Hip Hop’s Influence

It depends on your upbringing, your environment, your personal way of thinking. Music’s soul purpose is to inspire, motivate, and to help one get something out of the message that the artist is trying to convey.

Personally, I can’t help but laugh when looking at court cases where lawyers and parents of the accused or convicted blame the actions of their client on a song that a rap artist has recorded. If a songs content is something that takes place regularly in your neighborhood, then its not a surprise, its expected, considered to be far from abnormal. People who reside outside of the inner city often have a notion or belief that urban America is paradise. If this is so, then maybe it does have more of a negative influence to the listener. What may be exciting and adventurous to an outsider is something that those who live the graphic lifestyles try to escape.

One still has to have his or her own understanding. We as people still have to distinguish what’s correct and incorrect to do in our society. The musician’s job is to be creative when telling stories. The reason that the media has such a negative view on hip hop is simply because they don’t understand the value, the diction, nor have they grown up in poverty stricken neighborhoods. Ignorance. People are so quick to let what they don’t know defeat them. Instead of having an open mind and trying to see what its about, they immediately consider the music as being something harmful to the general public.

Society with the help from the media has a way of painting hip hop as a negative genre of music. They see it as being offensive, negative, and non beneficial. People have to understand that every tree has bad apples. Not everything that comes from this type of music is positive, I’ll agree.

Hip hop has been abused, raped, and neglected from its original and intended purpose. It started off as being positive with lyrics that were conscious and politically aware of events and things that affected those living in the inner city. Hip hop holds more weight than just being a genre of music. It’s a culture, trendsetter, and educator. People would rather listen to a hip hop record compared to reading the newspaper or watching the six o’clock news because true hip hop records deal with topics and subjects that are relevant to their lives.

This form of music gives hope. It lets you know that whatever harsh situations and deep circumstances one is going thru can be overcame because of the music that artists put out and the success they have achieved indicates how hard work pays off.

Hip hop is a language, a life, and a way of living for oppressed people. Artists have a special gift. When composing songs their intentions are to reach people who can relate to their lifestyle and past experiences.