Essays on Hip Hop

Many critics and fans alike have come to put labels on different eras of hip-hop. These labels are accurate to the state of hip-hop at the time. However, to fit with the discussion of my question, I have split hip-hop into two distinctive groups, old…

In the 50´s and 60´s, Rock music was blamed for riots and crimes among youths, and Elvis was blamed for promoting sexual behavior in teens, because of the way he danced. The same arguments used against hip-hop are basically the same from the 50´s, and…

When MTV started airing in the early 1980s, music videos became the center of pop culture in a manner that they had not done before the inception of the channel. From this time onward, music videos have become an integral part of the music industry,…

Misogyny has always been an issue in the media. The over-sexualization of women is appalling and extremely degrading. This problem often slips unnoticed because we have become desensitized to it. It’s never viewed as a problem, instead, it’s become normal to overly sexualize females in…

The South African hip-hop industry emerged from the shadows of kwaito and has since become one of the fastest growing and most influential genres of local music. Giving rise to the top-selling artists right now like Cassper Nyovest, AKA, Kwesta and many more. However, the…

The videos that have been analyzed are “Candy Shop.” – 50 Cent, Pitbull “Timber.” ft. Ke$ha and Jennifer Lopez “Booty.” ft. Iggy Azalea. These videos all present a culture of using sex to sell. In each music video, the women have been portrayed/referred to as…

Gangsta’s Paradise is a hip-hop song created by the rapper Coolio in 1995. A lot of the hip hop of this generation had a very lyrical feel to it and echoed a sense of endearment for where they grew up, but also echoed a want…

Walsh & Davidson comprehended how artists in the music industry today are working to combat rigid masculinities, and are expressing more vulnerability and self-emotion in their music (2017). Today, those already in the mainstream and who are influential are making it a point to challenge…

Tupac dedicated this song to his mother Afeni Shakur. It was a song of reconciliation between a son and his mother. Tupac writes about coming of age and understanding the trials and tribulations his single black mother went through in trying to raise a son…