Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Assignment 8, Part 2

Passage: 
"However, just as other music forms are not homogeneous , neither is rap music. It is far too simplistic to portray rap artists as perpetrators of behavior deemed socially deviant without placing the artists and their life experiences in context" (176).


Richardson, Jeanita, and Kim Scott. "Rap Music and Its Violent Progeny: America's Culture of Violence in Context." The Journal of Negro Education, 71.3 (2002): 175-192.

Summarize:
There are many other forms of music besides rap that have examples of violence, sexual content, and other socially "unacceptable phrases".  People who dislike rap music and rap artists should learn more about the artist's lifestyle and the meaning behind lyrics before being quick to make conclusions.

Interpreting:
Richardson and Scott have a very legitimate point in this passage. After reading it, I immediately started forming my own opinion of rap being portrayed unfairly in the overall population. Country, rock, and other genres all contain explicit material, however, rap takes the majority of the negative stereotypical opinions, for whatever reason(s). People don't need to necessarily like rap music, but it shouldn't be criticized just based on lyrical content. Lyrics, especially in rap, many times have metaphorical and other meaningful phrases that won't be understood by the average person, unless the song is broken down and diagnosed deeper.

Analyze/ Critique:
I think this passage is the main point of the article and is backed up well throughout the article. Putting it toward the beginning was a good choice, in that it provided an overview of what is to come. It is easy to tell from the two sentences that the authors have a problem with the way that rap music is viewed in the general population. Numerous times I myself have heard people criticize rap, and usually their only reason is that it's lyrically bad or inappropriate. Ironically, those people have little understanding of rap and live in a completely different environment than many rap artists. I also wonder why many adults will instantly turn off a rap song when they hear one explicit comment or word, however if basically the same comment is said in say a country song it's all good. It seems as though many people categorize rap music into one large group and cannot appreciate the musical talent that goes into songs' lyrical composition.

1 comment:

  1. Tyler: Nice job! I think your analysis ultimately raises a larger question, which is (at least for me) how much context and assumptions play a role in how people respond to hip-hop/rap. I think you are right in saying that too many people are too quick to judge; and that your example does point out this fact. Why, then, would it not matter to us if country music has explicit lyrics, but rap does?

    Also, please pay close attention to the actual words of the quotation.

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