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Impact of music
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In today’s society, there are a lot of songs and performances that speak out about injustice, human and social rights but the one that stands out the most right now is a song entitled “The Blacker the Berry” by Kendrick Lamar. Seeing that this song will be mostly heard by the younger generation it sends a message to them. That message contains three things powerful statement. The first thing is the color of a person’s skin, how others races perceive black people and how it makes a black person feel. This paper will discuss those three topics and give a background on why Kendrick Lamar might feel this way. Why would Kendrick Lamar write a song like this? To understand this question a person could take a look at where Kendrick Lamar begins his career. Kendrick Lamar is from Compton, California. Kendrick is a songwriter and rapper, he started his career at the age of 16 years old. Kendrick stage name was K-¬Dot when he first started rapping. In 2003, Kendrick released his first mixtape. Since Kendrick was eight years old his idols …show more content…
Kendrick Lamar performance showed a lot of injustice, human and social right. Kendrick Lamar started his performance off with the blacker the berry. Kendrick Lamar walked off the stage with handcuffs and chains like he is in jail. Kendrick Lamar showed the world how he feels about African Americans are still treat unfairly. The performance was very powerful because Kendrick Lamar performed in handcuffs and chains to show that’s how African American are still being treated like a slave. Another thing is Kendrick Lamar is showing to the world that all the violence Between African American and police officer is still happening and it need to stop. Kendrick Lamar is a person who wants this stuff to be heard and he wants changes to be made, this is why Simpkins 4 Kendrick Lamar did the performance at the Grammy’s because thousands of people watch the
In one of the chapters, ‘Where Did Our Love Go?’ the author reveals how blacks in America use the music to express their anger and commitment to emerge as great people in an unfair community. Most songs are written to educate the society on the negative effects of racism. They encourage the society to love one another and embrace unity. The human nature is founded through a social platform where philosophers claim that people were created to love one another and live with peace and unity. Through this book, it is clear that the blacks in the hip-hop generation are money minded. However, this is expected in a world where the economy is tough. The author claims that the youth are the people who are majorly affected by racism. Many of them have been arrested for pity mistakes which are magnified in the courts due to the impression that the society has on the black people. They engage in dirty activities like drug dealings that that put them on the wrong side of the
“You take a record and use it to empower yourself” having growing-up in the Westside of Chicago in a neighborhood fill with violence, Lupe make a lot of records that show listeners that even with the odds against him that he use his struggle to better himself.
The human race is an incredible group that expresses their feelings in numerous ways! Singers and rappers express their feelings through song; poets express their feelings through their poetry, and artist express their feelings through their art. Dwayne Michael Carter, Jr., better known by his stage name Lil Wayne, is a 33-year-old American hip hop recording artist from New Orleans, Louisiana, he produced a political and controversial rap song entitled “Georgia …Bush” An incredible seven and a half minutes of music as a tribute to New Orleans, and to criticize the way president George bush handled hurricane Katrina, the war in Iraq, and the way he was governing the country. The setting for this song takes place in New Orleans; right after Hurricane, Katrina destroyed most of the city. The music video featured a large pool of water, destroyed communities, as well as human remains. This song was a massive controversy. Did Lil Wayne go too far when he published this song? Did he let his feeling get the best of him?
The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (2011) is a 1 hour and 40 minute documentary that observes the black power movement in American history. This film is directed by Swedish director Goran Hugo Olson and has detailed footage that was shot during the 1960s and 1970s by Swedish journalists. The footage largely focuses on the black power movements. The film allows viewers to not only grasp a better understanding of this movement but allows us to understand why this movement appealed to Swedish journalists. The Black Power Mixtape: 1967-1975 includes vintage interviews with Stokely Carmichael, Bobby Seale, Angela Davis, Huey P. Newton, and other prominent leaders during the Black Power Movement. The documentary also contains contemporary audio interviews and commentaries from various entertainers, artists, activists, and scholars, including but not limited to: Harry Belafonte, Talib Kweli, Melvin Van Peebles, Erykah Badu, Abiodun Oyewele, and Questlove from The Roots.
It is no secret that there is a complicated history with race in America. The issue has been discussed by scholars such as Sterling Brown or W.E.B Dubois. Brown’s article, “Negro Characters as Seen by White Authors” outlines a variety of common stereotypes for black characters in American literature from the late nineteenth century through the early twentieth century. DuBois went a step further in his essay “Of Our Spiritual Strivings”, in which he outlined his theory of “double-consciousness”, a theory that has shown itself time and time again, especially in hip hop. Kanye’s West’s fifth studio album “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy”, takes listeners on a lyrical journey through common stereotypes and double-consciousness. For example,
Kid cudi trying to argue about how difficult things are growing up with being Oppressed and growing up being black. Songs are one way of expressing feelings and emotion, many artist do this constantly in their music. To some it is why they make music. There are endless signs and verses that hint at many things such as problems, politics, living in racist era’s also places. I chose to focus on one main rapper and his music only.
