Enjay
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Bboy TYS said:
As many of you seen on MTV, radio, magazines, etc, Hip Hop culture is interpreted as a gangster culture. That is wrong. Just slap yourselves. You're all just being brainwashed by the stupid media going on in Hollywood since the 90s. You're just the media's puppet for business. It's their way of making money.
To expand on the point I was (clumsily) making in my first post in this thread, I think you have it back to front, to a certain degree. Why is hip-hop culture interpreted in such a way? All you have to do is spend a few minute surfing across the music channels and you will see video after video after video of hip-hop artists in aggressive poses "spitting out lyrics" whilst grimacing at the camera (the camera usually being placed in a low position as the artiste leers down towards it making those retarded mongoloid hand gestures). There will be moody shots of the band hanging on street corners, cruising in pimped out cars and there will be an endless supply of bitches shaking their booty asses whilst wearing almost nothing. On more lenient channels, there may even be the occasional flash of a gun.
Why does that happen? Is it driven by the media? Do the artists get much choice in how they are portrayed? Is it driven by the artists? Are they all just doing what sells? I don't know, but almost every bit of public exposure you get to hip-hop is presented in that way: and that is coming from the people in the business and the people making the records - not the news or sensationalist journalists. But let's face it, it hasn't done the artists concerned any harm has it. They may hang around on street corners in their videos, but they go home to houses that most people can only dream of living in.
If hip-hop artists have a problem about how they are portrayed by "the media and Hollywood" they need to sort out their own house first and stop perpetuating the image themselves.
But don't get all bent out of shape about it only being hip-hop. Almost all forms of music have a large number of artists who portray a populist image of what the genre is all about. These people grab the headlines "shock" people (by doing exactly what they need and are expected to do (see Marilyn Manson)) and at the same time have people who are "genuinely into the music" pissing and moaning about the public image that these bands portray and how "the press has it wrong". How many "hip-hop's not like that", "Metal's not like that", "Goth's not like that", "Emo's not like that" conversations etc etc have you heard? Just step back from it and treat the image as just that - an image - a cultivated one at that which makes many artists and record companies rich. Does it have any genuine or real effect on your life? If so, why? Anyone who thinks the image is actually a genuine representation of the culture (if indeed there is a culture) is misinformed, stupid or immature. So why should they matter?
Oh, and to be clear on the point, I like a lot of hip-hop so I'm not anti-hip-hop at all.
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04-20-08 19:07 
