To what extent are rap/hip-hop music
videos, like Kendrick Lamar's "Alright," able to provide
political/social commentary and how does this impact upon different audiences?
Introduction
Hip-hop
is a genre that revolves around fruitful themes and complex social and
political commentary, dating as a far back as the 1970s, focusing on the main
idea of Libertarianism and the emancipation of the black man; this is particularly evident in Kendrick Lamar's extended music video 'Alright.' His music essentially provides a platform, not only for young African-Americans and the
black youth to self-identify with the music but also a wider audience through
the universal themes discussed by particular revolutionary hip-hop artists,
like Kendrick Lamar and bands like Public Enemy and N.W.A, however the
stereotypes associated with the genre provide a negative platform for the genre
due to the glamorisation and the fetishising of the materialistic aspects such
as 'gangster life' and violence, therefore elder audiences especially
negatively associate the genre with the three ignorant foundation words, 'drugs,
sex and violence.'
Quotes
Dyson, M. E. (2004). The Michael
Eric Dyson reader. New York: Basic Civitas Books.
“a shallow
understanding of rap, which in many cases results from people’s unwillingness
to listen to rap lyrics, many of which counsel antiviolent and antidrug
behaviour among the youths who are their avid audience”
Chang, J. (2005). Can't stop, won't stop:
A history of the hip-hop generation. New York: St. Martin's Press.
“’Keeping it real’ has become just
another fad word. It sounds cute. But it has been pimped and perverted. It
ain’t about keeping it real. It’s about keeping it right”
- Chang
focuses on the fact that the hip-hop genre is glamorised by the negative
music and the fact that this music gets the most recognition shows that the
media is not the problem but audiences themselves as negative music is
what they essentially want to hear
- Artists
that socially comment on their music and have a positive influence
essentially target a more niche market
#1
Axiomatically, Kendrick Lamar's
extended music video 'Alright,' is a clear representation of black lives and
comments on social and political themes throughout the video stylistically
through the iconography and cinematography, impacting audiences through this
empathetic idea of self-identification and the sympathetic theme of personal
relationships.
- Black
Lives Matter is an international activist movement, initiated in America -
2013 Trayvon Martin case HISTORICAL
- Not
limited to African Americans, you don't have to be black to care, it's a
universal issue - The Guardian Article - Thousands of people of all
different races and ages, coming from a variety of different backgrounds,
peacefully protested through Manchester. The group chanted Lamar's
"Alright" alongside other songs such as "Don't Worry, Be
Happy" and "Hand's Up/Don't Shoot." https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/11/black-lives-matter-solidarity-march-protest-manchester HISTORICAL
- The
alternative hip-hop genre focuses on originality and creativity –
monochrome – style could be seen as an avant-garde (attracted criticism
from mainstream due to the stylistic elements) GENRE
- Blumler
+ Katz; personal identity, personal relationships AUDIENCE
- Subverts
stereotypes; deception and Barthes action codes REPRESENTATION
- Stuart
Hall - dominant readings AUDIENCE
- Binary
oppositions - Levi Strauss REPRESENTATION
- Post-modernism SOCIAL
- The
iconography of the lamp-post may relate to how lamp-posts provide
artificial light in the dark – chiaroscuro lighting MEDIA LANG
- iconography
of the police officer MEDIA LANG
- Propps
theory - stock characters AUDIENCE
- Marxist
- Gramsci's theory of Hegemony AUDIENCE
- Frantz
Fanon - Black Skin, White Mask AUDIENCE
- Innoculation
and desensitisation AUDIENCE
Quotes
Gilroy, P. (1991). 'There ain't no black
in the Union Jack': The cultural politics of race and nation. Chicago, IL:
University of Chicago Press.
"the social movements which have sprung up in different parts of the world as evidence of African dispersal, imperialism and colonialism have done more than appeal to blacks everywhere in a language which could invite their universal identificated (Sheppard et al 1975)"
"the social movements which have sprung up in different parts of the world as evidence of African dispersal, imperialism and colonialism have done more than appeal to blacks everywhere in a language which could invite their universal identificated (Sheppard et al 1975)"
- essentially
social movements have become something that has created a universal
interest for black people and things like hip-hop music and rap music has
allowed black people to come together to address the issues that they face
"The back-to-Africa movements in America, the
Caribbean and now Europe, Negritude and the birth of the New Negro in the
Harlem Renaissance (Perry, 1976, Berghan, 1977) during the 1920s all provide
further illustrations of a multi-faceted desire to overcome the sclerotic
confines of the nation state as a precondition of the liberation of blacks
everywhere (Padmore, 1956)"
- These
are the movements that enabled blacks to be liberated and therefore
overcome their constraints as anything less than human. This is how the
liberation of black people started, essentially from these movements
Dates, J., Barlow, W. (1993). Split
Image: African Americans in the Mass Media. Howard University Press
“The dominant culture must constantly strive to expand its hegemony
while fending off challenges and interventions from the very classes and groups
it seeks to subjugate”
“Hall also argues that there are a range of possible responses to
mediated images that allow for negotiated as well as oppositional readings,
hence a decoding of media messages that differs from what the sender encoded
for transmission”
“Mikhail Bakhtin’s notion of heteroglassia – unpredictable multiple
voices that that interact with one another to form a new totality – focuses
attention on the dialogic nature of cultural message”
“Historian Robert Toll ably summarised the social dynamics of
antebellum minstrelsy: ‘Black face performers were like puppets operated by a
white puppet master’”
Kendrick
Lamar. (2012). Swimming Pools.
