Summary Of The Film 'Beyond Beats And Rhymes'

In the essay, “Rerouting Rap Music,” Nick Vinci focuses on the issues of censoring rap music and the common stereotypes of the genre. He states how the media and older generations criticize rappers due to their music displaying violence, drugs, and ignorance, which is why rap censorship is encouraged. Nick attempts to contradict the claims by revealing the social, political, and economic messages rappers send to listeners. Nick uses interesting sources, facts, and comments to support his topic, however, there are a few concerning errors in his essay.

In this paper, I will synthesize Imani Perry’s “Introduction” to Prophets of the Hood and Eithne Quinn’s “Alwayz Into Somethin’” to argue that hip-hop includes violent content because the reunion of Black culture led to open discourse that allows rappers to critique the violence within their communities as a product of the post-Fordism era and aspects of survival culture and that the white mainstream media misinterpret. In the “Introduction” chapter of the book Prophets of the Hood, Imani Perry addresses that the white mainstream media categorizes things in a black-and-white manner, leaving no room for nuance. Perry exemplifies this by writing, “[white mainstream media] does not foster debate when it comes to hip-hop, but rather encourages censorship of ideological diversity through condemnation or praise” (6). Perry implies that white mainstream media's discomfort with the nuance presented within rap causes unfair categorization and analysis of the genre; the media chooses to erase it, minimizing it as an art form and mode of generating meaning and critique.

Hip hop has a message that reveals the social inequalities of our nations. In addition, McBride wants people to keep an open mind about hip hop and new thing that they may not be used to. In conclusion, he declares hip

In black media today the hip hop culture is often referred to when defining what it means to be a black person in society. In particular the hip hop culture is where many young black men pull both positive and negative aspect of black masculinity. Many mainstream hip hop songs often create a common misogyny by objectifying and stereotyping women. An example of this can be heard in the song Nasty Girl by The Notorious B.I.G. where he states, “Conversate.

Rap music has been controversial and in the forefront of the american media now and in the 90’s. Without the frame of its social context and history rap music can not be understood. Numerous media groups, politicians, and general society are quick to place blame on rap for the growing trend in youth violence. “Keep in mind when brothas start flexing the verbal skillz, it always reflects what's going on politically, socially, and economically”-- Musician Davey D. In the 1990’s music defined the era of rap music socially ,politically, and historically.

Hip Hop was the wildfire that started in the South Bronx and whose flames leapt up around the world crying out for change. James McBride’s Hip Hop Planet focuses on his personal interactions with the development of Hip Hop culture and his changing interpretations of the world wide movement. Many of his encounters and mentions in the text concern young black males and his writing follows an evolution in the representation of this specific social group. He initially portrays them as arrogant, poor, and uneducated but eventually develops their image to include the positive effects of their culture in an attempt to negate their historical misrepresentation.

In her essay “hip hop’s betrayal of black women,” Jennifer McLune implies that “(h)ip-hop owes its success to the ideology of women-hating” (193). She does not agree with Kevin Powell’s article that hip-hop does not mean to “offend” black women, but instead artists are only letting out their temper throughout their music. McLune feels infuriated that many artists in hip hop (including black men) rap about their community and downgrade their own women. In the hip-hop genre, sexism is mainly used, not only by black men but also by many other race hip-hop artists. Artists assume that women-hating in their rap songs will be accepted by women, but do not realize that it is affecting all women.

Hip Hop is seen as something inspiring, but most people see it as a way to speak out the truth about a problem. As in “Hip Hop planet” being able say the truth can sometimes worsen any situation because sometimes what we say can promote violence and whatever happens after is not in our control. The essay is about how hip hop has changed into speaking out the issues that need to be taken care of in order to maintain a proper society. McBride talked about how rappers use violent lyrics to degrade women and gays and because of this it shows how the music has evolved into something entirely different that no one would have ever expected to have changed. In James McBride's essay “Hip Hop Planet,” he argues that hip hop has a negative influence on American Culture despite people thinking of it as inspirational and how people live through different experiences in life despite of your race.

The block parties, graffiti art, rapping, disc jockeying and diverse forms of dancing built Hip Hop by the black youth. They expressed their feelings, thoughts, but most importantly the problems they had to face, which were related to their race, gender and social positions. The rights that were given to black people during and after the Civil Rights Movement left the following generations at a lack of how to continue the fight for black rights. Hip Hop gave them this platform and with the usage of black nationalism, Hip Hop can explore the challenges that confront American-Americans in the post-Civil Rights Movement era. In the 1990’s Hip Hop lived its prime, sub genres started to appear and famous groups, MCs led the whole community, providing a voice to a group of people trying to deliver their message.

“Large business” (Spotlight 13), utilize “hip-hop artists as” (Spotlight14) spokesmen to gain attention. Many believe that by doing this companies are “purposefully --promoting negative values” (Spotlight15). Yet to say that all rappers promote negative values is completely bias, because as we have previously established not all rappers rap about negativity. “No connection is found between antisocial behavior in young people and controversial genres of music such as ‘gangster music’”

Hip-hop songs promote violent behavior and some of them drugs. And They used degrading lyrics towards women. An example of hip-hop songs promoting violence and bad behavior is this song: "You heard of us, official Queensbridge murderers. The mobb comes equipped for warfare beware.

Although you might hear the party-like beats and vulgar words, in these songs he proves that he is not the same as your “everyday rapper.” All of his raps do not glorify drugs, money, and women. Instead he uses a more personal and honest foundation for his works, with songs like “Keep it Real” and “Don’t Wanna Fall in Love” and “The Force.” Although if you were to pick apart his songs you

¨If Hip Hop has the ability to corrupt minds, it also has the ability to uplift them.¨ Hip hop music, also called rap music, is a music genre developed in the United States by African Americans consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted. Mainstream hip hop culture is also filled with misogyny and negative images of women. These artists are unaware that sexism has been forced onto them through the brainwashing from the media, which is controlled by a patriarchal society. Conversely, feminism is the belief that both genders should have equal power.

Brent Staples, an author, wrote an article called “How Hip-Hop lost its way and betrayed its fans,” (2005) was originally published on the New York Times. Brent argues how rap artists were betrayed by their song lyrics with dealing violence and drugs. Brent supports his explanation by arguing that there’s dangerous myths about race that is targeting African American Teenagers are beset on all sides. To prove this, “People who pay only minimal attention to the rap world may have thought the killings would sober up the rap community.” This means that rap artist have been mentioning a lot of violence in their rap songs which gained of attention to the community.

The Hip hop industry consists of mostly African American musicians. Since blacks are often alienated in society, their music seems to be too. People often give rappers negative labels such as “gangster” or “thug”, which are discriminatory words that people have often used to describe African Americans in the media. There is an everlasting double standard in music. as people bash rap music for being sexist and violent, other genres of music such as country or alternative have the same themes, but they’re vulgar lyrics go