Personally, I’m a 20 year old white male from a suburban area and I definitely enjoy listening to rap/hip-hop music. In my mind there are a few different types of hip-hop music with the mainstream “style” being more about getting money, fighting, drugs and women. The “style” I tend to listen to the most is often a more intellectual type where the artist raps/talks about life and real situations and more often than not, perseverance. Just as Bell Hooks said in the video, the media nowadays attempts to “suck” younger white males into the rap industry because quite frankly, they are typically the people that are paying for these CD’s and the ones watching the music videos.
The issue with the majority of the mainstream music is that it is preaching about all the wrong things and portraying not only women in a negative light but also the black race in general. I don’t necessarily blame these mainstream artists for their music because after all they are trying to make money and this is what the current demand is for. This style could be demanded for because the typical white male may view these artists as outlaws and what not because of what they are saying in their music and in most cases, this is a different lifestyle then the average young white male from a suburban area.
In most cases the people that actually listen to this “mainstream style” that I have mentioned and believe it to be to true are the people that the media and artists are catering to in order to make money. As long as this style is viewed as popular and is selling then the media will continue to push it hard on these youthful males because after all it is a business and morals are for the most part disregarded in order to get that money at the end of the day.
I definitely agree that it is mostly all about what the people want and that it is a business so they are trying to rake in the money. As a woman I don't take it personally at all since majority of rappers are rapping about woman in a negative light in order to make money. I have no idea but I'm guessing that most rappers don't necessarily mean all the negative things they say about women or blacks. It's really whatever sounds good together with a good beat for their targeting audience.
ReplyDeleteBut my question is: who must stand accountable for this product? There is a lot of shirking of responsibility and talk of "it's all about the benjamins" but very little about how these ideologies affect our society. Is the listeners who create the demand? The producers who create a product designed to make profit? The artists who capitulate to this demand rather than have integrity? So, I think we need to be critical about demanding accountability and expecting artists to produce more diverse products. Also, as consumers we need to support the (often independent) artists that produce alternate images and music that challenge racism and sexism.
ReplyDeleteI think that the listeners and the artists are both at fault here, listeners for accepting this music as the "norm" and the artists for putting this stuff out on the radio etc. If artists started to all come out with music that is more acceptable and "clean", I think people would still listen to that music if they supported the artist. For example, I bet Lil Wayne fans would still listen to his music regardless of what it was saying really just to support him. If artists changed their style then it would probably change what the listeners actually enjoy.
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