·
At the close of ‘Alright,’ Lamar recites his
lyrical poem as he falls and it could potentially reference Swimming Pools as
he falls in this video and he falls into this endless loop because things
cannot change easily and Lamar is aware that he is only one person who is
unable to adapt a whole world - symbolism
Tupac. (1991). Trapped. Shock, G.
·
focuses on police brutality
"They got me trapped"
·
the black male is trapped within a society where there
is a social divide between the white and black community, the main idea of a
moral panic within the black community
J Cole. (2014). Be Free.
·
mourning over the Michael Brown case
"All we wanna do is take the chains off, all we
wanna do is break the chains off, all we wanna do is be free"
·
psychological binding of slavery in the world today
between the problems of police brutality
·
the chains of brutality and injustice on a whole
ethnicity of people
Dreamvillian Website
- "I'm tired of being
desensitised to the murder of black men"
#2
Lamar also adopts a nostalgic tone within
the extended video and references influential artists such as Tupac and Eazy E,
who were similarly socially and politically charged; this emphasises the
zeitgeist and rebirths traditional political hip-hop to impact contemporary
audiences.
·
mise-en-scene; STD’s Fuck You! Sticker MEDIA LANG
·
independent record label artists INSTITUTION
·
subtle iconography, ‘R.I.P Pac Doe’ – post-production sound MEDIA LANG
·
Ghetto lullaby and Ghetto Gospel (Tupac) HISTORICAL
·
Kendrick as offspring of N.W.A
·
Traditional literary texts focusing on black power, discrimination,
representation of African-Americans HISTORICAL
·
New and Digital media offering the cultivation of hip-hop genre ECONOMICAL
·
Constant referral to historical context of slavery and the emancipation
of the black man HISTORICAL
·
Blaxploitation film –Shaft, Gordon Parks 1971 HISTORICAL
·
Intertextuality – ‘Cartoon + Cereal,’ ‘Ghetto Gospel, ‘U’ MEDIA LANG
·
Pastiche – deliberate homage to his other works HISTORICAL
·
Post-colonialism HISTORICAL
Quotes
Rose, T. (2008). The Hip Hop
Wars: What We Talk About When We Talk About Hip Hop--and Why It Matters.
Basic Civitas Books.
“if the
late Tupac Shakur were a newly signed artist today, I believe he’d likely be
considered a socially conscious rapper and thus relegated to the margins of the
commercial hip-hop field”
- Rose believes that artists today are producing music that meets
societal expectations, however Lamar arguably subverts this as he socially
comments through his music on a similar level to Tupac, or perhaps even
further
Osumare, H. (2007). The Africanist aesthetic in global
hip-hop: Power moves. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
“Connective Marginalities: Hip Hop Around the World From global street
culture to the World Wide Web, hip hop culture is not difficult to locate. The
Internet provides copious sites across the map where one can travel to diverse
international hip hop scenes at the click of a computer mouse in the comfort of
one's own home”
·
the effects of new and digital
media makes it easier for audiences to be involved with political music and to
locate and even be part of it
Morrison, T. (1987). Beloved. United States. Alfred
Knopf.
·
this novel revolves around the
theme of slavery and reveals similarities between Kendrick’s speech and hers.
This novel is fragmented and split into 3 parts at the beginning of each, the
house 124 Bluestone Road is analysed.
“124 was spiteful”
“124 was loud”
“124 was quiet”
“This is not a story to pass on”
Straight Outta Compton. (2015, USA, Gray. G. F)
·
focuses
on how N.W.A were a controversial rap group that were not swayed by the media
but by themselves as individuals revealing how the social commentary in rap was
something that started from the individual rather than the institution
Tupac Interview at 17 years old, 1988.
(1988, HisLifeAsTupac)
KRS-One. (1993). Sound of da Police.
Showbiz.
·
the lyrics refer to police, in places like the Bronx:
they’re a protest against institutionalized racism, oppression and violence
against the black community
"Be an officer? You wicked overseer!"
"Take the word overseer, like a sample Repeat it
very quickly in a crew, for example Overseer, overseer, overseer, overseer.
