Stop the Blame Game!!!!:Hip Hop is Not the Blame for the Negatives in Society Today
Hip Hop is the music that I grew up listening to because my sisters were teenagers when hip hop really started to become mainstream. They would play LL Cool J’s “I need love” and Run DMC’s “Walk This Way” with Aerosmith really loud on their boomboxes. I thought this was so cool , I cant wait to get older and do the same. When I did get a little older maybe around 12 or a little younger ; The first actual song I remember hearing and loving was Jay Z’s “The City is Mine”. I just loved the beat and the lyrics , I always remember the way I felt every time I play that song now in my MP3 player. Then a little later as I got older Hip Hop started to evolve , I would say Tupac (with the help of many others before him) made this happen with his own style that was called “Gangsta Rap”. Now that there was another way to express the way the younger generation feels , people want to start to putting the blame on a genre of music for the way society is now. Which to me is sad to do that.
This blame game the media and others have started on hip hop needs to stop. The arguments of the “blamers” (as I like to call them) is on shaky grounds. Its as if they have never crack open a history book when they was in school. The negative side of society has been put on the blame on the poor since the beginning of the Industrial Age. When cities first started to bulit and the overcrowding started along side it. When that happened slums started to form and with that came the criminals sadly. Criminals and the crimes they committed have been around since the beginning. One of their arguments was that Hip Hop promote crime. How can you promote something that has always been there.
Another aspect of being poor is having to be dependent on the government. This is a way of life for some because of the language or eductional background an individual may have. There is no way that a genre of music can be possible made the blame for that as well. African Americans were slaves in this country and after they was emancipated , they didnt get that much help from the goverment to get them on the right track. People had to protest and fight to get to where we are now with civil rights. Those who were not of the majority , had to fight along side African Americans. Without the help where is a person to go.
Futhermore, To blame drop out rates because students are looking for the easy way to get rich , is ridiculous. To blame what kids see in videos , is unfounded. There has been many people before the starting of videos , that dropout because they wanted the easy way out. I bet when radio started many decades back there was the same problem. Hip is not the blame, public school systems are the reason for the dropout rates. No one or thing can be the cause of this , its schools that need more funding to educate and help students at risk are the blame. You cant expect a teacher to stay after school , if they cant get reimbursted for the time they have away from their families. There is no way to get the proper books needed if there is no extra money to buy these books.
In addition , Hip Hop videos are meant for fantasy. It’s sole purpose is to entertain and not help you with the decisions that you make for yourself or your child. If your child doesnt understand that what artist like 50 cents or LL Cool J do is for entertainment and not reality then its the parents fault. No one wants to say it but its true , you the parent , the adult are the ones who should tell a child that real life is not what you see on t.v. My mother was able to do that with me and she is just one person , so how come others cant do the same.
Hip Hop videos do not show the negative side of the world. They talk about love and everyday things that happen in their life or in anyone’s life. A good example of this is Lloyd Banks song “Smile” , when he talks about the ups and downs of his relationship with his long term girlfriend and the love they have. That was not negative but people want to admit that Hip Hop has a good side and its not all bad.
We can all agree that Hip Hop does need a few changes like how the women act in them. That we can agree upon and hopefully will change one day. I will the other side that one but to blame Hip Hop on the negatives of society with dropout ,welfare , incarceration rates going up is ludicrous(and I dont mean the rapper Ludacris). History books can prove that this has been the problem since the beginning of cities. Hip Hop is just being used as the excuse because its a trend that is not fading or will probably never fade.
