Rapping the Blues: The Similarities of hip-hop and the blues Hip-hop is one of the major music genres of today like the blues were in the 1950's. Stanley Crouch views hip-hop as being vulgar and obscene while he sees the blues as being one of the classic music genres. In actuality, these two genres are similar in many ways. A very important part of Stanley Crouch's life is his love for the blues. Many of his essays are related to or have aspects of the blues contained within them. Crouch relates topics that he writes about to the blues, because this is a subject he believes he is very familiar with. In The All American Skin Game, Stanley writes, "Jazz is very important to my vision of life in our time." (Lamb, 1). Jazz gives him a feeling of individuality and community. This means that when individuals push him, and he pushes them back, they both become better individuals as well as a better community. For Stanley, the blues tell the stories of the African-American community. Some of the stories talk about the harshness of their lives, but they also talk about the good times they had. [People] play the blues to get rid of the blues not to get them." (Lamb, 1). When people play or even listen to the blues, they are letting all of their worries go. They are not worrying about their job, the bills, or their kids. They are just trying to enjoy the moment when the blues are playing. The blues are some people's release from the stresses of their lives. To say it lightly, Stanley Crouch does not like the hip-hop genre of music. The dreadlocks, the clothing style, and the "vulgar": gold chains are just a few things he does not approve of at all. (Crouch, 1 ) It astounds him to see how far African-American music has fallen since the days of the Motown. Stanley was quoted as saying this about rap, "It is rudeness, vulgarity, and pornography disguised as ‘keeping it real.'" (Crouch, 1) He also went on to say the hip-hop music genre has the worst impact of all music genres on our culture today. (Crouch, 2) Crouch believes one does not need much talent to become a successful rapper unlike the jazz greats he listens to all the time. In Stanley Crouch's view, the only messages that rappers put in the minds of todays' youth is that they need to have sex, kill people, and do drugs all the time.
In “Blame It On the Blues” the author Angela Davis, argues against critics, like Samuel Charters and Paul Oliver, who say that the Blues lacks social commentary or political protest, by saying that the Blues was a subtle protest against gender and racial inequality. Davis uses various songs from Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith to prove this.
Hip Hop’s according to James McBride article “Hip Hop Planet” is a singular and different form of music that brings with it a message that only those who pay close attention to it understand it. Many who dislike this form of music would state that it is one “without melody, sensibility, instruments, verse, or harmony and doesn’t even seem to be music” (McBride, pg. 1). Though Hip Hop has proven why it deserves to be called music. In going into depth on its values and origins one understands why it is so popular among young people and why it has kept on evolving among the years instead of dying. Many of Hip Hop values that make it unique and different from other forms of music would be that it makes “visible the inner culture of Americas greatest social problem, its legacy of slavery, has taken the dream deferred to a global scale” (McBride, pg. 8). Hip Hop also “is a music that defies definition, yet defines our collective societies in immeasurable ways” (McBride, pg. 2). The
“Sonny’s Blues” is a short story in which James Baldwin, the author, presents an existential world where suffering characterizes a man’s basic state. The theme of tragedy and suffering can be transformed into a communal art form, such as blues music. Blues music serves as a catalyst for change because the narrator starts to understand not only the music but also himself and his relationship with Sonny. The narrator’s view of his brother begins to change; he understands that Sonny uses music as an outlet for his suffering and pain. This story illustrates a wide critical examination.
In “Sonny’s Blues,” Baldwin’s metaphors relate the emotions of his characters. His writing makes the experience of living in Harlem as a black person in the 1950s real for the reader. Moreover, “Sonny’s Blues” is a story that is universally relatable on human level, as the emotions and relationships Baldwin reveals are not unique to the story’s
In the story, Sonny’s Blues, James Baldwin uses music, jazz, and hymns to shape the story and show how it shapes Sonny’s life and how music is inherent to his survival. All of this is seen through the older brother’s eyes; the older brother is the narrator and the reader begins to understand Sonny through the older brother’s perspective. Baldwin writes the story like a jazz song to make a story out of his father’s past and his brother’s career choice and puts them together, going back and forth, until it creates a blending of histories and lives. He shows how the father’s past is similar to the narrator’s life; the older brother has conflicts with his younger brother, Sonny. Music heals the relationship.
Blues has played an extreme role in todays’ music. The music genre of blues, helps us express ourselves in which you can feel it from the ubiquitous in the jazz to the blues scale and the specific chord progressions. To start off, the blues is musically originated by African Americans in the deep South of the United States. Growing up in a southern household, I was used to listening to a variety music, but blues was always most listened to. Every time I listen to blues, the lyrics often deal with personal adversity, and it goes far beyond pity.
Historically, strong family relationships have been emphasized by American society. Strong family ties have been significant to maintaining healthy lifestyles and relationships across many cultures, including African American culture. Sonny, the younger brother in James Baldwin’s “Sonny’s Blues”, has suffered from a heroin addiction which caused him to separate from both his parents and his older brother. The essay portrays two brothers who struggle with their difficult Harlem environment, cultural issues, and their emotional detachment from one another. As the brothers struggle with their inner conflicts and outward environmental struggles, they are reunited through a common theme in the essay: music. Baldwin empowers Sonny with a gift of extraordinary musicianship, and uses this gift to enlighten and empower the narrator. Baldwin’s essay narrates the trials of the narrator on his journey to self- discovery and the brothers trial of rebuilding their brotherly bond with music as their guide. The essay uses music as a form of communication between the brothers and symbolizes it as a powerful force in their relationship. In Baldwin’s essay, “Sonny’s Blues”, the narrator and Sonny are empowered through music, and through this empowerment, the music is able to rekindle and rebuild the brothers relationship.