Officer, officer, officer, officer. Yeah, officer from overseer"
Ab-Soul. (2016). Huey Knew.
·
references Black Panther Party co-founder Huey P.
Newton - the rapper immortalizes the iconic photo of
Newton sitting in a wicker chair, wearing a leather jacket with guns in
hand
·
throughout the video, the screens surrounding Ab-Soul
flash images of San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, instances of
police brutality and Donald Trump, whose race-baiting rhetoric has dominated
headlines for months
"Pale white horse when I black out"
·
pale white horse is a metaphor for the
Armageddon
"Even white lives matter when I black out"
Kendrick Lamar.
(2015). To Pimp A Butterfly.
Ahmed. I., Drake. D., Callahan, N., Werthman. C., Baker. E., Kenner.
R,, Tharpe. F,. Scott. D,. (2016). The
Best Rapper Alive, Every Year Since 1979
“The
rhymes on ‘AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted’ went beyond gangster life and dug into the
underbelly of American apartheid.”
1996
– “Tupac – 1996 is a case study for every aspect of why
2Pac is so celebrated. He was a viable, competent artist in multiple arenas,
and he had the discipline to incorporate his varied and conflicted missions
into a single mantra”
2013 – “Kendrick Lamar – the release of ‘good kid’ cemented Kendrick’s status as the
Best Rapper Alive and earned comparisons to other legends who jump-started
their careers with unforgettable major-label debuts”
“As the critical
praise poured in and K-Dot fans supported their artist – a music-biz mantra
that’s more often said than followed – a mainstream audience slowly started to
appreciate this West Coast rapper with left-field sensibilities to the point
where hip-hop as a whole started looking at him differently”
Ide. D,. (2013)- How Capitalism Underdeveloped Hip Hop: A People's History of
Political Rap
http://www.hamptoninstitution.org/capitalismhiphoppartone.html#.WAUmWeArLIV
“New
School Hip Hop was defined by its seminal, independent spirit of artists'
attempts to manoeuvre within the confines of an ever-increasing hierarchal,
corporate, top-down structure”
Kendrick Lamar sits down
with N.W.A. (2015, Billboard)
Lamar
considers himself an offspring off N.W.A and that rap generation, he believes
that “everything [he’s] done
comes from [them.]” Dre says that “your shit is top of my playlist –
your attention to detail, how precise you are” – Dre
praises Lamar for being a lyrical genius and being able to create the
masterpieces that he does.
With
N.W.A’s records “you could
visit Compton from a safe distance” Cube believes that you
could always be controversial “they
could always say it but they were scared or their companies wouldn’t let them”
The
legacy of N.W.A – Cube wants them to be remembered as “the most dangerous group, a group that made it okay for artists
to be themselves”
Dre
wants to inspire – “you can
go against the grain, you can do something outside the box and be big”
“We were constructive not destructive” –
Ice Cube
·
Although being criticised for being so
controversial they were able to influence and able to empower other artists
such as Lamar
#3
Following on from this idea of the
‘zeitgeist,’ Public Enemy’s ‘Fight The Power’ music video perfectly
demonstrates social and political commentary through their lyrics; their style
being somewhat different from Lamar yet conveying the similar message,
audiences are therefore able to become impacted by the themes explored within
the video, such as racial discrimination.
·
Political movements, Martin Luther King – The
American Dream POLITICAL/HISTORICAL
·
Malcolm X and The American Nightmare
·
Representations within this video and Lamar’s;
similarities and differences REPRESENTATIONS
·
Stanley Cohen – moral panics AUDIENCE
·
Polysemic themes and ideas
·
Wilbur Schramm - Two step flow model AUDIENCE
·
Verisimilitude – beginning extract
Quotes
Gray, J., Sandvoss, C., & Harrington,
C. L. (2007). Fandom: Identities and communities in a mediated world. New York:
New York University Press.
"One could love [music], but its embededness
in social functions made more likely that one loved that which the music
enabled. But commodification encouraged an attachment to music's own singular
effects"
- Commodification
was the thing that made music worth something, this could be argued as
something that has made music less valuable - example Immortal Technique
and underground rap - institutionalisation - Kendrick Lamar's TPAB song,
Institutionalised explains the effects of institutions on the rap industry
Terkourafi, M. (2010). The Languages of
Global Hip-hop (Advances in Sociolinguistics). Continuum International
Publishing Group.
