The Mass Communications Department

Abstract

Poetry is something that people use to express themselves without really saying who they are.  Many say that poetry is knowing things and creating a story that has various meaning behind it.  It is a connection on more of a deeper level because a person put them all into it mainly when performing it.  Before the hardcore raps came about the older generation had the people who shared things in a poetry matter.  For example, the 90’s had Lauryn Hill who shared poetry which is what people considered to be called rap.  Hill first love was the share of poetry she never felt more connected with the people.  The rap, on the other hand, gives you that life a person think is ok to live.   A rapper that has power by selling his music could create a violence in youths because they would want to be just like them.  Rap and poetry both tell a story.  They either could tell either truth or tell a fantasy lifestyle.  They are both ways a person could tell a story and express themselves rather it’s real or fake.  Poetry and rap both have messages to them it all falls on who the person is that’s relaying it to the people.  They both could have impacts on the world but one may be more negative than the other.  Poetry and rap is both the same thing but the way the people interpret it may be different because everyone has their own opinion about what poetry and rap may be.  Rapping has the advantage to easily influence the lives of kids.

INTRODUCTION

            Before the hardcore rap occurred we had the true and positive rappers who tried to sell you a dream of getting out the hood to create a better life.  There were the ones who turn poetry into a deeper story.  Poetry is also taking life events and turning it into a wonderful piece that could save the life of someone that’s hurting.  People who created life stories with life events are Biggie Smalls, Tupac, Lauryn Hill, Jill Scott, Ice Cube, and many more were the lucky people who took the positive seat in the hip-hop/poetry world.  “We can’t change the world unless we change ourselves (Biggie Smalls). As simple as that line is it has a lot of meaning behind it.  The world then was a difficult time because so many youths that are just like nowadays do not know what it’s like to be off the street.  “Do everything you can to make it around the system, over the system, or out the system” (Tupac).

One thing this world has is many youths that get arrested due to hanging with the wrong crowds.  Tupac was a man of truth and a man who spoke out just to let youth know that life is not always easy just keep a dream you will achieve greatness.  “This life is a process of learning” (Lauryn Hill).  Life is always teaching different things rather a person is learning them from the streets, school, or households they always seeking new knowledge.  “Ain’t nothing coming easy in this life. Sometimes you got to work got to grow and it gotta hurt….” (Jill Scott).   Life is hard to some people they just have to find out what a person wants and stick to it.   A living person with true feelings will sometimes have a toll because life may not be all that they want it to be.  “The worst thing you could do about a situation is nothing” (Ice Cube).   Seeing the troubles in the world many do nothing which is the saddest thing the world could do.  People are so quick to judge to the point where everyone just wants to follow and not be a leader.

“If you’re always trying to be normal you will never know how amazing you can be,” (Angelou).   She has always been known as the true icon in the world of poetry that save souls with just her voice alone, Maya Angelou.   She told the life of herself and her life was like many others because reading her anyone could relate to what she stated.  She spoke life unto many people. She gave people purpose.  Throughout her poems, she gave many deep things to people, which called for her to be proud. Margaret Walker Alexander, is a great poet who was a part of the African American liberty movement in Chicago her most popular poem, “For my People”, which won her the Yale scene of younger poets. Also her second book Jubilee, is a story about a slave and family after Civil War.  Poetry could be translated into a deeper level because it could be turned into a skit or a movie.   Listening to poetry it creates a thing of mixed emotions at the end of hearing it people do not know how to feel. Poetry is more of a soft spoken loosen language to the audience that gives them time to grasp and react off what a person is saying right then and there.  Paul Lawrence Dunbar became the first American poet to earn national distance and acceptance his poem “We wear the mask” refers to black people hiding their identity to follow the status quo.  He still has the power to influence upcoming poets till this day.  Before the hardcore raps came about the older generation had the people who shared things in a poetry matter.   Many may say they do not understand the lines of poetry it’s the same as rap but with a broader topic to drill people in.  Poetry, a person must have a clear mind to grasp the deeper level stories.

The world now is quickly changing because you have more hardcore rappers that are sending out the wrong messages to the world.  The new rappers are putting out negative content that causes the youth to think its ok to carry themselves in that matter. Youth in today’s society thinks its ok to carry a weapon, beat on girls, call them out there names, and etc.  Things are changing majorly in the lives of the youths because they are easy to corrupt.  Youths are so hypnotized by the flash, fame, and lyrics that some lose sight of themselves.  The life of today people is so quick to become a follower instead of becoming a leader.  They see kids their age group do it, so they want to do it also just to become popular or even fit in with others.
The songs that have created a new outlook unto the world are known by, J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar, and Wale.  They have changed the music that they created into something that would rather be positive to relay youth to do better and never change who they are.  They are the new faces who are poets and delivers real messages that will cause a person to think they are talking directly to the crowd.  The songs that have a true impact is “Crooked Smile” in the song he stated that people said, “He needed to fix his smile since he had money now” (J.Cole).   He wanted to show kids that they are still worthy and could still be something even with a crooked smiles.  “The sky is falling, the wind is blowing stand for something, or die in the morning” (K. Lamar).   He wanted the people to take a stand or the world will eventually suffocate you until you feel like you have nothing else to live for.  “Life without dreaming is a life without meaning” (Wale). He is simply stating that dreaming is what keeps life going without dreams you are living an useless life.  Rappers such as them have always been true role models for the kids who had doubts, no dreams, and struggled with who they are.  They are true icons for youths of today’s society.

