Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Analysis of song
DAMN! Lamar is back at it again, but this time with a new style. After we thought Lamar could not top To Pimp a Butterfly, Lamar once again takes the rap industry by surprise with his newly released record: DAMN. Although Lamar released DAMN just 7 months ago, it has gone double platinum and won Best Album of the Year at the BET Hip-Hop Awards. Lamar has already made it known that he is an important figure in the rap industry as well as the black community. In 2015, protesters in Oakland, California took the streets chanting Lamar’s “Alright”. In his new record, DAMN, Lamar harnesses his artistry and influence to discuss abstract ideas and address racism in a post-Obama era. The album literally makes people say, “DAMN”. Lamar, now on top of …show more content…
To Pimp a Butterfly does not shy away from controversial issues, such as racism in the black community. Rolling Stone contributor, Greg Tate, writes “Lamar straight up owns rap relevancy on Butterfly” (Tate). The cover art for the album even features many shirtless black men posing with money in front of the white house. Before To Pimp a Butterfly Lamar discussed his upbringing, the hood, drug use, peer-pressure and other personal experiences, but To Pimp a Butterfly was different. The album “is densely packed, dizzying rush of unfiltered rage and unapologetic romanticism” (Tate). Lamar has no problem spitting raw bars in the album in regards to controversial issues; you can take it or leave it. Kendrick Lamar, the great story-teller, evolved his music into influential works of …show more content…
“YAH” features Lamar’s frustration with FOX news’ negative portrayal of Lamar in regards to the black community. Lamar says “Yah, Yah/ Yah Yah/ Yah Yah” in reference to “Yaweh”. Yaweh is thought to be God’s name. He says “Yah” because Lamar is calling to god for assistance. Although Lamar does not say it directly, his frustration with FOX news sometimes gets to him, “My girls told me don’t let these hoes get in my head” (Lamar). The song is rapped over a low energy beat to further emphasize Lamar’s feelings about the media. “LUST” discusses people’s weakness to pleasure and how that weakness ultimately causes us to not care about the real world. Lamar raps “Wake up in the mornin'/ thinkin' 'bout money, kick your feet up” which follows with Lamar rapping about different scenarios that involve money, sex and drugs. Lamar raps “Lookin' for confirmation, hopin' election wasn't true” then later raps “Time passin', things change/ Revertin' back to our daily programs, stuck in our ways; Lust”. Lamar suggests that we are too caught up in our lustful pleasures to fully commit to anything meaningful. Lamar’s monotone vocals in both “LUST” and “FEAR” are used to show his frustration and hopelessness with America, which we could say is the “sadness” he
In his most recent album, Kanye West raps, “Now if I fuck this model/ And she just bleached her asshole/ And I get bleach on my T-shirt/ I 'mma feel like an asshole.” He suggests that it is the girl’s fault for getting bleach on his tee shirt, which she only did to make herself more sexually appealing. This misogyny in hip-hop culture is recognized to bring about problems. For instance, the women around these rappers believe they can only do well in life if they submit themselves to the men and allow themselves to be cared for in exchange for physical pleasure. In her essay, “From Fly-Girls to Bitches and Hoes”, Joan Morgan argues that the same rap music that dehumanizes women can be a powerful platform for gender equality if implemented correctly.
In the article “ From Fly to Bitches and Hoes” by Joan Morgan, she often speaks about the positive and negative ideas associated with hip-hop music. Black men display their manhood with full on violence, crime, hidden guilt, and secret escapes through drugs and alcohol. Joan Morgan’s article views the root causes of the advantage of misogyny in rap music lyrics. In the beginning of the incitement her desires shift to focus on from rap culture condemnation to a deeper analysis of the root causes. She shows the hidden causes of unpleasant sexism in rap music and argues that we need to look deeper into understanding misogyny. I agree with Joan Morgan with the stance that black men show their emotions in a different way that is seen a different perspective.
In Adam Bradley’s “Rap poetry 101” he shows us how rap is more than just songs being sung, it is poetry; it is something that has an empowering ability to make the familiar unfamiliar.In this chapter Bradley creates a new viewpoint too rap. Bradley shows us how rap and poetry has become a very similar piece of art that should be further appreciated. In the chapter poetry 101 Bradley describes how rap is a form of public art, and how rappers have become our greatest public poets. The importance of rap as poetry is shown throughout Bradley's book as well as the evidence behind the reasons rap is poetry.