“globally
hip-hop artists offer incisive critiques of dominant cultures, engage with
local issues of ethnicity and power, and address in different ways the
legitimacy of their appropriation of what is traditionally deemed to be a Black
genre”
- Lamar's 'Fuck Your Ethnicity'
(2015). Modern
Blackface: The Cultural Appropriation of Rap. Standford
University
“Being considered “too white” to rap
was not an issue in the rap genre until the dual emergence of the prevalence of
white rapper appropriation and the alternative rapper”
·
the media discriminated against
black rappers for the content of their songs and the social commentary
discussed within their lyrics, however this idea of cultural appropriation is
something that makes the rap industry seems spoiled. They were targeted and now
they are doing the targeting. ‘F*** your ethnicity’ – Kendrick Lamar is able to
socially comment through his music and realise that your ethnicity doesn’t
define you
Osumare, H. (2007). The
Africanist aesthetic in global hip-hop: Power moves. New York: Palgrave
Macmillan.
https://youthcultureandprotest.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/osumare_hip-hop-globe.pdf
“rap music and the entire
expressive culture of hip hop resonate not only with the anxiety of youthful
social rebellion, but extant global socio-political inequities as well.”
Chuck,
D., Jah, Y. (1998). Fight the
Power: Rap, Race and Reality. Delta.
“For too long I’ve felt that this art form is tossed aside as a Ghetto
game for black youth and that limited opinion is ignorant”
“Tupac had a plan to bring everybody to the table with the ‘thug for
life’ image, and then he was going to flip the tables at the last minute”
“Once I realised that I’m a voice that people listen to, I realised I
had to fill my voice with something of substance”
“My goal is to be used as a viaduct, as a dispatcher of information.
Television is the last plateau. We need programs representing our voice and
interpretation, which come out and say the things that need to be said, and can
be challenging and entertaining at the same time”
“It’s such a serious issue because the derogatory programming leads to
a point where life imitates art, and a blur develops between fantasy and
reality. I believe that television is one of the main reasons for the criminal
mindedness of Black youth”
Kendrick Lamar talks
about u, Depression, and Suicidal Thoughts. (2015, MTV)
“With money and being
a celebrity how can I use it, how can I pimp it, can I pimp it negatively or
can I pimp it in a positive way. Positive for me is showing what I go through
and showing what I’ve been through with you and coming all the way back to I
and saying that I still love myself at the end of the day”
‘Institutionalised’ – “how can I use my influence”
Angelou,
M. (1969). I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. United States. Random
House.
·
metaphor, that of a bird struggling to escape its
cage, is a central image throughout the work, which consists of a sequence of
lessons about resisting racist oppression
J Cole, Omen. (2015). Caged Bird.
"freedom is just an illusion"
·
the idea of not being free and the whole race being
targeted, can you ever truly be free in a society where the ruling elites are
running
N.W.A. (1988). Fuck The Police.
·
Violence, guns and gangs. The video being shot
through the scope of a gun makes the video embody violence in a more prevalent
way. The video shows police officers attacking the group, revealing discrimination,
police brutality
Ide. D,. (2013)- How Capitalism Underdeveloped Hip Hop: A People's History of Political Rap
http://www.hamptoninstitution.org/capitalismhiphoppartone.html#.WAUmWeArLIV
“Public
Enemy undoubtedly pushed political hip-hop to a new level. Their intense,
in-your-face rhymes promoted a historical revival amongst black youth
previously separated from prior cultural developments and struggles of the
past”
“political
hip-hop took the form of cathartic, impulsive depictions of violence stemming
from the wrath manifested within oppressed black communities. One example,
Oakland rapper Paris, who adhered early in his career to a form of Black
Nationalism similar to Public Enemy's, would seek a sort of lyrical revenge
against individuals and institutions he found oppressive and exploitative.
Through songs like "Bush Killa," where he fantasized about
assassinating then President George H. Bush, he would decisively embrace a
black militancy that challenged the past legacy of King's non-violence: ‘So don't
be tellin' me to get the non-violent spirit, 'cause when I'm violent is the
only time you devils hear it!’”
Williams. S. (2016). Hip-Hop’s
History with Police Brutality: Why We Should Live in the Now
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/07/11/hip-hop-s-history-with-police-brutality-why-we-shouldn-t-romanticize-the-ogs-and-live-in-the-now.html
“We decided that rappers like Chuck D
and 2Pac had the preapproved pedigree to offer criticism and insight; they’d
earned a certain amount of cultural real estate, in that regard, because they’d
always embraced commentary in their music”
“Many of us don’t feel that
contemporary rap artists have the resume, so to speak, to truly affect change”
“Celebrities speaking out doesn't
solve problems but it does make it harder for consumers of all colors to ignore
those problems when their favorite is calling for it to be addressed”
·
this essentially reveals the
influence that music has on audiences; this also relates to the two step flow
model and how the more celebrities talking about a particular topic the more
likely it is for the work to be seen and heard, showing the influence and
impact that artists have
“This generation of hip-hop stars is
more topical and outspoken than perhaps they get credit for”
·
the subtlety of most rappers and
artists makes it more difficult to define them as political rappers or
controversial rappers for that matter – rappers like Lamar are more explicit in
their approach with lyrics much harsh than perhaps Coles for example, yet the
same message is being portrayed
#4
There are arguments to suggest that
not all hip-hop music has positive effects and instead has a negative influence
on audiences through the glamorisation of the lifestyle and the artists being
simply slaves to the industry, however artists like Lamar who belongs to an
independent record label, reveals the negative effects of institutionalisation
and how fruitless artists are merely corrupted by the idea of capitalism.
