On Tuesday, Rev. Al Sharpton's group, I forgot what the group was called, had a national rally in cities in Chicago, New York City, and Detroit about the misgonyist lyrics in hip hop music and want to eliminate the negative in the music. Since the Don Imus controversy, many people felt that like pointing the fingers at hip hop music or the corporations that are selling this type of music to the broader audiences 'cause certain hip hop artists have lyrics that disrespect black women or just women period, drug dealing, glorifying materialistic gain instead of uplifting people.
After the Imus situation, alot of hip hop artist like 50 Cent, Snoop Dogg, Nelly, and other were discussed as being apart of the problem in hip hop music 'cause of 2002 Nelly released a song called Tip Drill. The song and video was so misgonyistic that you didn't hear on radio unless it was late at night or saw the video unless you had BET UnCut 'cause the lyrics go...
"It must ya' ass 'cause it ain't yo' face"
You have other artist that have song that are similar messges that Nelly address about women and about other negatives, but I know, that when hip hop came into the scene it wasn't trying to be that way.
Hip Hop music was born out of the Bronx when alot of poor young black youth didn't have anything to call their own and they started to mix blues, soul, jazz, and r&b with a mix of poetry, and then came hip hop music. Hip hop music spoke to their souls of youth that felt if they could break dance, MC, scratch, and draw graffiti would be famous but now hip hop is multi-billion dollar business and one of the leading musical genres in the world, everybody know something about hip hop in one form or another and also it has made alot of young black, Latin, and Asian people rich.
But now, I feel that hip hop music has lost the spark that it once had on people. I feel that some artist lack creativity and overall what hip hop really means 'cause they just want to get paid.
I remember when I first got into hip hop music, I was 6 year old and I thought MC Hammer was the coolest, and then I got into Digital Underground 'cause I like doing the humpy-hump dance and soon I feel in love with hip hop through Tupac Shakur. I feel, still do, that 2Pac was speaking to me about what went on around me and made me aware of my community whether it was songs like Brenda's Got A Baby or Keep Ya' Head Up or So Many Tears or Dear Mama, but also with songs like I Get Around and California Love and other. But after 2Pac, got into Common with I Used to Love H.E.R, Nas with Illmatic, Queen Latifah's U.N.I.T.Y., and Jay-Z with Can't Knock the Hustle, and it's so many artists that I love that are new like Lupe Fiasco, Kanye West, Talib Kweli, The Roots, Mos Def, TI, and Ludacris. Back then you had artistS that have the same type of music that goes on today, but also there were artists that had a message like Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five talking about how hard it is to live in the ghetto, and KRS-One talking about ending black on black violence, NWA talking about police brutality. Now, rarely do I hear that. Now, hip hop music has come to snap ya' fingers, selling cocaine, what type of car I drive, or house I live in, or how much diamonds I wear around my neck, and the artists that talk about loving our follow man or woman get lost in the stupidity of mindless hip hop music, and it is so bad that I don't want to listen to the radio. It is sad where I would listen to the radio stations in Northwest Indiana/Chicago area radio station, I would hear artist like T-Pain or Akon or 50 Cent, but I didn't hear songs from local artist like Lupe Fiasco or Common, they are from Chicago unless they did a song by Kanye West, and that is so sad.
I feel that the critics on hip hop music thinks that hip hop is women shaking their butts and like being called bitches and hoes. Black people like calling each other nigga, but hip hop music is more than that until these artists understand that, the critics are going to eliminate hip hop music.
