Reflection on Bambaataa

by Kimbriuna Dyer

After reading chapter 5 in “Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop”, I have decided that my reflection paper would be on the impact of Afrika Bambaataa on Hip Hop and his goal of pulling kids away from the gang violence that he was familiar with by using Hip Hop. I feel that Bambaataa’s belief in using Hip Hop as a way to save lives is an extremely valiant way to use Hip Hop. My question is why isn’t that done as much anymore? In my opinion, rappers could learn from Afrika Bambaataa and attempt to use their music as a way of pulling these young people out of a life of violence and drug dealing. In hip hop’s defense, you do have rappers that will speak on behalf of saving lives but for every rapper you hear badmouthing the gang life, you have another set of rappers that are supporting the lifestyle.  When I write these essays, it always seems to me that I’m bashing Hip Hop when I really do love a lot of it. I started listening to Hip Hop a little later than most people my age because my mother felt just as I feel about most Hip Hop music today. That it is supporting a lifestyle that I’d rather not hear about but even though I am primarily an R&B lover, I do love Hip Hop because it is music that tells a story but sometimes I just don’t like the stories that are told through their music.

I feel that it would be in the benefit of rappers today to adopted Bambaataa’s views in regards to helping to save lives instead of bragging about destroying them. It should take an instance of being made to go to jail then using your community service to save lives like T.I. for a stand to be made against violence. These rappers have a great opportunity to be a voice of reason and Afrika Bambaataa realized that. He used his voice to make young kids realize that following the gang life was only going to land them in jail or killed and he taught them that they could devote their time to other things that could help them be successful in life. I know a lot of rappers have charities and non-profits that are targeted to helping kids in situations related to gang violence but if the music is still using those images of violence to sell records then having the charities and non-profits almost seem redundant. More Hip Hop should have more messages of hope rather than messages of getting money by selling drugs. It should have more songs about coming from the hood but being able to break away from all the negativity that comes from being in that environment rather than songs that support violence. Maybe if we had more songs of the positive then maybe we wouldn’t always have to fight for this music that we love from people who don’t want to understand it because they feel it all condones violence. Maybe if we made that change it would be easier to change some people’s minds about true Hip Hop.