- The idea of institutionalisation and the music industry being the
controllers – Capitalism, Institutionalisation ECONOMICAL/INSTITUTION/HISTORICAL/POLITICAL
- Emergence of underground rap and Immortal Technique POLITICAL
- Music industry and organisations – this Marxist idea of alienation,
no responsibility for their work anymore INSTITUTION
- Bricolage,
media representations, journalism – black people on the news REPRESENTATION
- Stuart
Hall – dominant readings AUDIENCE
- Dyer –
Stereotypes REPRESENTATION
- Counterculture HISTORICAL
- Cultural
effects theory
- Eminem
- Mass
culture and mass communication
- Postmodernism
Quotes
Rose, T. (1994). Black noise: Rap music
and black culture in contemporary America. Hanover, NH: University Press of New
England.
·
she speaks from a “pro-black, biracial,
ex-working-class, New York based feminist, left cultural critic” point of view
“Rap’s contradictory articulations
are not signs of absent intellectual clarity; they are a common feature of
community and popular culture dialogues that always offer more than one
cultural, social or political viewpoint”
- this
idea of rap holding polyvocal conversations is an extremely valid point
made by Rose, however her basis of saying that rap as a whole is an
embodiment of empowerment is an over emphasised statement that almost
commodifies all rap being able to hold positive social expression.
Charnas, D. (2010). The big
payback: The history of the business of hip-hop. New York, NY: New American
Library.
“When America
desegregated, the music business itself remained one of the most segregated
industries in the country.”
Rose, T. (2008). The Hip Hop
Wars: What We Talk About When We Talk About Hip Hop--and Why It Matters.
Basic Civitas Books.
“The gangsta
life and all its attendant violence, criminality, sexual deviance, and misogyny
have, over the last decade especially, stood at the heart of what appeared to
be ever-increasing hip hop record sales”
“Between 1990
and 1998, the Record Industry Association of America (RIAA) reported that rap
captured on average, 9-10 percent of music sales in the United States”
“Hip hop came
of age at the beginning of a new technological revolution. After the late
1970s, when hip hop emerged onto the public scene, all forms of media
technology exponentially expanded”
“Mass media
consolidation was rendered even more profound for the record industry after the
Telecommunications Act of 1966”
Chuck, D., Jah, Y. (1998). Fight
the Power: Rap, Race and Reality. Delta.
“Many in the world of hip-hop have begun to believe that the only way
to blow up and become megastars is by presenting themselves in a negative
light”
Dates, J., Barlow, W. (1993). Split
Image: African Americans in the Mass Media. Howard University Press.
Historian Joseph Boskins statement – “To make the black man into an
object of laughter, and conversely, to force him to devise laughter, was to
strip him from masculinity, dignity and self-respect”
Ghansah, R. (2013). When the Lights Shut Off: Kendrick
Lamar and the Decline of the Black Blues Narrative. LARB
“What makes him important is the way in which the autobiographical ‘good kid m.a.a.d city’ is so novelistic and so eloquently
anchored in the literary blues tradition of which Ellison wrote”
“Lamar is equal parts oral historian and authorial presence”
8 Mile. (2002, USA, Hanson. C)
·
this film focuses on discrimination within the
hip-hop genre and predominantly revolves around the cultural appropriation
within rap music. Eminem is a white rapper and although his social commentary
is most relatable to his life and his own suffering, he is a great example of
how artists have power as Eminem was able to make something out of nothing
Kendrick Lamar. (2015). God Is Gangsta.
·
Lamar combines ‘U’ and ‘For Sale?’ in this video
and confronts his demons and temptations within the video, revealing the harsh
reality of suicidal thoughts and temptations and also the effects of the
evilness within life – “the
evils of Lucy was all around me”
Find Your Words. (2016, Kaiser Permanente Thrive)
·
This video was released for the Find Your Words
Campaign focusing on mental health and depression. In the video a young black
male is seen walking through a rather conventional urban setting whilst reciting
Lamar’s lyrics from ‘i.’
