Cultural Analysis Queen Latifah played a big role in the hip hop industry as a female MC, and still is relevant to this day. She influenced millions of people especially in the black community for equality between women and men. She’s an American song-writer, actress, fashion producer, model, female MC, feminist, television producer, record producer, and talk show hostess. The Hip-hop culture began around the 1970’s in Bronx, New York and it was mostly amongst the Black and Latino community at that time. Hip Hop emerged out of an atmosphere of disappointment, anger, hate, discrimination, and disillusionment which; made it easy for the audience to comprehend and enjoy the music not as a song, but as a public personal message for each person to understand. Hip-hop was born in numerous …show more content…
Hip hop impacted Queen Latifah when she made history when she won a Grammy for her groundbreaking hit, “U.N.I.T.Y.,” in 1995. The song spoke out against domestic violence and the objectification of Black female sexuality. “U.N.I.T.Y.” began a conversation in the African American community over violence and assault against women. It also established that Black women rappers had a powerful voice in a field dominated by men. During the last decade hip hop has been partially absorbed into mainstream pop music, leading to the inclusion of hip hop elements (such as rapping, break beats, scratching and sampling) within more 'mainstream' pop, and aiding the success of female artists. Queen Latifah grew up in a middle class of East Orange, New Jersey. Initially working with Ladies Fresh as a human beatbox she released her first solo single 'Wraith of My Madness' (Tommy Boy Records) in 1988. In 1989 she released her debut album All Hail the Queen. The album was only a minor success, but was described by Rolling Stone as having a profound impact on hip hop culture - partly due to the single 'Ladies First' in which she tried to counter the misogynistic lyric content of her
Her family ties to the south, her unique talent, her ability to travel and make money are similar to the Blues women movement that preceded her. It can be said that Nina Simone goes a step further the by directly attacking inequities pertaining to race and gender in her music. However, what distinguishes her is her unique musicianship and that is what ultimately garners her massive exposure and experiences than those of her past contemporaries. Like the Blues women Simone expands ideas pertaining to self-expression, identity and beauty as they relate to black women. She does this by embracing what is definitively African American and connecting that to a historical context. By doing so she is the embodiment of a political statement. Her journey which began like many entertaine...
Think about your favorite female MC album of all time. It could be Eve’s Ruff Ryders’ First Lady from 1999, Roxy Brown’s Broken Silence from 2001 or Queen Latifah’s All Hail the Queen from 1989, but whatever album you picked should make you think of MC Lyte for at least a quick second. If you enjoy listening to Eve, Queen Latifah, Trina, Missy Elliot or even Nicki Minaj you should know MC Lyte. MC Lyte made a huge impact in the world of hip Hop, so much that she is respected by men and women for being one of hip hop’s pioneers. MC Lyte made a great impact in the world of hip hop as she paved the way for all the female artists by making sure her voice was heard, while remaining true to herself.
Hip hop is a form of art that African Americans have been using to get away from oppressions in their lives and allowed their voices to be heard in some type of way. As soon as big corporations seen the attention hip hop brought to the scene, they wanted to capitalize on it. These corporations picked specific types of attributes that some hip hop artists had and allowed it to flourish. The attributes that these artists carried were hypermasculinity, homophobia, violence and sexism. In the book, Hip Hop Wars by Tricia Rose discusses some of these specific attributes. One of the most damaging attribute is when hip hop is used to sexualize and demean everything about being a woman. Tricia Rose writes about this issue in chapter 5 of her book
In modern day society, popular culture has gained equal status to world issues and politics. Music, movies, and literature have started cultural revolutions and challenged the straight-forward thinking many individuals have accepted in the past. But while popular culture can advance new ideas and create movements, it also has the ability to challenge advancements society has made. Imani Perry’s essay, The Venus Hip Hop and the Pink Ghetto, focuses on hip hop and its negative impact on women and body image.
Hip-Hop became characterized by an aggressive tone marked by graphic descriptions of the harshness and diversity of inner-city life. Primarily a medium of popular entertainment, hip-hop also conveys the more serious voices of youth in the black community. Though the approaches of rappers became more varied in the latter half of the 1980s, message hip-hop remained a viable form for addressing the problems faced by the black community and means to solve those problems. The voices of "message" hip...
and impact on society. What is most amazing is how far her reach extends beyond hip-hop and
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
Do you know the person who played as Ellie in Ice Age? It's a person who inspires many. Queen Latifah is a hero because she shows women that they can do anything if they put their mind into it, by the roles she plays and her talk show.
