Change in Hip Hop Lyrics Reflecting Violence and Sexual Promiscuity - Term Paper Example

The modern lyrics reflect the violence and sexual promiscuity that inspires and reaches out to a new audience.

Hip Hop originated from African-Americans in the 1970s from blues, jazz, souls, and freedom slavery songs as an expression of artistic culture through music. Hip Hop means ‘swag’ with a ‘Hip’ rhythm to the beat (Tawa 164). Hip-hop is based on four pillars namely DJing, Mcling, graffiti writing, breaking, and beatboxing. Hip Hop comes with a clothing style that has a form of swag to it. The first Hip Hop group was called Run DMC, Snoop Dog, Dr. Dre, Ice-T, and Missy Eliot (Palmer 1823). The Words from songs impacted generations in a great way.

The Beginning of Hip Hop in the 1970s was a movement in the African American culture, growing the black community together to make an upcoming rise for the future (Sullivan 41). The singers were inspired by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and Martin King Jr. to start a campaign to sensitize people about their voting rights and desegregation. The music was calm and preached about freedom. The message in Hip Hop music rhymed with religious preaching of peaceful coexistence and encouraged people to live in harmony (Sullivan 198). Singers like Odetta and Bob Dylan played a significant role in promoting peace and cohesion among Black Americans.  The artists started combining music with politics to attain liberty as a shield against harassment and help them cross color lines. Hip-hop music became a mechanism to throw off the white’s classical culture and became a showcase for the melodic roots of the Africans and influenced the music of the American south (Palmer 1834). The performance of jazz music reflected African culture in all aspects as it proclaimed African Identity in all features.  It was associated with the culture of “painting and poetry” and was incorporated into the study of religion and philosophy (Sullivan 167). The music was separated from Western religious practices and developed a close link with Islam. Many people perceived hip-hop as an antiwar and true liberation of all people. Many artists formed a collaboration to propagate consciousness for the black movement in an endeavor to promote equality. Early hip-hop “helped to reduce inner-city gang violence by replacing physical violence with hip-hop battles of dance and artwork” (Moore 391).

Hip Hop has degenerated into many other types of styles. The new era of Jazz music that emerged in the 1990s was characterized by “unorthodox rhythms easily fit with the stirrings of pride and power bubbling beneath the surface of the fight for civil rights” (Chang 236). It has been used in response to social and political changes in society such as social injustices. For example, in South Africa Kwaito was used in the post-apartheid period as a voice for the unspoken (Sullivan 186). However, Kwaito was later used for political motives to express the personal views of the artists and help their establishment.

Hip Hop has officially taken a road toward violence, drugs, and sexual promiscuity. Commercial and crime-related rap emerged resulting in violence and many rappers would boast about drugs, violence, weapons, and misogyny such as victimization and exploitation of women (Palmer 925). The new era dispensation of hip-hop lost social and political charisma and hip-hop artists have engaged in cutthroat antagonism of verbal skills, conflicts, activism, and social issues without any effort to bring people together. Modern hip-hop artists are more skewed on images instead of delivering substance to the people (Chang 364). That has led to stereotyping cultures and the reproduction of gangster styles among modern artists.

In conclusion, Hip hop has changed its original course of promoting peace and unity among the less fortunate both politically and socially to encouraging crimes, pride, violence, and rivalry in society. Whereas the early hip-hop artists worked as a team to represent society, the modern artists are in competition and have commercialized hip hop thus disintegrating society with various fashions and styles. Hip-hop no longer reflects the actual occurrences the society, but they are paid by business organizations to market those organizations among the people. It is promoting violence in society.