·
This clearly reveals the significance of Lamar’s
lyrics and how powerful they are to inspire an organisation to include his
lyrics – proving that hip-hop music can have positive influences on an audience
Benjamin. M. (2016). Kendrick
Lamar’s Music Has Become the Soundtrack for Battling Depression
http://uproxx.com/realtalk/kendrick-lamar-kaiser-commercial/
“’To Pimp A Butterfly’ is essentially his couch while we the
listeners play therapists; pens in hand while observing his every word choice”
Kendrick Lamar – How to Clique a Butterfly. (2015, Clique)
“Not smoking or drinking doesn’t put down my manhood
or coolness”
·
Lamar discusses how he doesn’t smoke or drink that
much and he believes that it doesn’t make you any cooler or any less of a man
if you do or don’t
Immortal Technique. (2003). Point of No Return.
"This is the point from which I could never
return, And if I back down now then forever I burn"
Ide. D,. (2013)- How Capitalism Underdeveloped Hip Hop: A People's History of
Political Rap
http://www.hamptoninstitution.org/capitalismhiphoppartone.html#.WAUmWeArLIV
“Within a few years
the schism between the dominant, mainstream rap spewed across the synchronized,
consolidated radio waves and the dissident, political, and revolutionary lyrics
expressed throughout the underground network would develop, separating hip-hop
into two worlds”
“Rapper Immortal
Technique frames this dichotomy in a political context emphasizing the
opposition between the major label ‘super powers of the industry’ and the
‘underground third world of the street’”
“Meanwhile,
hip-hop activists who advocate for social change, formulate political dissent,
and fight for economic redistribution have been systematically marginalized and
excluded from the mainstream discourse. Corporate capitalism, aided by
neoliberal deregulation and privatization, have stolen the culture, sterilized
its content, and reformatted its image to reflect the dominant ideology.
Independent, political rap containing valuable social commentary has been
replaced with shallow, corporate images of thugs, drugs, and racial and gender
prejudices filled with both implicitly and explicitly hegemonic undertones and
socially constructed stereotypes”
J Cole. (2013). Chaining Day.
·
rappers are slaves to the materialistic lifestyle, the
idea of the hip-hop industry revolving around affluence and materialism rather
purpose
Dr. Dre, Anderson .Paak. (2015). Animals.
·
reveals how African-Americans in Compton and
America in general are being mistreated, with police resorting to inflict
ruthless violence and other inhumane acts. This song also illustrates how the
media always pays more attention on the wrong doings instead of the peaceful
acts the African-American community commit
"And the old folks tell me it's been going on
since back in the day, But that don't make it okay, And the white folks tell me
all the looting and the shooting's insane, But you don't know our pain"
Dre. Dre, Anderson .Paak, Justus, Kendrick Lamar.
(2015). Deep Water.
·
mention Eric Garners death and focus on the unforeseen
difficulties within the rap game
·
the metaphor of life being 'deep water' and like an
aquarium where some people sink and some swim is an interesting idea that
focuses on how hip-hop artists flourish and some sink by becoming slaves to the
materialistic lifestyle
Kendrick Lamar. (2015). Institutionalized.
·
wealth's corruptive powers and how people are
brainwashed by becoming rich. The poor and disenfranchised are
institutionalized by prison, racism, classism, and the rich and the powerful
are institutionalized by fear, dogma, and the almighty dollar. Everyone is a
loser in this game, perspective is the only answer.
Ide. D,. (2013)- How Capitalism Underdeveloped Hip Hop: A People's History of
Political Rap
http://www.hamptoninstitution.org/capitalismhiphoppartone.html#.WAUmWeArLIV
“Many people
mistakenly narrowly define hip-hop as a particular style of music. The reality,
however, is that Hip-hop is an extremely multifaceted cultural phenomenon.
Dyas. P. Media
Magazine MM42. Dunraven
School, South London
“Kanye West;
admittedly a polarising figure notorious for his own self-aggrandisement,
arrogance and lack of self-awareness, but often vulnerable, emotional and
conflicted in his lyrics”
·
the success of Kanye West reveals not only lyrics that
represent his life as something of a struggle but expresses the effects he
faces through his own self-aggrandisement
“Childish Gambino
rejects the violence and gang associations of hip-hop culture, demonstrating a
social progressiveness and willingness to challenge conventional models of
masculinity”
Aidoo. D. Media
Magazine MM45. Bristol
“Hip-hop, grime,
urban, rap, spoken word – the success of artists within this multifaceted genre
depends on how easy it is for everybody to understand their lyrics and relate
to their content.”
“The elder generation
have an inclination of blaming rap for much of the violence that goes on within
the younger world. I see this as a misinterpretation. It begs the ongoing
question of whether the media create and reinforce violent stereotypes, or
whether media producers simply construct a reflection of society’s ills”
Davey. D. (2006). Is Rap Actually Music or is it a Bad Influence?http://hiphopandpolitics.com/2006/08/23/is-rap-actually-music-or-is-it-a-bad-influence/
“Rap music also glorifies drinking,
and sex. Two things which happen to be a major problem among many children
today.”
