Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Everybody Wants To Be Hard
From the selected chapters of Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, "Everybody Wants To Be Hard" seemed to catch my attention very quickly. In the rap game, the main purpose, for most songs, is to be seen as intimidating, or "going/being hardcore." This idea is normally found in male rappers and their "hard" lyrics. For some reason, today's rappers think being hard is a cool thing to do. Now almost every song played today is about being hard. In history, the males have a consistency to be the alpha dog and the omega, and now history is currently showing up in our music. Maybe male superiorty is in the mindsets of most men. What hard rappers don't realize is that they are sending a message out to the community and youth is that it is okay to be a gangsta, pimp, thug, because it is the cool thing to be. This poor rolemodeling is now confusing, because it goes against the proper standards. Most children are raised to treat women with respect, keep good qualities and traits, however; the popular music out today totally breaks the rules. These hard lyrics are telling the community that it is okay to degrade woman, steal, and kill because it is the cool thing to do. I believe that the crave for being hard is destroying the communities and sending out the wrong type of message. To be hard is not an accomplishment, but a major setback. We just have to be proud and happy of who and what we are meant to be, and nothing else, no matter how strong of surrounding influences.
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Sean raises some good points and the movie we watched today talked about most (if not all) of them with some good depth. After seeing the rappers talking about "being hardcore", it became apparent to me that most of them are forced into it. Just like peer pressure amoungst teenagers, rappers have a certain standard to meet, which Sean has done a good job explaining. If a rapper isn't hard, they are weak, they are a sissy, they are a pussy, and this is the last thing they all want to be. So, they are forced into being completely masculine, which has a certain need of degrading women, even when the rapper is a kind person out of context. Take Nelli for example. We learned in the movie that Nelli is a gracious man who donates to several charities, but due to his videos and projected "masculinity", he was almost rejected at a bone marrow donation he was a part of. The women (and men) were concerned about his credit card swiping of a girls ass. Who wouldn't be concerned? But rappers have a need to be portrayed as such.
ReplyDeleteSean, what you wrote was exactly my train of thought. Being "hard" is the most important aspect of the hip-hop scene and ultimately effects the youth (especially male youth) that listens. One thing I started to think about today watching the movie was that this "hard" aspect was mainly rubbing off on the black male community, because, as you said, males have always been the "alpha dogs" and hip-hop originated in poor black communities. Something I really encourage you to think about is the survival of hip-hop as a industry if it were to take your advise, and rapper were to rap strictly about pride and good things in life.
ReplyDeleteAs Quiana and Matt have mentioned, the hip-hop industry has created a box, and in order to fit that box, you have to be 'hard,' which acts as a passage to exploit your masculinity. I love what you said about how being hard is not an accomplishment, but a major setback, and how members of the hip hop community must learn how to be happy with who they are, and rap about their true feelings, not what the media is pressuring them to rap about.
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