Has Hiphop done more to harm the Black community than good?

Hip-hop lovers can never be convinced that their music is more often than not, bunk. People who were just born in 1990 trying to tell you what it was like before hip-hop like they were there. "There was always crime" WTF do you know? It is to laugh. I have never seen so many people defend shit music in my life. You'd think you insulted their mothers or some shit.

A couple of bad-ass tracks sneak out once every couple of years but hip-hop and the lifestyle it represents has done more harm than good IMO, if it took Obama to show black people that anything is possible that right there tells you how far we've sunk.

Rebuttal from the Hip-Hop Defense League in 5...4..3..2..

 

They said, exactly, the same thing about jazz.

It's hard to take someone who dislikes a genre of music seriously when they say that music has had a negative impact. Heck, it's hard to take anyone seriously when they blame music for social ills.

It sounds like the people who blamed Marilyn Manson for Columbine.

 

So, did Lil Wayne stop being harmful when he made a rock album?

 

He's awful no matter what the genre...LOL

 

I would agree that rap now is not as good as it was when I was age 10, or age 7 for that matter. I give rappers their due because many of them are far more proactive about their finances than many of the famous singers of the past. Even if they don't sound great, they will find a way to maximize their earnings (most of them, especially the southern ones) and not get robbed blind the way more talented artists have.

I will also say however that it is easy to suffer from OLD TIMER'S SYNDROME. I'm sure that my great-great grandfather thought jazz was boo-boo. And my great-grandfather probably thought doo-wop and rock and roll was crap. My grandparents probably could not stand "soul music" and all that Temptations, Marvin Gaye, Commodores nonsense...and I know for a fact my mom spent most of the late 70's and the 1980's trying to figure out who in the hell was Kool Herc, Run DMC and Kurtis Blow. To paraphrase my 54-year old mother..."We were trying to figure out what all that stuff was. You mean they aren't singing? What kind of music is that?" I'm not particularly fond of most of the rap that comes out now but I grew up with music that rapped about the 'hood and rising up from poverty. By the time I got to middle school it was all about bling...though that transition started even before then....hip-hop will change again...either that or another form of music will evolve from it.

 

Please jazz was an intellectual response to American racial oppression, black men destroying their enemies with intellect and coolness, a coolness and musicality that people are still trying to decipher to this day. Rap is hardly that.

 

Wait until your great grandkids get a listen to it, flipping the stations away from whatever crap they're being fed by the music producers of the day. They'll hear only the best of it, study all the nuances, and call it great. And, compared to the popular music of their day, they'll be right.

If you boil all of rap down to the 100 best pieces, picked by music professors, it'd sound pretty damned good, even to people like yourself who don't care for it.



edit: of course, rap is certainly that, depending upon what you listen to. Your post made me think of Kanye West's "Spaceship." Not the same thing, but a beautiful thing, all the same.

 

Welcome to the No-Lil-Wayne-Fans club.

 

Back in the 1980s, Hip Hop might have been a much better influence. But today, I see nothing good or constructive coming out of it. I don't even listen to the Hip Hop stations on radio when I'm driving (I'm about 27).

When you listen to songs such as The Stankey Leg, you lose all hope for the future. I hate that song with a passion.

 

Call me in 2060.

 

I remember listening to "Beat that Bitch With a Bat" and "Heeeeeyyyy, We Want Some Puuuussssaaay" in the 1980's.

I hate Stankey Leg too. But there's crap in every year, every decade, every generation.

There's good out there that's new. We've got Lupe Fiasco, Talib Kwel, Mos Def, Kanye West, Common, OutKast, MIA... there's a lot more. There's a lot of really good Hip Hop out there that is intelligent, good, constructive, quality music.

 

Oh no. Not the Stankey Leg. I was talking to my friend's friend last week, and she mentioned the song, and I was clueless. I asked her if that seriously was a song.

 

Here's what I think

Rap has its pros and it cons.
Chuck D once said Rap is synonymous with Black. Which is true. So all the positives and negatives of rap fall on the shoulder of Black people.

When you see a black man, in baggy blue jeans, Timberland boots and a wifebeater, the first thing that comes to mind is he is a gangsta, a rapper.
(But the pro of this situation is that some white women like the many that populate this website, get wet between the legs.)

But that isn't always the case. He could be into jazz music but just likes dressing that way. What rap has given Black people is a label. A label that easily stereotypes a black man. But this country is full of stereotypes for every type of person there is. Racism is the American way, and bad habits are hard to break.

Rap has its pro and cons, so does any other genre of music. I like rap, I do. But to me its too popular. No artist in rap is creative anymore. Is it doing harm to the Black community? No. Rap is music, nothing more. I can't recall a person in history listening to rap music and going out and shooting up a liquor store.

Rappers rap about what they rap about to sell records. Gangsta rap sells records. Records make money. The money goes to the record label which are owned by white people.
If gangsta rap didn't sell, rappers would rap about something else. If the new style of rap was polka dancing, you would see young kids of all colors walking around in liederhosen (not gonna try and spell that word correctly) looking like a german tourist. A rapper's number one priority is to sell records. And they would do anything to do it.

 

Classic thread.

We need more of these......

 

Agreed. The horny-every-post stuff is getting old. This was a good discussion.

 

Yep I'm sick of seeing tits and ass threads.

 

Great post. And Chuck spoke the truth, as I would expect.

 

I believe, at the end of the day when you think about it, has the hip hop community done more harm then good? Overall I would say yeah..

 

lyrics

" who writes the fuckin lyrics record execs or thugs with tecs ? grand master d catchin rec mic check one two

 

i think main steam hip hop has done more harm then good, but i dont think i can generalize all of it