How Is Hip-Hop Is Good For Society?

In this essay, I will be discussing how Hip-Hop still has a positive message behind it. One way the emcees do this is by criticising the reel. I will explain what this is in the next paragraph

The reel is used in many Hip-Hop lyrics throughout the world. Hip-Hop used to be about social issues such as police brutality and other impacts that has to do with their life, but now it’s more or less to do with violent acts, getting a heap loads of money from illegal activities such as drug dealing and so on. The first Hip-Hop commercial emcee was the Sugar-hill gang, of which the song was called Rappers Delight. Hip-Hop used to be about social issues such as police brutality and other impacts that has to do with their life, but now it’s more or less to do with violent acts, getting a heap loads of money from illegal activities such as drug dealing and so on.  The reel was used mainly because of the marketing to white suburb. They didn’t want to hear music that criticises the police and their government, therefore when people rapped about the black community, and matters that doesn’t involve them. (Such as violence and drug dealing) The white suburbia didn’t seem to mind and just enjoyed listening to the music.  Going back to the point of why the white suburbia started to listen to hip-hop after the reel was created was because of the hyper-violent lyrics within the music. because of the fact about how Hip-Hop now have these type of lyrics within their songs, many people start to think that acting in the way of the song tells you to seems to be ‘right’

This emcee by the name of Akala is a good way to prove to you all that Hip-Hop is good for society. The reason why I’m choosing Akala as one of my points, is because of his freestyle in SBTV. His freestyle consisted on many socially conscious topics. He was talking about why do people basically not care about education, yet in countries like Brazil children are getting shot at and getting held of high calibre weapons such as 5.56 M16. “Next to kids holding hand grenades and M16s, When you come back to London it ain’t serious” The word serious suggests that London isn’t as bad as other countries who suffer much more than we do. This quote identifies when he states how children hold hand grenades and high powered weapons in general. Whilst children are complaining about education and making a waste of their life when they could be doing something much better to what they think is great. He also explains how people enjoy listening to black people getting shot, and how they enjoy the black community being affected by violence, being talked about badly in music videos and being involved in the life of crime. This goes back to MK Asante’s vision of the reel, about how people are getting lead into a world which is made by Hip-Hop artists that talk about these type of subjects.  yet if rappers talk about white people being shot in the streets, and being involved in crime then less people would enjoy listening to the music. “Black rappers claiming they clap a black in the face, Talked about killing white people as much, would he still get embraced?” Akala says this by using the form of rhetorical question, to make people think about what he means in a way that doesn’t need a verbal response, just a thought. This is why i think Akala is a good source to prove why hip-hop is good for society.

This emcee by the name of Kendrick Lamar is also a good way to prove to you all that Hip-Hop is good for society. The reason why I’m choosing Kendrick Lamar as one of my other points, is because of his rap song called ‘The Blacker The Berry.’ His rap consisted of socially conscious topics as well as most of the emcees I will be talking about in this whole essay. One of his lines are ‘The blacker the berry, the bigger the juice’ Of which he repeats this line three times so that people understand this line and also so that it stands out more to people. This line means that the blacker people are, the sweeter and nicer they are. Yet, the forth line reverses that situation into reality, as he says “The blacker the berry, the bigger I shoot.” This line means that even though black people are good, people think of them as criminals and police within some parts of america suspect them of having illegal items on them, and treat them as bad people. Another line that stands out to me is his first opening line, “I’m the biggest hypocrite of 2015” The reason why this line stands out to me a lot is because it means that people complain about violence, police brutality and so on, yet they do almost the exact same to their own community, so they are being a hypocrite in that way. If we want to try and change things around, Kendrick is stating that we should try and help the situation our-self. This is why I think Kendrick Lamar is a good source to prove why hip-hop is good for society.

This emcee by the name of Mick Jenkins is also another good way top prove to you all that Hip-Hop is good for society. The reason why I’m choosing Mick Jenkins as one of my other points to prove why Hip-Hop is good for society, is because of this rap song called ‘Martyrs.’ His rap consisted of in depth details of what people may not be thinking about. His hook in his rap is meant to be said in a way that people think about is used a lot in most Hip-Hop/Rap music videos. “I’m a get all this money, I’m a buy all this shit, I’m a fuck so many hoes, Nigga I’m a fuck yo bitch” Of which he repeats this twice to get his message across. The reason why he says this, is to implement a message that people don’t understand what they are actually doing to themselves in a way of killing themselves, making people want to kill them and having a very high risk of going to jail, also, when he is saying this part he is wearing a noose around his neck to implement a way that people nowadays are killing themselves in a way that people used to be killed in the 1800’s during the slave trade. He also implements this in the other part when he says “I’m just with my niggas hanging, Hanging, I’m just with my niggas hanging,
Hanging.” This is why I think Mick Jenkins is a good source to prove why hip-hop is good for society.

Finally, the reason why I’m showing you this and explaining to you why these emcees are positive influences towards Hip-Hop today, is because of their lyrics that is said. As many people don’t listen to lyrics, or just listen to the music not the words, I am trying to explain why listening to the lyrics is as important as listening to the music. After reading this whole essay about why Hip-Hop is good for society, I hope you change your concept of what Hip-Hop actually is.