Essay On Hip Hop Culture

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Joe Wilkerson Mr. Maggio AP English 5-27-14 Hip-Hop and the Youth Culture Music has been influencing American culture since the Native Americans. It was used for ceremonial purposes, recreation, expression, and healing. This means that music can define a culture. American culture today is very electric and confused and music in America can reflect this. Most popular American music today is like this. For example a song such as “Party Rock Anthem.” It was one of the most popular songs of 2011 among the American youth and it was very energetic but its moral standing was corrupted, and this is a good example of the way music can influence us and define us at the same time. Currently, American culture is controlled by the hip-hop culture, specifically the youth. The media and other political groups seem to place the blame for the corruption on our youth on rap and hip hop. However, though some rappers have violent or misleading lyrics, rap, just like other forms of music, cannot be understood unless it is studied without the framework of its history. Rap reflects its birth in the hip hop culture of urban, working class African Americans, its function as the voice of an otherwise underrepresented group and its roots in African American culture. Many rappers in the United States create songs that, through concerts and albums, spread their daily lives and dreams and attempt to inspire others to accomplish great feats despite the odds facing them. Rapper Phonte says: “I want to set a good example. Legacy is really what kids say about you because they know you best.”(Phonte, Philadelphia Tribune) Phonte knows that the goal of rap is to inspire others to do good and set a good example and he is one of the few rappers today that know... ... middle of paper ... ...out with good morals and concrete ideas that the country was built on but eventually rap like America became corrupted through certain people and ideas. Rap also takes negative criticism and is put in a paradigm because of a few rappers and America is often judged as well because of some of its mistakes. Rap also represents America through its creativity and innovations because like hip hop America is filled with new innovations that bring popularity to it, very similar to rap. Hip hop takes the blame for its negative influence on America, because it is very popular and because of the increase in violence it has been targeted as a flaw in American culture. As rap begins to gain more popularity in American culture, especially the youth, American culture will be dominated by hip hop and it will continue to represent American identity, hopefully in a positive way.

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