Politics, Gender, and Media in hip-hop

by Jasmine Bradburn
University of Memphis Student

This week’s lesson touched on instances where politics, gender, and media may have had an influence on hip-hop. Some of the discussion videos that were presented to the class this week had to do with some of the people in the hip-hop world and their personal views on how hip-hop was related to the three factors that I mentioned above. Many believe that hip-hop is just about sounds and music, but hip-hop has a bigger meaning. These discussions pointed to meanings that were unclear to me at first, but after listening to them I gained a better understanding of some things. I was interested in hearing what the professors and artists had to say about this topic.
The lecture about hip-hop politics showed me that even though some artist rap or sing about materialistic things, sex, and violence, doesn’t mean that they live the lives that they sing or rap about. I believe that most artists are only trying to fit in with the trends that are constantly changing in the world. These artists do not live exactly how they talk about most of the time. The lectures were great and I believe that the professors and artists did a wonderful job of explaining how they think hip-hop revolves around politics. In my opinion I think that hip-hop formed because of politics in a way because if you think about it, people started making songs about the depression and struggles of their neighborhood or city. It was the actions of citizens and even leaders who sparked problems that artists were singing and rapping about. Politics will always remain a huge part of hip-hop and the people in the lectures just made it clearer that politics will never go away when it comes to this topic. Social responsibility was also mentioned within the discussion and I believe that everyone should be accountable for what they do and say. Some people believe that just because one is wealthy they will not be held accountable for their words and actions, but that changed as hip-hop evolved.
Also, the article about black masculinity made me actually sit down and think about how the “black man” is always preconceived as a bad person in most cases. The significance of this article is the clarification that was made that the black man can have ideas and that race should not play a role in the act of hip-hop. A video was also analyzed from a professional point of view. Rapper 50 cent’s video, “Straight to the bank” was discussed and it showed the typical form of how black males are represented. There were lots of material things like flashy cars and expensive clothes and cigars in the video. The majority of rappers do have similar videos, but it does not mean that they all act this way in real life. The article made me further realize that people should not place the blame on any targeted race about how hip-hop has changed because rappers of all races have similar videos and songs. It really bothers me that people have so many negative things to say about hip-hop, but that is where learning the history comes about. People should understand that before the making of hip-hop the world had struggles and after the making of hip-hop the world still has some of those struggles and maybe more. I really enjoyed this week’s lesson and I encouraged some of my friends to listen and read some of the materials that went with the lesson so that they could learn a little something about hip-hop that they did not know. I was thinking about how I would like to meet some of the world-known artists, professors, or even authors that know about the original movement of hip-hop so that I can gain some knowledge from them. I think that would be a perfect opportunity to ask questions about the original movement.