“Blacking Up” is an inspirational and eye opening film that looks at racial identity through hip hop and its culture. The film explores the tensions that surround white identification with the hip hop culture. Typical white people identify hip hop with responses that are uncharacteristic. They are termed as a “wigger” or “wannabe” who think they can become part of a strong culture. The film clearly identifies these people as those trying to connect with others who usually won’t accept them. I have watched this film before for my Hip Hop class in high class and was happy to watch it and learn more about the hip hop community.
One of Williams main topics of concerns is the wrong messages that “public airwaves” are sending to their listeners and followers. Williams claims rap and other medias are representing and sending the wrong message about African American communities. She mentions that rap music once held a positive message but now rap music is bombarding the public with the use of profanity, violence, and obscenity throughout their lyrics and music
Kendrick Lamar’s critically acclaimed album To Pimp a Butterfly finally achieved the attention it deserved when it won the Grammy for “Album of the Year”. The album reflects on the struggles that both Lamar faces as a black artist and to the struggles of social injustice that all people of color face today. Although the provocative album cover (a group of young black men sitting on top of a dead white judge) depicts a powerful feeling of anger that is prevalent and connects it to an important justice issue, there is no better example of what Lamar’s argument is throughout the album than in the song “Alright.” Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright” provides hope to the people fighting for social justice with his personal experiences, examples of racial
To Pimp a Butterfly is Kendrick Lamar's latest album release. A new style that Kendrick has never done before. Featuring 16 new songs such as "King Kunta", "Alright" and several other songs that quickly become some of his top hits. The album also featured other artist such as Bilal, Snoop Dog, and Rapsody. But before I go on about "To Pimp a Butterfly" I'll give some background on the artist Kendrick Lamar.
African-American music is a vibrant art form that describes the difficult lives of African American people. This can be proven by examining slave music, which shows its listeners how the slaves felt when they were working, and gives us insight into the problems of slavery; the blues, which expresses the significant connection with American history, discusses what the American spirit looks like and teaches a great deal from the stories it tells; and hip-hop, which started on the streets and includes topics such as misogyny, sex, and black-on-black violence to reveal the reactions to the circumstances faced by modern African Americans.
Rap is about giving voice to a black community otherwise underrepresented, if not silent, in the mass media. It has always been and remains … directly connected to the streets from which it came. (144)
As Kendrick entered the stage shackled to his black comrades with a soulful saxophone playing in the background, it is obvious that the imagery of imprisonment was a commentary on incarceration in America and its similarities with slavery. By amplifying this modern twist on slavery, Kendrick provokes American viewers to reflect on the struggles that black Americans still go through today. At the start of his performance he goes on to rap “I’m African-American — I’m African” as if he was correcting himself. This isn’t surprising as black identity is hard to establish in a country that implicitly detests you, but explicitly fetishizes your culture. Stuart Hall discusses this in his text when he states, “’the primitive is a modern problem, a crisis in cultural identity’…the modernist construction of primitivism, the fetishistic recognition and disavowal of the primitive difference” (Hall 125). There is no wonder why Kendrick, like many African-Americans, finds comfort in placing his identity with the mother land rather than his true country of origin. How can the black multitude stand in solidarity with a country who will continuously praise black culture but refuse to recognize the black struggle? Kendrick Lamar then conjures imagery of Africa, where he danced and rapped in front of a raging bonfire, one of the most powerful imagery included in his entire performance. One can interpret
For example, the essay discusses the problem of there not being enough eligible Black men attending college (Henry, West, & Jackson 245). The definition of eligible could be interpreted as attending college and on a path to some sort of success. Because there is a shortage of eligible young men “Black females believe that they must succumb to the whims and pleasures of men in order to find a mate” because this is the image being shown to them when young ladies in hip hop videos do seductive things in order to gain the attention of the a male (Henry, West, & Jackson 245). One of the most terrible effects is that the music destroys black women 's self perception making it hard for young Black women to “ exhibit personal pride” (Henry, West, & Jackson 245).
In order to encompass and fully grasp the meaning and structure of a song, one must be able to analyze the song through different spectrums. For instance, every song is produced differently in order to send out a specific message or stand for a certain issue. At times, when music is produced, it embodies a significant attitude towards its audience in which they are able to sense the quality and atmosphere of the song. This essay will be analyzing the musical, textual, and visual evidence of “Sur ma route” by Black M who is known as one of the top current “rappers” in French popular music.