Werner, Craig Hansen. 2006. A change is gonna come: music, race & the soul of America. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Lamar has been successfully achieving his dream by rapping about the stress and difficult situations he has encountered but strongly claims that we will all be alright in his song, “Alright.” He released a song called “i” that reflects how violence has increased in the cities and how he wishes everyone should love each other as humans. His last song on “To Pimp A Butterfly” called “Mortal Man” he states “only because you don’t wear the same color as mine, that doesn’t mean I can’t respect you as a human being.” He clearly states how he understands the reputations of other gang members may seem important but should all still respect others as people. Lamar has been a role model to several students from the city of Compton that was able to create a scholarship called “Be Alright” that is based off the same song called “Alright.” Kendrick Lamar has been respectively producing music for his fans without a doubt of impressive beats and
People from many generations may think that today’s music shows virtually nothing. This generations rap music mainly circles around how much money you receive from rapping, how much women you receive from rapping, and how much drugs you receive from rapping. There is rare few times where rap artist come out of this circle, to talk about real life experiences, issues within the world, and how this affects certain diversities. Baruti N. Kopano, an assistant professor of Mass Communications at Delaware State University, does a study on the rhetorical legacy of rap music. He starts off in this article how rap music to him is a legacy with rich history, “For rappers, ‘keepin it real’ means being
When looking at the landscape of Hip-Hop among African Americans, from the spawn of gangsta rap in the mid 1980s to current day, masculinity and an idea of hardness is central to their image and performance. Stereotypical to Black masculinity, the idea of a strong Black male - one who keeps it real, and is defiant to the point of violence - is prevalent in the genre. This resistant, or even compensatory masculinity, encompasses: the hyper masculinity rife in the Western world, misogyny, and homophobia, all noticeable in their lyrics, which is in part a result of their containment within the Black community. The link of masculinity and rap music was established due to this containment, early innovators remaking public spaces in their segregated neighbourhoods. A notion of authentic masculinity arose from the resistant nature of the genre, but the move to the mainstream in the 90s created a contradiction to their very image - resistance. Ultimately, this in part led to the construction of the masculinity defined earlier, one that prides itself on its authenticity. I’ll be exploring how gender is constructed and performed in Hip Hop, beginning with a historical framework, with the caveat of showing that differing masculine identities in the genre, including artists
If there was one defining characteristic to hip hop in 1997, it was the jiggy factor- an aesthetic of unapologetic flash, fashion and glamour that ruled everything around us and made hip hop life nice and organized. Of course, for each movement there always exists a counter-movement; for each yin there is a yang; and for each designer-label clad champagne sipper, there must be an uncompromised figure lurking in the shadows, ready and willing to reclaim rap from the penthouse to the pavement. Embracing this return to the anarchy, enraged and raw, Def Jam Records presents 1998 as the Year of Pandemonium. The human embodiment of such exhilarating and unadulterated chaos exists in none other than Ruff Ryders/Def Jam's very latest lyrical sensation, DMX. "I love to write rhymes," says the Yonkers-born MC. "I love to express what real niggas feel, what street niggas feel. They need to be heard. They need to know there is a voice that speaks for them, and I am that voice." Within the tumultuous annals of hip hop's dog-eat-dog history, second chance opportunities are few and far between. However, every now and then the experienced and distinguished bark of a particularly cagey canine re-emerges from rap's chaotic kennels, representing the triumph and perseverance inherent in true greatness.
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
Though this controversy took place not that long ago in 2004 when I was in fourth grade, I was not aware of it until last year, my freshman year of college, when I was taking a course in African American Studies titled AASP 202 Black Culture in the United States. Near the end of the course, we explored the history of hip-hop and its transition up until today. One of our assignments involved watching the 2006 documentary Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes directed by American activist Byron Hurt, that took a closer look at the implications of hip-hop that include misogyny, violence, hom...
Within the booming business that has become the rap world, certain musical themes and issues are more prevalent than most. In addition to such topics as drugs, alcohol and police brutality, a dominant theme within rap music is the denigration and derision of women. Indeed, as the above lyrics to Akinyele's song “Put It in your Mouth” illustrate, many male rappers use violent and misogynistic lyrics to create an image of women that is both degrading and disgusting. The graphic and shocking nature of this particular type of rap causes it to be widely publicized, and thus it serves as a definition of rap for a majority of people today. However, there are a number of female artists within the rap music genre spreading messages of female empowerment and respect, not denigration. These female artists, often ignored due to the hype surrounding their male counterparts, use their lyrics to create raps which focus on life as women; dealing with issues of love, power, and discrimination. The face of women in rap culture is both multi-faceted and contradictory.
bell hooks shows us that black male sexism is real and it is in America’s music. She is correct, but it is not just against the white people of America. Snoop Dogg’s album is degrading toward the girl whose butt’s out of the doghouse, but it
This is heavily emphasized in the song’s lyrics when Brother D states: “Come on my people, people, can’t you see/What’s really goin' on?/Unemployment’s high, the housing’s bad And the schools are teaching wrong/ Cancer from the water, pollution in the air/ But you’re partying hard, like you just don’t care/ Wake up y'all, you know that ain’t right/ Cause that hurts everybody, black or white/ Winter’s cold, can’t get no heat/ Just move your body to the beat/ While it takes you on a disco ride/ Get high until you’re pacified/ Our youth actin' like the living dead/ Ain’t talkin' bout the body. Talkin' bout the head/ Space out y'all to the disco rhyme/ Movin' to the rhythm but you’re wastin' time/ Stop and think. Do you know what’s real?” Brother D continues by pleading to Americans (specifically the youth) to become involved and do something to improve their financial woes and current state of struggle. This is seen when at the end of the song Brother D thrillingly states: “We gotta agitate,
Dixon, Travis L., TaKeshia Brooks. “Rap Music and Rap Audiences: Controversial Themes, Psychological Effects and Political Resistance.” Perspectives. 7 April 2009. .
This rap song is intended to highlight the problems in the American society. The song specifically talks about the issues that affect people living in urban areas. Mos Def raps about the misery and despair between whites and blacks in America. Society’s issues are discussed throughout this song.