LITERATURE REVIEW

As much as they lied it has been a mainstay in studies of the relationship between text and music, one important aspect of that relationship has been largely ignored: the ways in which composers respond to the sounds…music expresses the meaning of poetry, but they have remained largely indifferent due to consonants and vowels, its intentional shapes, its music (Robert Pinksy).  Begin by evaluating three common approaches to the analysis of art song, each of which neglects poetic sound to some degree…Propose an alternative approach, one designed to ensure that music and poetry are given its due (M.H Abrams).

Poetry was increasing more in 90s by a man named Robert Pinsky, he established the Favorite Poem Project, an initiative to create an audio and visual archive of Americans reading poems. Alone 18,000 people responded to the open call submissions since Pinsky and his team produced 50 short documentaries, with three anthologies to show the love of poetry and give people the opportunity to know what it is.

Analysts of German Lieder (and art song in general) have emphasized the diverse ways in music expresses the meaning of poetry, but they have remained largely indifferent to how music captures, and often enhances, poetry materiality (Rodger Stephen and Music Analysis). Rap music emerged as an aesthetic cultural expression of the urban youth in the late 1970s. It has been denoted as the poetry of the youth who are often disregarded as result of their race and class status. Since it first came on the music scene, rap has gone through a number of phases, and it has been used as medium to express a variety of ideas, feelings, and emotions.  Hope, love, fear, anger, frustration, pride, violence, and misogyny have all been through the medium of rap.  Terri M. Adams, and Douglas B. Fuller article examines the use of misogynistic in gangster rap and traces the connection between its prevalence ideology in  rap and larger cultural picture of how African American women have been characterized historically.

Lyricists that use misogyny get plenty of airtime on the radio, and their videos are often in heavy rotation on music video television stations (i.e., MTV and BET).

“Hip-Hop is dead” known as gangster rap and dumb-downed lyrics increasingly define mainstream hip-hop (Travis Gosa).  Hip-Hop revolution too often features young black boys posturing as wealthy thugs, celebrating black pathology, and pandering expensive consumer goods all over an infection beat.  Hip-Hop is discourse is predicated on the belief that hip-hop was destined to become the paradigm of youth resistance and social change in the post-Civil Right era.  As Chuck D’s “CNN of Black Folk,” hip-hop was supposed to illuminate the strife of inner-city poverty…Pounding beats and fierce lyrics were going to unite the global poor as one “Planet Rocks.”  However, in maybe the past few decades, hip-hop’s political ambitions may not be materialized.

Hip-hop these media also disseminate this culture to the larger society and serve as significant tools in socializing consumers to scripts of Black female sexuality.  Institutionalized sexism, that is, patriarchy formed the base of the American social structure along with racial imperialism.  Sexism was an integral part of social political order white colonizers brought with them from their European homelands (Adams, Fuller).   African American women have a generally negative impact on the development of their sexual selves in that they include limited, racially stereotyped and predominantly sexually-charged content….study serves to give voice to women reflected in and who are consumers of those media (Coleman 2013; Stephens and Phillips 2003).   Even though large numbers of women are victims of violence by husbands and lovers, the culture, especially this music, encourages men to beat up women, to control women, to dominate women.  People are taught that dominance is a man’s right. Some boys may not want dominate, but feel they ought to be, in order to measure up to the culture. And they have them use to help back them up.

Ironically, hip-hop began in New York City during the 1970’s as a way for black urban youth to criticize the social (Harmanci 2007; Payne and Gibson 2009).  The change also affected the demographics of those who consumed and participated in the creation of music….Importantly, lyrics shifted from being politically-changed to an emphasis on obtaining money and women (Jeffries 2014; Lena 2006; Payne and Gibson 2009).

Rap is more of a dangerous game to the world that we live in today.  The messages behind the songs are getting worse as the days go on.  Messages that are being put out today is talking to many random girls, shooting your haters, having sex, getting money, and etc.  Misogyny is gangster rap is the promotion, glamorization, humanization, justification, or normalization or oppression ideas about women….Misogyny is the hatred of distain of women. It is an ideology that reduces women to objects for men’s ownership, use, or abuse. It diminishes women to expendable beings. This ideology is widespread and common throughout society (Joan Smith 1991).

Youth are not really truly listening they are mainly reacting off the lives of the people they see on television which are the rappers with big chains, multiple cars, houses, and even hearing the background stories of how they became who they are.  Most of the rappers big breaks began by selling drugs or hanging around people who sold drugs. This happened so they could relay that sad message in their music to let youth know they started out rough and it’s ok if they do it too.

They create a false world for most young males on the way they are to see the world.  It is easy for black people to internalize to use such false definitions of themselves.  To the extent that an individual has internalized theses definitions, their mode of interaction with the opposite sex will be affected.  Males half the time do not even pay attention to the words they listen to the beat.  Rap sells more of hopes of a lifestyle rather than telling a message in today’s society.  In the world of society, people lose themselves in the words on the radio from the popular rapper.

Although the possible effects misogynistic music can have are numerous and questionable, but music is a powerful art form that has the potential to be influential, particularly when its support by a structural system. Hip-Hop has a negative impacts on the lives whom let it takes control of the mind.

Bibliography

Coleman, L. P. (2016). Hip-Hop Media. New York City: Nefertiti Clavon.

Gosa, T. (2008). Hip-Hip, Activism, and the Future of Hip-Hop. Popular Music Studies, 240-246.

Gosa, T. (2008). Hip-Hop, Activism, and the Future of Hip-Hop. Poplur Music Studies, 240-246.

Pinksy, R. (2015). Song and musi of Poetry. The fourth Dimsion of a Song, 103-54.

Terri M. Adams, D. B. (2006). Misogynistic Lyrics in Rap Music. Black Studies, 938-957.