I Am Hip-hop
Teens and the Hip Hop community
By Jessica “Jha” Yvette
Hip-Hop is one of the fastest growing music genres in the United States… its trend has made hip-hop explode everywhere. Many people seem to think it has an effect on teens. Hip-Hop comes from the streets using street slang incorporated into the music. Some Hip-Hop music is rebellious and frightens parents due to the explicit lyrics that it uses. But other hip hop is inspirational and tender. Then you have a style of hip hop that is hype and full of energy. Hip hop is the voice of the hood, and it’s all in how you listen to it. Music says everything we want to say in real life but dare not to and we relate to it. Alternatively, we have said those thing and we relate even more because finally someone else feels the same way we do.
.:read more:.Either way, music is made to help us express ourselves whether in anger, sadness, or happy times. Music expresses as well as entertains us. Hip-hop is music also and it does the same thing. However, when hip-hop says it, sometimes it’s misunderstood, the same as teens are most of the time. Parents are frightened that if their kids listen to this music it will promote violence, sex, and drugs. This, I can understand but on the other hand parents need to know that the vibe that teens get from Hip-Hop is just like the vibe our parents got from rock and roll, blues or any other music they listened to back in “their days”. Hip-Hop music has no color barrier so anybody can listen to the music. Hip-Hop has even reached magazine shelves attracting more teens to read about hip-hop magazines like The Source, Ozone, Jive, XXL plus so many more are all devoted to just Hip-Hop music. Teens are influenced by Hip-Hop, such as the way teens dress themselves wearing brand names like red monkey, Ecko,
Akademiks, Sean john, or Enyce, to represent the hip-hop culture; getting away from the preppy clothes for example, Abercrombie and Fitch.Hip-hop’s first millionaire entrepreneur who is chairperson and CEO of Rush Communications, was said to have stated that one reason rap is so popular is because of the resistance it has met. The more resistance there is and the more controversy there is the more people are going to want to buy it. The heated debates that took place in the late 1980's and early 1990's about censoring the lyrics of rap music only spawned sales. Russell goes on to say that kids like the fact that status quo does not condone the music and try to control it. It becomes a liberating experience for kids to rebel against the status quo. One of hip-hop’s most prolific and perhaps best chronicler was noted saying “New music of any generation is always scary to the parents.”
As a music lover
Music is not a statement of what or who you are but how you are
feeling or what you are trying to say. It’s an expression.
As a Hip Hop Lover
Hip-hop is an art that takes an artistic mind to understand and
appreciate it.
As a teenager
I understand there are negative sides to everything and I am mature
enough to choose NOT to embrace that side.
Hip-Hop has influenced a lot of teens and will continue to grow as the new generation of music the so-called “feels good music” that teens love to hear. Whether music negatively affects behavior has been and is being forever debated.
If messages of love, peace, anti-racism, and human uplift are restored among the hip hop population, it can have an enormous impact on ethnic relations in todays society. The “Beat Culture of the 1950s and 1960s…it is said to have spoken of love yet challenged the status quo in ways that did not compromise their rebellious spirit. In the same mind, it is possible for the hip hop culture to keep its rebellious street flavor and speak about issues such as love and respect for all.
Everyone who knows hip hop is familiar with the late rap artist by the name of Tupac Shakur. The artist is apart of the few that have rapped about such compassionate issues without losing the rugged flavor of the streets. He has a song, “I Wonder If Heaven's Got A Ghetto,” In that he sings,
"I see no changes, all I see is racist faces misplaced hate makes disgrace the racist...I wonder what it takes to make this one better place...take the evil out the people (then) they'll be acting right cause both black and white are smoking crack tonight and the only time we deal is when we kill each other, it takes skill to be real, time to heal each other...."
Millions of hip hoppers all over the world have heard these lyrics. If more artists concentrated on positive messages such as this, the impact could be revolutionary.
Unlike any other subculture in American history, the hip-hop culture has crossed ethnic boundaries. Because of its wide audience, it has the greatest opportunity to build ethnic bridges and mend ethnic relations. Hip hop has taken hold of many regions of the world. The clothing, music, and everything. Hip hop is the same in New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Milan, Tokyo and everywhere hip hop lives. This culture has the potential to make it cool not to commit hate crimes, not to discriminate, and not to be racist.
I believe that it is possible for rap artists today to empower America and the world's youth like early rappers and the foundation layers did. I believe that today’s hip hop music is not as rebellious as the late 1980's and early 1990's music was. Hip Hop is making a change by revolving back to the aspects of early hip hop with a modern twist. Hip Hop is NOT dead and not so much a NEGATIVE affect on teens.
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