The Rise Of Hip Hop

The Rise of Hip Hop
Music is something most people can’t live without; whether it’s to help them get over a sad breakup, a hard time or even having a great time with friends. There’s a lot of different types of music; some people like pop, some like rock, some enjoy jazz for some people it may even be Hip Hop. It wouldn’t make sense to older generations to why teenagers on a “Hip Hop Planet” To the younger generations it makes perfect sense. In the Article, “Hip Hop Planet” written by James Mcbride a New York Times journalist and composer argues that Hip Hop is here to stay so might as well accept it. Something that everyone can agree with is that Hip Hop’s popularity has been taken to a global scale. It has become nearly impossible to avoid

Across the world teens feel like they’re losing their voice. In an Independent article, a magazine I found online, Geraldine says “Rates of depression and anxiety among teenagers have increased by 70 percent in the past 25 years” With such a high percentage teens feel like no one can help them and that they have no one to talk to about their problems so they tend to start breaking away from their families and depend more on music. Hip Hop gives teens a chance to feel like they have someone to talk to or someone who understands what they’re going through because a lot of what the artists rap about are life situations that they’ve gone through throughout their lives. Not everyone will understand the message of Hip Hop. “Over the years the instruments change, but the message is the same… They’re telling us something. Our children can hear it” (Mcbride 11) Rappers all have different skills, but it’s all based on telling a story. As long as Rappers tell a story all they need is the right people to listen to those stories, in this case, teens are the people that really understand the message. Hip Hop does sometimes talk about violence but it’s not always about violence, it’s what people make it seem like and if the older generations don’t listen to rap or Hip Hop then they will associate rap with gangs but what they won’t know is that it’s also about

McBride states “In China, teens spray-paint graffiti on The Great Wall. In France, it has been blamed, unfairly, for the worst civil unrest that the country has seen in decades”(2, 7). Though this doesn’t make sense, how a music genre can be blamed for a violent act and not that it was a decision that the person made themselves. Hip Hop wasn’t made for young children to listen too, but due to our culture, all of the younger generations have been raised around it. It does influence people and but it doesn’t make decisions for them either, it’s the way the parents raise their children and common sense, not just some words written in a song they listen