Hip Hop's effects on violence Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Hip Hop's effects on violence - Essay Example The resulting new genre of music was raucous and disrespectful, using its own dialect to shout out an alternative lifestyle to the one that they saw in mainstream society. Since then interest in the movement has grown, and hip hop attracts unwavering support from millions of people across the whole world, but at the same time also it is heavily criticized for its focus on drugs, crime, and especially violence. It cannot be denied that violence lies at the heart of many hip hop lyrics, but the question that must be answered is what relationship hip-hop has to the real violence that occurs in the world’s cities today. Does hip-hop encourage that violence, or even cause it? Or can we see hip-hop as something that resists a greater violence that has been meted out to African Americans and other minorities for several centuries? This paper argues that the latter argument is more convincing, and that furthermore hip-hop has a potential to bring understanding between racial groups wh ich no other movement is likely to bring forward at the present time. The first matter to clarify is the nature of what we call â€Å"Hip-hop.† It is a type of music, involving spoken and sung texts and strong steady rhythms. Hip hop is not just music, however, it is a whole culture, embracing graffiti art, dancing styles, and even fashion. The typical hip-hop look consists of baggy pants, sneakers, and Malcolm X caps which are worn backwards (Smitherman, 1997, p. 3) There is also a tendency for women to sport elaborate hairstyles, expensive designer outfits, well-manicured nails and striking makeup. For men there is a preference for ostentatious jewelry and if possible also fast cars. These artefacts are symbols of power, and the stars of hip hop culture sport these trophies to indicate how successful they are and how far they have come from poverty. Some critics see these expensive trinkets as genuine indicators of status while others regard them as ironic quotations from m ainstream society, underlining rebellion and activism rather than consumerism and complacency: â€Å"Hip-hop’s triad of graffiti, dance, and rap are post-apocalyptic arts, scratches on the decaying surfaces of post-industrital urban America; they are not monuments to some romanticized ‘human spirit’, but fundamentally anti-monumental arts.† (Potter: 1995, p. 8) There is indeed something rebellious about hip hop. The body language of fans is often very insolent, with direct staring and head jerking, and many of the moves in the dance routines are quirky and acrobatic, drawing attention to the dancer and singling him out as a person to be admired. There is great loyalty amongst fans, and much is made of terms like â€Å"bro† which signifies brother and can be used both within racial groups and transcending these boundaries. When people think of hip-hop they think of instances where songs, or singers have been banned from radio stations because of offe nsive language, violent references and in particular criticism of the American state and its institutions. This is, however, nothing new, and from the hippies and the Beatles in the 1960s to the Sex Pistols in the punk era, posturing against authority is absolutely typical of youth culture. One aspect of hip-hop which is of great concern is the fact that it is often associated with gun culture and drug