In James Baldwin’s ‘Sonny’s Blues,” an unnamed narrator attempts to understand his brother’s way of life. The two men experience the suffering that goes along with living in the projects of Harlem, New York. After a conversation with his mother, the narrator promises he will take care of his brother, Sonny. The story in and of itself is a constant struggle between the narrator trying to keep the promise to his mother and trying to understand Sonny’s life choices. When Sonny is arrested for using a dealing heroin, one of his friends gave the narrator full disclosure when he tells him Sonny’s life has and always will be difficult. The narrator writes to Sonny on jail after he experiences grief. Sonny writes back, trying to describe how his choices have led him to this point in life. At the end of the story, the two brothers watch a street revival. Sonny relates the revivalist’s voice to how heroin feels and explains his drug addiction and suffering. Following that, Sonny invites the narrator to watch him play. The narrator hears Sonny’s struggles within the music and understands why music is life or death for Sonny. The ability to cope with suffering is explored. The short story Baldwin’s
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...
In the lyrical and heartrending short story Sonny’s Blues, James Baldwin tells the tale of two brothers, both having taken a different path to survive, and how these paths have estranged them. One brother, the narrator and a button-down algebra teacher, lives a straight-forward life with a wife and two kids. The other brother, Sonny, is a heroin hooked, jazz crazed, musician who views life in a much different light. During the course of their difficult relationship the narrator, through remembrance of previous death experiences in his life, acceptance of Sonny’s choices , and hearing Sonny express his sorrows and suffering through his music is able to open his heart to the previously unaccepted Sonny and rekindle their fraternal bond.
“Sonny’s Blues” revolves around the narrator as he learns who his drug-hooked, piano-playing baby brother, Sonny, really is. The author, James Baldwin, paints views on racism, misery and art and suffering in this story. His written canvas portrays a dark and continual scene pertaining to each topic. As the story unfolds, similarities in each generation can be observed. The two African American brothers share a life similar to that of their father and his brother. The father’s brother had a thirst for music, and they both travelled the treacherous road of night clubs, drinking and partying before his brother was hit and killed by a car full of white boys. Plagued, the father carried this pain of the loss of his brother and bitterness towards the whites to his grave. “Till the day he died he weren’t sure but that every white man he saw was the man that killed his brother.”(346) Watching the same problems transcend onto the narrator’s baby brother, Sonny, the reader feels his despair when he tries to relate the same scenarios his father had, to his brother. “All that hatred down there”, he said “all that hatred and misery and love. It’s a wonder it doesn’t blow the avenue apart.”(355) He’s trying to relate to his brother that even though some try to cover their misery with doing what others deem as “right,” others just cover it with a different mask. “But nobody just takes it.” Sonny cried, “That’s what I’m telling you! Everybody tries not to. You’re just hung up on the way some people try—it’s not your way!”(355) The narrator had dealt with his own miseries of knowing his father’s plight, his Brother Sonny’s imprisonment and the loss of his own child. Sonny tried to give an understanding of what music was for him throughout thei...
The story “Sonny’s Blues” By James Baldwin is about a jazz musician and his brother in 1950’s Harlem. The story centers on Sonny who uses jazz music as an escape from his depression. James Baldwin captures the art of jazz during this time period. The themes in this short story are perhaps varied, but all of them revolve around some form of suffering. One theme shows how music can promote change and understanding within relationships. A second theme reveals suffering caused by guilt. Yet another theme references the results of suffering brought about by searching for ones’ identity and how that leads to misunderstanding. There are also subthemes concerning racism and poverty.
Goldman, Suzy B. "James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues": A Message in Music." Negro American Literature Forum 3rd ser. 8 (1974): 231-33. St. Louis University. Web. Apr.-May 2014.
Hip Hop is not just music or a genre for that sort, or is it the barbaric things that the media makes it out to be. Hip hop is a style not a fad, a swagger, how people dress and decide to carry themselves, express themselves, speaks, and much, much more than that. Many people dis value this music making it up to be something of little to no value with terms like “Black People Music” and claiming its just music for degenerates. The Hip Hop community would say those people just do not really understand the genre, or just listen to only the negative things from the media or the radio! Hip Hop is more than what the media makes it out to be, it is just a misunderstood art form. Hip Hop is more than just hoodlum music; it is music for the people. The music performed and recorded by conscious minded artists can move you & touch you in many different ways, show how the music is not only suited for hoodlums, and is not the source of evil or malicious intent.
The Black subculture that emerged in the South Bronx in the early to mid-1970s began as what hip hop pioneer Afrika Bambaataa called the five elements - graffiti art, break dancing, rapping, deejaying and “doing the knowledge”. Hip Hop culture isn’t just music, it refers to language, body language, fashion, style, sensibility, and worldview. In a book why white kids love Hip-Hop wankstas, wiggers, wannabes, and the new reality of race in America, author Bakari Kitwana writes, “Part of the reason the culture is so influential among today’s youth is that most young people who identify with hip-hop, unlike rock and roll and other musical generes, identify with more than music.[...] Hip Hop’s emergence in a global information age is a major variable that sets it apart, vastly increasing its capacity to reach beyond anythinh the world has