·
this statement is an abomination,
most increasingly because there are no statistics to back up this statement,
this is not a major problem as according to ONS figures show that teenage
pregnancy rates continue to fall
Giovacchini. A. M. (1999). The
Negative Influence of Gangster Rap and What Can Be Done About It
https://web.stanford.edu/class/e297c/poverty_prejudice/mediarace/negative.htm
“It is not moral to preach and
advertise some of the topics discussed in the lyrics, yet they are all present
in the world. It is also not considered moral to take away the rights of the
individuals to express themselves through music, as observed in the rulings of
the court cases dealing with these subjects. On the other hand, it is not
considered moral to degrade women, threaten to kill people, or fire vicious
insults, all of which are common in gangster rap”
(2016). Why
Rap Music is a Bad Influence – Yes. Pitlane Magazine.
http://www.pitlanemagazine.com/morals-values-and-norms/why-rap-music-is-a-bad-influence-yes.html
·
blog posts and website articles
slating rap for being a bad influence are simply words on a page, backed up
with no respectable online statistics or facts
#5
Artists who are able to socially and
politically comment through their music axiomatically receive controversy and
Lamar is no exception to this; however the bricolage associated with the genre
is formed from media representations and the definitive two perspectives of the
black man that is seen throughout the media industry; the good and the bad.
- Journalism
- Levi-Strauss – Binary oppositions AUDIENCE
- Gramsci’s idea of ‘common sense’
- Dependency theory AUDIENCE
- Logic – black and white rapper POLITICAL/SOCIAL
- Stanley Cohen – Moral Panics AUDIENCE
- Reception theory AUDIENCE
- TPAB seen as a syntagm HISTORICAL/SOCIAL
Quotes
Hall, S., Evans, J., & Nixon, S.
(2013). Representation. London: Sage.
"Stuart Hall (1982) has underlined this
splitting in the 'imperial eye' by suggesting that for every threatening image
of the black subject as a marauding narrative, menacing savage or rebellious
slave, there is a comforting image of the black as a doule servant, amusing
down and happy entertainer"
- two
sides of a black person are seen in the media, especially within
journalism. A black athlete is seen as a positive and praised elitist and
the black criminal is seen as the stereotype that most conform too
Bloom, L. (2014). Suspicion nation: The
inside story of the Trayvon Martin injustice and why we continue to repeat it.
Berkeley, CA: Counterpoint.
“And yet Trayvon, somehow, on that
wet, black, low-visibility night, saw through the bulk of Zimmerman’s body,
through Zimmerman’s shirt, through his jacket to a matte black gun concealed in
a matte black holster clipped inside his waistband. Can anyone possibly believe
this story?”
- this
ironic statement commented by Bloom exaggerates the situation and creates
this hyperbole of the truth
- the
exaggeration almost adds more depth to the story and reveals the harsh
reality of the Trayvon Martin case
Lee, H. (1960). To
Kill A Mockingbird. United States. J. B. Lippincott & Co.
·
this novel focuses on the
discrimination of black people in America – from a white author this makes this
novel interesting as a white man defends a black man, something that was seen
as ‘wrong’
“Shoot all the blue jays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember
it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird”
Rome, D. (2004). Black demons: The
media's depiction of the African American male criminal stereotype. Westport, CT:
Praeger.
“we do not come to the experience
of mass media and popular culture as blank slates waiting to be written upon or
voids waiting to be filled”
- the
media cannot be to blame for their influence as it is always down to the
individual in terms of what they want to be influenced by
“The public perception of African
Americans as inferior provides the basis of acceptability for the most
outrageous lies”
- we
conform to the idea that African Americans are at the heart of all
criminal activities due to the stereotype, therefore Rome suggests that
this has become the basis and is what society is built to believe now;
this links to the Marxist theory of Hegemony, Gramsci believes that
individuals of a higher status are able to create an influence of social
conformity and therefore the mass media and the representation of black
people has been stereotyped and commodified to be socially accepted – it
paces back to the 1619 and the history of slavery
Russell, K. (1999). The Color of Crime:
Racial Hoaxes, White Fear, Black Protectionism, Police Harassment and Other
Macroagressions. NYU Press.
“black success stories do not counterbalance images
of black deviance [...] In many instances Black superstars are not perceived in
terms of their blackness”
“become colourless, while those blacks who conform
to the criminal stereotype remain ‘black’”
- this highlights the problems within society and how status controls
most. It relates to the Marxist term of the bourgeoisie and how the higher
classes and the ruling status’ hold dominant power and change
conventions
David Cameron, bbc.com, June 7th, 2006 - “I would say
to Radio 1, do you realise that some of the stuff that you play on Saturday
nights encourages people to carry guns and knives?”
