and seek it out. Clear Channel-dominated radio and MTV only present a segment of what hip hop is. When I interact with young people and they play tapes of local underground artists, I typically hear reflections of their lived experience - and more recently laments about the crass commercialism in hip hop today.

One of most often quoted statements on hip hop comes courtesy of Chuck D - rap music is “Black America’s CNN.” I think you might extend this to any of the forms of music and culture created by Black Americans - from blues to hip hop. Like CNN, though, it’s more interesting to focus attention on showbiz trials and runaway brides than it is to delve into the more serious issues of the day. Like the news, if one wants a complete perspective on hip hop, it’s best to balance alternative sources with the mainstream…

[rjung]

@Hippy Hollow

It often strikes me that rap, as a subset of hip hop, is held to a higher standard and stricter scrutiny than heavy metal, country, etc.

That might just be due to rap being the latest high-profile genre of music out there – rock 'n roll went through similar scrutiny/accusations when it first hit the scene, for instance. I suspect that if electronica were to get more mainstream exposure, it’d take some of the flak away from rap as well.

But then, that seems to be a recurring pattern with most new art forms, that once they get into the mainstream, they’ll get thrown under the microscope and nitpicked to death. Video games, reality television, anime and manga[sup]*[/sup], abstract art… heck, I’m sure you can still find folks who think Seduction of the Innocent has relevance today.

[sup]*[/sup]speaking from a Western perspective here, natch

[brickbacon]

@Askia

This is coming from a die-hard hip-hop fan: a lot of rap is characteristically and flagrantly obnoxious, aggressive, misogynistic, violent, obscene, narcisstic, overly materialistic and often self-hating. It’s become much more extreme since the late 1980s and made this kind of behavior the norm – not just in the performers but in the fans.

Hello again.

I agree for the most part. Although I think the volume of absence, materialistic, etc. rap has increased, not necessarily the intensity. Groups like 2 Live Crew and NWA were pretty extreme even by today’s standards.

@Askia

Even more misogynistic, racist and violent than the music is rap video iconography: forget the lyrics and look at the images. Depersonalized shots of black women as exotic whore/bitch/babymama/freaks and black man-boys as updated versions of Bogle’s stereotypical bucks, brutes, coons, toms and tragic mulattoes. Forgetting society at large for a moment – its definitely a pathological cancer on African-American culture, period.

Can you elaborate on why you feel it’s such a cancer on AA culture.

Well, I think it’s too soon to say what the impact will be on black culture long term. I think one of the things that will be positive is when Russell Simmons, Master P, and P Diddy’s heirs are regarded like many other rich white families. Nobody cares nowadays that the Kennedys got their money bootlegging, Master P’s grandchildren could be in a similar position if they play their cards right.

Also, I while I agree with the general point you are making with regard to rap imagery, but I don’t think rap music is too far beyond other forms of music and media. The business community has recognized what a great commodity female sexuality is. Look at female newscasters today, even they are often chosen based on their attractiveness.

@Askia

Biggie and Tupac might have been lyrical geniuses but its kind of troubling that a severely obese drug-abusing performer and a workaholic rapper with an indiscrimate post-mortem discography are held up as culture heroes.

What problem do you have with the being one of many cultural heroes? I would consider groups like the Beatles and The Rolling Stones minor cultural heroes (just as Biggie and Tupac might be). Both of those groups did their share of drugs.

@Askia

Back when legitimate gangbangers went from actually being in drive-bys and dealing drugs to just singing about drive-bys and dealing drugs, I thought rap was a good, cathartic thing. As a genre rap can be innovative, even evocative – but you have to know I mean the Old School. But when gangsta rap and bling-bling became the mainstream, the commercial pap since the early 1990s that has slowly morphed into something I don’t listen to much anymore.

Thank God for Timbaland, The Neptunes and Dre.

But most of what those producers produced falls into the time period you said you don’t like. They are the architects of most mainstream rap today. If you like them, why not producers like Kanye West, Alchemist, Premier, Just Blaze, Scott Storch, RZA, etc.? I think rap is far more creative, and innovative today than in was 20 years ago. The fact that its a huge business has homogenized a lot of the mainstream stuff, but I think rap as a whole has a lot more to offer than it did back then.

[brickbacon]

@Hippy Hollow

The question, in of itself, is quite interesting: brickbacon, are you asking the same question of other forms of popular music? It often strikes me that rap, as a subset of hip hop, is held to a higher standard and stricter scrutiny than heavy metal, country, etc.