Rose, Tricia. The Hip Hop Wars: What We Talk about When We Talk about Hip Hop - and Why
Negus, Keith. "The Business of Rap: Between the Street and the Executive Suite." Rpt. in That’s the Joint!: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader. Ed. Murray Forman and Mark Anthony Neal. New York, NY: Routledge, 2004. 525-540. Print.
... middle of paper ... ... By doing so, Latifa took back control and allowed women to be seen in a more positive light. Through the example set by Latifa, Johnson was able to support the idea that hip hop can reflect issues and be used as a tool to tackle these problems.
Hip hop has permeated popular culture in an unprecedented fashion. Because of its crossover appeal, it is a great unifier of diverse populations. Although created by black youth on the streets, hip hop's influence has become well received by a number of different races in this country. A large number of the rap and hip hop audience is non-black. It has gone from the fringes, to the suburbs, and into the corporate boardrooms. Because it has become the fastest growing music genre in the U.S., companies and corporate giants have used its appeal to capitalize on it. Although critics of rap music and hip hop seem to be fixated on the messages of sex, violence, and harsh language, this genre offers a new paradigm of what can be (Lewis, 1998.) The potential of this art form to mend ethnic relations is substantial. Hip hop has challenged the system in ways that have unified individuals across a rich ethnic spectrum. This art form was once considered a fad has kept going strong for more than three decades. Generations consisting of Blacks, Whites, Latinos, and Asians have grown up immersed in hip-hop. Hip hop represents a realignment of America?s cultural aesthetics. Rap songs deliver a message, again and again, to keep it real. It has influenced young people of all races to search for excitement, artistic fulfillment, and a sense of identity by exploring the black underclass (Foreman, 2002). Though it is music, many people do not realize that it is much more than that. Hip hop is a form of art and culture, style, and language, and extension of commerce, and for many, a natural means of living. The purpose of this paper is to examine hip hop and its effect on American culture. Different aspects of hip hop will also be examined to shed some light that helps readers to what hip hop actually is. In order to see hip hop as a cultural influence we need to take a look at its history.
Hip-hop and rap music are commonly criticized for its anti-feminist lyrics and degrading exploitation of women in music and music videos. (Sharpley-Whiting ) Many feminists have taken action against the music industry, which produces these messages in the music they release. However, in the hip-hop genre there are plenty of successful female rappers promoting feminist views, artist such as Queen Latifah and Mary J. Blige have made the choice to condemn the derogatory culture towards women. (Oliver, 382–384) However others female hip-hop artist, such as Lil Kim or Rihanna, have decided to provide no resistance towards the deleterious depictions of women in their music and in turn sometimes exploit themselves. Due to her extreme fame, success, and controversial image, at the front of this discussion is female rapper Nicki Minaj. Nicki Minaj is challenging the common view of women in hip-hop by proclaiming feminist ideologies through the art of reclaiming the genres negative undertones towards women and by providing an opportunity for women to be seen as equals rather than objects.
Conventionally, there are more than twenty derivatives of Hip-Hop. The Hip-Hop style which is the most familiar to the world is known as “conversational rap” (Higgins, 2013). This form consists of the artist using a conversational method of rapping where they appear to be telling a story or holding a personal discourse. Conversational Rap is utilized by many of the industry’s current juggernauts. Some of the artists which use this style of rap are: Drake, Lil Wayne, Nicki Minaj, and Wiz Khalifa. It is universal to understand that Hip-Hop is indiscriminative. In his article Hip-Hop Judaica: The Politics of Representin ' Heebster Heritage, Judah Cohen observes that “Rap music, on the other hand, is anti-classical, a UN-friendly music with dozens upon dozens of subgenres to accommodate and account for the full range of experiences that make up the human condition—irrespective of one 's race, gender, age or geography.” (Cohen,14). Moreover, Hip-Hop/Rap’s most problematic form is known as “Gangster Rap”. This form of Hip-Hop/ Rap is understood to be the turning point in the world of Hip-Hop culture. The “thug life” movement within Gangster Rap started with rapper Tupac Amaru Shakur, known as 2pac. In her article titled “East Coast/ West Coast Rivalry, Yvonne Bynoe states that throughout the 1990’s, 2pac and New
d. According to Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Popular Musicians Since 1990, her first album was successful, her fans loved her raw, unapologetic style of rapping, which was much more gritty and vulgar than female MCs of the past like MC Lyte and Queen