Tuesday, May 3, 2011

"The Art of Hip Hop" by Jonathan Gonzalez

There are many music genres, but none are like Gangsta Hip Hop. Hip hop originated in African-American communities during the late 1970’s in New York, and has spread across the world. Everyone in the world can have something to do with Hip Hop. With 30 years of growing popularity, its growing criticism also grows about the music’s culture negative effect on society. But I think otherwise, and suggest for people who don’t listen to Hip Hop to do so, give it a shot, stop the criticism and listen to it! I’m 100% sure you will find something you like from it. Hip Hop is a music genre, but there are also different genres in Hip Hop, for example; Rap Rock, G-Funk, Crunk, Reggaeton, Christian Hip Hop, and of course Gangsta Hip Hop the most popular. Many different styles of Hip Hop, I am sure one of them will fit you.

The backlash is has taken for influence on the youth, for violence, drugs, and sex and degrading to women might be true. But there are some songs that that can have a movement against violence, drugs and sex and some sweet to women. As far as gangsta Hip Hop, listening to an interview of gangster rapper 50 Cent made me see his music in a different way. He defended his image by saying “I write harsh realities in my music because it’s what I seen my whole life growing up, I write it down on paper and record it so my life story can be heard” He puts his heart into a song. It is amazing music, knowing it’s inspired with real stories living in poverty.
A book has to be read, and the reader has to paint the picture, visualize the scene. A Hip Hop song has to be heard, the picture has to be painted from what you hear, words in a rhythm over a drumroll. Storytelling is art. Expressing with aggression is what some poets do, art. Gangsta Hip Hop is art.

“Hip Hop’s greatest gift and its heaviest burden-is its legacy of urban mythology. It will be remembered as that bittersweet moment when young black men captured the ears of America and defined themselves on their own terms. In doing so, they raised a defiant middle finger to a history that shamed them with slavery, misrepresented them as coons and criminals, and co-opted the best of their culture” said Joan Morgan, a writer from Vibe magazine. It can be a resistance. It can be an issue that can be heard through a song. Events, politics, maybe even a conspiracy question. It is all in a Hip Hop song.

Some talented artists want more than a hit song on Billboard charts, they want to be listened to just like you want to be listened to. The explicit content is from the heart. Hip Hop is entertainment. Listen to Hip Hop closely some of your answers might be over an instrumental. The whole world can fit into the Hip Hop culture.

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