Well, I think it’s mostly held to a higher standard because it’s considered black music. I decided to try to limit the discussion to rap because I kept noticed people making such disparaging comments about rap music on this board. I was aware many people have this attitude, I was wondering if they actually weighed all the positives against the negatives to come to the conclusions they have.

@Hippy Hollow

One of most often quoted statements on hip hop comes courtesy of Chuck D - rap music is “Black America’s CNN.” I think you might extend this to any of the forms of music and culture created by Black Americans - from blues to hip hop. Like CNN, though, it’s more interesting to focus attention on showbiz trials and runaway brides than it is to delve into the more serious issues of the day. Like the news, if one wants a complete perspective on hip hop, it’s best to balance alternative sources with the mainstream…

At first glance it seems as though Rap=Black CNN may no longer be applicable. Mostly because rap has become more commercialized, commodified, simplified and homogenized in order to cater gluttonous consumers with small attention spans. However, that’s exactly what CNN, and every other news organization, has become. They cut out local/regional stories and original reporting, added more commercials, and dumped anything that requires the audience think critically. Popular rap groups used to inform, now they entertain. Not too different from the way 24-hour news stations operate. It’s kinda off topic, but I just found that interesting.

[Sage_Rat]

@brickbacon

I kept noticed people making such disparaging comments about rap music on this board. I was aware many people have this attitude, I was wondering if they actually weighed all the positives against the negatives to come to the conclusions they have.

It is most likely that if Rap hadn’t become big, something else would have become big instead and all those positive things would still be there.

Personally, I feel that the popularity of rap has probably not helped blacks–most money made probably being blown immediately or buried in a jar. And if anything, it has probably had a negative effect as the people growing up in real-life gangsta areas (like the projects) are seeing all the gangsters going off and getting rich and having big ho-fests while there still is no image to point to for successful blacks from such areas. And of course then you add on the gangster mentality of “Grab everything you can take, fill your 8’X8’ room with speakers 6 feet tall, and blow the rest on hos!”

Gangsta rap is fundamentally fatalistic–you’re not going to be smart enough or live long enough, or be white enough to ever succeed, so if you get your hands on some goods, you should just enjoy it for all it’s worth because it won’t be there tomorrow. But I can’t believe this is ever going to be a good message for anyone.

Now certainly there are rappers who are about making good music–but they aren’t rappers, they are musicians. Gold chains, babes in hotpants, cadillacs, and walking with a limp are not becoming parts of pop culture because of Eminem–they’re big because of gangter rap and gangster rap is what is going to effect society.

[Excalibre]

@silenus

Let me preface my post with the observation that the “C” in “Rap” is silent.

As far as I can tell, the overwhelming majority of rap “music” is misogynistic, racist, violent garbage with not a single bit of redeeming social value. Therefore, it has absolutely zero positive influence on society. Very little popular music has had a positive influence…why should rap be any different?

Do you think that that joke was funny the first thousand times it was posted on the boards? It wasn’t.

And the thousand-and-first time wasn’t any better.

I’ll admit to not being terribly familiar with rap, but what little I’m aware of often has a very strong social or even political message - in a way, it’s really the protest music of the urban black community. I think that’s where a lot of the rage you hear in it came from - rage about the shitty situation of the people who were creating the music. Of course, it’s largely been commercialized and turned into a property of an industry that thrives on idiotic teen rebellion, but it’s not like that’s unprecedented in the music world.

I mean, hell, I’d be pissed if the musically- (if not quite so morally-)bereft noodlings of Kenny G were used to condemn jazz as a whole, but that kind of crap is about all you’ll hear on most commercial jazz radio stations. What gets commercial airtime in any genre of music is usually not much good. So I don’t think it makes sense to judge rap by what you hear on the radio.

I wonder, though - is black music more demonized in our culture than music made by white people? Certainly jazz was equally held to be dangerous to the soul back when it was new and the average audience member wasn’t a fifty-something white man.

[Askia]

Sup, brickbacon.

Agreed: NWA still holds up. But I have had the disconcerting experience of viewing the 2 Live Crew’s “Me So Horny” video for the first time in 16 years and it barely registers as being even mildly offensive. Where 2LC once trailblazed rap smut they’ve been outpaced by every other rap group inclined to be raunchy. Cash Money Millionaire’s “Project Bitch” is waaaaAAAy worse than anything Luther Campbell ever thought of. Jay-Z and R. Kelly’s “Fiesta” is more visually explicit. So, yeah the volume and intensity has increased. Sometimes I think the whole purpose of ethnicitymodels.com is for softcore porn in videos.