- rap artists being advocates of violence -
clearly ignorant
Kendrick Lamar does not
want to surpass Michael Jackson. (2016, The Tonight
Show starring Jimmy Fallon) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pypMiMf9C0
·
Lamar was nominated for 11 awards this year and
Michael Jackson holds the record with 12 – Fallon informs Lamar that he almost
beat Michael where Lamar’s reply is simply no; “I cannot fathom being as great as
Michael” he doesn’t want to
be greater than Michael without putting in the work
·
This reveals how humble Lamar is as an individual
rather than a rapper, it subverts that orthodox stereotype of rappers being
money minded and fame seeking celebrities, making Lamar the pariah of rap.
Kendrick Lamar Discusses Tupac.
(2015, Kendrick Vs Pac)
“When are we gon’ understand that we
are put on earth to love, that’s all it’s about. Everyone wanna figure out how
complicated life is and break it down […] it’s gon’ keep going on. War gon’
keep going on, frustration gon’ keep going on, anger gon’ keep going on until
we go back to this one word.. love.”
·
Lamar almost mirrors Tupac’s 1988 interview as he
discusses that things should not be seen as complicated and everything isn’t
meant to be analysed, everything shouldn’t be so difficult as it is – it is as
though Lamar is a reincarnation of Pac
Kendrick says Macklemore
went too far + who “i” is for the state of HipHop. (2014, Hot 97)
·
Lamar believes that what is not being said in music is
“making a connection with people and showing that music is life”
“It ain’t all entertainment at the end of the day, it
sells music but at the same time it affects people”
“I could sit here talking slick on records all day but
who’s gonna relate to it when they gotta go back to this crazy world”
·
This shows that Lamar makes music for the people and
not for the industry; he wants people to relate to him and make that meaningful
connection with his music to understand him and understand the world around
them
“Me being who I am and not being somewhat fearful of
what the world think or what the industry standard is, I’m gonna do it the way
I wanna do it, the way I’ve always been doing”
·
This reveals the institutional power and how Lamar
holds his own power making him part of this independent record label
Drake or Kendrick? Obama quizzed on rap battles, Star Wars. (2016, Pal Tube)
“I have to go with Kendrick […] His lyrics are
outstanding, his last album was outstanding, best album of the year”
·
To get such high acclaim off Obama really emphasises
how much Lamar is respected as a rapper and an artist
Ahmed. I., Drake. D., Callahan, N., Werthman. C., Baker. E., Kenner. R,, Tharpe. F,. Scott. D,. (2016). The Best Rapper Alive, Every Year Since 1979
2015 “If TPAB wasn’t the best rap
album of the year, it’s tough to argue that it wasn’t the most important. It’s
perhaps the most ambitious rap album of the past half-decade. No other album this
year made us look into ourselves as deeply or as far outwardly. It questioned
nearly everything (blackness, whiteness, religion, social responsibility),
which in turn made us question everything: the role of rappers, the role of rap
music, respectability politics, the role of music press, the idea that art can
be at once great and distasteful. The album cast a shadow over the entire year,
out of which came one of 2015’s brightest gems ‘Alright.’”
Williams. S. (2016). Hip-Hop’s
History with Police Brutality: Why We Should Live in the Now
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/07/11/hip-hop-s-history-with-police-brutality-why-we-shouldn-t-romanticize-the-ogs-and-live-in-the-now.html
“Hip-hop is no longer black people’s CNN, but perhaps it’s become something
different: more of a town hall for the culture, a sounding board, a place to
vent as opposed to a source of information. And maybe that’s still enough to
help galvanize a generation”
-Chuck D’s famous quote
Platon. A. (2016). Kendrick
Lamar opens up about meeting president Obama
http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/magazine-feature/6866105/kendrick-lamar-meeting-president-obama
“No matter how high-ranking you get,
you’re human”
“No matter how high the pedestal you
reach, we all still like a beat”
·
The truth behind situations, the
respect that Lamar has earned to be respected by the President
·
The National Mentoring Partnership
– “mentoring saves lives”
·
The influence of Lamar, having a
positive effect on the youth as a mentor as a guide to reach somewhere far in
life
Jones. J. (2014). Georgia
Students Study Kendrick Lamar for Class
http://college.usatoday.com/2014/09/01/georgia-students-study-kendrick-lamar-for-class/
·
The university professor Adam Diehl
thinks that “Hip-hop is about immediate feedback to the world people observe
around them”
In the comments section:
- Michael
Younger · Clayton,
North Carolina “College courses named
after a thug.... Brilliant. This would lead a career in stealing cars.”
“I happen to be black
and seem THUGS like Lamar way too many times. He is another reason society is
going backward AND blacks are viewed negatively. And also the reason why
Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner and Michael Brown are dead.”
·
What happens to be most interesting about this is the
fact that this black male doesn’t support Lamar’s music and it is exactly what
he says in his Hot 97 interview where he says that “black people do not support
us” instead they have no respect for the music when it is the very reason why
the music is being produced
