LaMindyonda Bowen
ENG 106
October 2, 2009
Hip-Hop’s Influence on Society
Hip-Hop has become a huge influence on children, young women, and society over the years of hip-hop’s creation. It has become a positive and negative influence on our society today and it’s not the best thing that could be influencing our children and young women today. Hip-Hop’s lyrics, music, & videos all have some negative aspect to them. I live in a household with three children, ages 9, 11, & 13, and they all have a great influence from the music they listen to and video’s they watch on a daily basis. The three articles all have something in common and connect to each other with their views of hip-hop culture, hip-hops influences on society, and sexism within society.
“Keepin' it real: Black youth, hip-hop culture, and black identity”, is an article that discusses how hip-hop and black youth relate, how youth at a city youth center in Northern California linked to hip-hop, cultural capital, and gender roles. The article states that there is a newly proposed definition of cultural capital as being, “institutionalized, i.e., widely shared high status cultural signals (attitudes, preferences, formal knowledge, behaviors, goods and credentials) used for social and cultural exclusion” (p. 1). This definition is greatly influenced in the article when the author goes into talking about his experience when conducting this study in the city youth center. The author talks about the teens in the center and how they each have different ways of using and performing hip-hop culture and black identity.
Dewayne, a youth member talked about his involvement with the hip-hop culture and his interactions with his peers and the staff at the center. The aspects of hip-hop that he portrayed was his looks, clothing style (baggy pants, polo shirts, & Jordan’s and Nikes), coolness, lovingness, and relationship with everyone; males, females, and staff. He was someone that was liked by all and able to grab attention from everyone. Another youth was Tiffany, the author explains that the first time she appeared at the youth center she wore baggy clothing and a pulled back pony-tail. The second time Tiffany appeared at the center, she was wearing form fitting clothing, her top showed the mid-section of her body, and her hair was down with a cap over it; attributed from the women of hip-hop like Lil Kim and Missy Elliot. By just changing her clothing and being more aggressive Tiffany began to get more attention from the boys and was in the “popular” crowd and wrestling and playing with the boys. She reflected hip-hop in her clothing and attitude, unlike Dewayne, Tiffany was not liked by everyone, but interacted with only boys. The last youth the author mentioned was Darin, he seemed to not have the style, coolness, or relationship with peers that both Dewayne and Tiffany had. Darin fought for attention in the wrong ways, bullied, and talked about by his peers and even his sister.
Cultural capital, black identity, and gender roles all overlap in how these teens reflect hip-hop. Cultural capital and black identity are similar because these teens all reflected attitude, behavior and style in the way they were accepted by peers in which seem to be the black identity within the youth center. Black identity and gender roles are similar because there are roles, (attitude, style-male and female differ, and looks), that each gender must portray to be popular, which seem to be the identity of black youth.
The article, “Media/Visual Literacy Art Education: Sexism in Hip-Hop Music Videos”, focuses a lot on how women are portrayed in hip-hop videos, the sexism issues in hip-hop videos, and ways that high school teachers can help change teens views and cultural capital. Like the previous article it talks about cultural capital. This article defines cultural capital as “language, gestures, fashion, and performance,” which is similar to the definition used in the above article. Throughout the article it describes women as being portrayed as the focus of “male gaze”, attractive/desirable, young girls, sexual, and objects. By these being the views of young women in the videos it gives young girls the need to be sexual in order to be accepted by peers and be popular, also to desire a life of partying, style of hip-hop, and vocabulary to be social within popular groups. Hip-hop videos degrade women within their lyrics, media out-put (MTV & VH1), photos, and scenarios used to get their degrading point across as to what women are worth in music videos.
There are very few female rapper’s in the hip-hop industry; the article calls this “Feminist Rap”. The article explains how some of the women of hip-hop bring women and themselves up, having self worth, and not portrayed the way men do in their music videos. Feminist rap such as Salt-N-Pepa and Queen Latifah are examples of women that use their videos and lyrics as ways to promote women, women’s importance, and self worth. The article gives examples of songs these two feminist rappers use to break sexism and female bodies as the norm to exploit. Songs like “Ladies First” by Queen Latifah “Latifah calls for respect and self-love among African-American women, promotes the importance of womanhood, and demands equal treatment for all.” and “Shake Your Thang” by Salt-N-Pepa “the group reclaims the right of women to take control of their own bodies and sexuality.” This demonstrates that hip-hop music can be expressed without degrading and exposing women.
The last article, “The Exploitation of Women in Hip-hop Culture”, focuses mainly on how men of hip-hop exploit women in and out of their music videos and . The article states that “mainstream American culture is sexism and misogyny”, otherwise saying that the American culture is to have hatred toward women and using them as sex symbols. Exploitation toward women is used and accepted by men, women, children/teens, media, and the artist that promote it in their videos. The lyrics and images in hip-hop videos include a mix of woman of all races, but have a significant amount of blacks that are represented as sex objects/symbols. The article suggest that men (rappers) promote themselves as pimps and the women as their hoes, prostitutes, and someone that obeys what they say. The article also talks about an interview that was done in Vibe Magazine with women of the hip-hop industry. The women explain themselves as being worthless, uneducated women, and had nothing to give, so they feel that why would a man want something like that, so they felt the need to give something and they gave their bodies. It is ridiculous that “Men thought that women were only worth giving them sexual favors, and women thought men are only worth giving them money.”
These articles all have a connection that teens are influenced by hip-hop and its videos, women are seen as sex objects, that cultural capital is a big influence, and that men need little to be seen as “the man” and over women. The male dominated hip-hop industry has a lot of effect on how teens reflect it (dress, act, and view each other), women view their self worth, and how it has become the culture for many. Hip-Hop has a huge impact on social identity and will only continue unless something is changed.
Works Cited
Andreana Clay. (2003). “Keepin' it real: Black youth, hip-hop culture, and black identity.” The American Behavioral Scientist, 46(10), 1346-1358. Retrieved October 4, 2009, from ABI/INFORM Global. (Document ID: 350239881).
Sheng Kuan Chung. (2007). “Media/Visual Literacy Art Education: Sexism in Hip-Hop Music Videos.” Art Education, 60(3), 33-38. Retrieved October 2, 2009, from Research Library. (Document ID: 1275874881).
Ayanna. “The Exploitation of Women in Hip-hop Culture.” My Sistahs A Project from Advocates for Youth. October 2, 2009.