I consider the misogyny, obscenities, violence and obsessions with brand name materialism as being pathological cancers because where they were once relatively small parts of rap and they’ve gotten far more common. This is not a good thing. I’m not the first to note that materalism and sex has long replaced politics as the main focus of hip-hop – and it’s being internalized by youth… including my kindergarten students. It used to be that “Rumpshaker” was the most explicit rap video on the airwaves. My first year teaching I caught a boy teaching some other boys the words to Akinyele’s “Put It In Your Mouth.” Every five and six year old in my class can sing, 50’s “In Da Club” and Nelly’s “Tip Drill.” We have too many little boys trying to sneak into the panties of little girls. Last year, I caught a boy in the bathroom stall on his knees in front of another boy. One of the sweetest, mildest girls in my class was drawing pictures of her friends and she labelled every one of them, Pimp Derrick, Pimp Cochise, Pimp Stacy, Pimp Parrell… at least they were correctly spelled. I’m deeply troubled – and surprising myself at how troubled – at how much more sexually aware kids are, how foul-mouthed they can be, and how brand-name conscious they are. Too soon after thirty years? The changes are evident and easily manifest.

I’m semi-encouraged that of the three rap moguls you named, at least one (my man Russ) is still doing other major things with hip-hop to make it relevant and political. Diddy and Master P, not so much – though I could be wrong

No matter what merits you can attribute to the sexuality of women in other mediums, none of them are routinely dismissed as bitches, hoes, baby mamas, freaks and lauded for ass wriggling, titty jiggling and dick-sucking skills like women in rap. Even the performers have to do it to get noticed. Erykah Badu’s “Ode To Hip-Hop” is about the only non gratuitous rap video I’ve seen from a female performer recently.

I think the martyrdom of Biggie, Tupac, Lisa Lopes, Aaliyah and even my beloved Jam Master Jay has gotten faintly ridiculous.

Some of these producers I named still manage to make some music I enjoy, although now that I think about it, Neptune’s Pharrell is a horny monkey, he at least manages it with some style. Good call on RZA, btw.

[ultrafilter]

I’ve always suspected that rap gets more criticism from folks because it’s less like classic rock than any other form of popular music. Let me explain.

There are pretty much six forms of music that you hear on the radio today: classic rock, alternative rock, pop, modern easy listening, R&B, and rap. Most people above a certain age have grown up listening to classic rock and have the idea that that’s what music sounds like. Alternative rock is very similar, and modern easy listening is pretty close as well. Pop and R&B are somewhat musically different, but they still involve singing, which seems to be what most people notice first about a given work. Rap is kind of out there on its own–no singing, no classic rock-style playing–so it’s significantly harder to recognize as music.

Of course, there are classical stations as well, but that’s a pretty niche market, and pretty much everyone is exposed to classical music and told “this is music”, so it slides in as well.

[Marley23]

There is definitely a generational element involved here, I don’t think that should surprise anybody.

[F.U.Shakespeare]

Is there some meaning behind the limp? I’ve seen kids who seem to be affecting it, and was wondering if it was supposed to be a ‘war wound’, or just a random trait of some rap star, the way Buddy Holly’s glasses were.

@Sage Rat

… Gold chains, babes in hotpants, cadillacs, and walking with a limp are not becoming parts of pop culture because of Eminem–they’re big because of gangter rap and gangster rap is what is going to effect society.

[Sage_Rat]

@F. U. Shakespeare

Is there some meaning behind the limp? I’ve seen kids who seem to be affecting it, and was wondering if it was supposed to be a ‘war wound’, or just a random trait of some rap star, the way Buddy Holly’s glasses were.

Dunno. It was already happening when I was in high school ten years ago–so it isn’t too new at least.

[EvilHamsterOnCrack]

I don’t know about rap music as a whole. I enjoy listening to a bit of rap in the car while driving along. The beats and music isn’t bad at all. My problem is with the message. These songs (in all seriousness, not jokingly), talk about shooting people, killing people, and glorify all these aspects of thug life that I find somewhat disgusting, especially when I see all htese aspects of thug life being picked up by many students at school. It seems to tell young blacks: “this is all you can be, now go act like a thug gangsta”.

[rjung]

Considering the majority of rap listeners are middle-class white males, I think the real message is, “Listen to rap, and you can pretend to be a bad-ass urban gangsta like we’re singing about.”