Hip Hop and What it's Done for Black Culture

How much rap did you watch when you were a teen?  I remember coming home everyday when I was growing up to shows like Smart Guy, Sister Sister and Evan Stevens, etc.  I also remember that when 5:00 rolled around, it was time for 106 & Park – BET’s top ten video countdown.  Never did I stop to evaluate what was being shown on this program.  Almost every video featured women who were half-naked and men with champagne bottles and big jewelry.  The lyrics were not uplifting at all either.  Not all of these videos were like this, but the majority were.  What has changed now?

After viewing the video shown in class I realized that not much really has changed in the realm of hip-hop.  I had seen this video before in another class some years ago, and viewing it again made me even more aware to these things that the Black community is faced with in the world of Hip Hop.  The commentator in the video stated that Hip Hop is the cancer to Black people.  This is sad, to think about a genre that we are the face of, is seen as negative and portrays negative images.  My qualm with this is that showing one side of what Black people go through is fine, but the positive sides need to be shown as well.  It would be nice to have a more intellectual type of hip hop blown up with rappers like Lupe Fiasco and Common to name a few.  These will never be the face of what people first think of though, because as people will say “sex sells”.  In watching a documentary on video vixens on VH1, a commentator noted that “crack sells” too.  Just because it sells and cashes out does not mean it’s good or beneficial, it can actually be something that tears a community down. 

The article on Images of Sexual Stereotypes in Rap Videos and the Health of African American Female Adolescents really opened my eyes to the discussion of the effect of hip hop on young women.  One has to wonder why and how more and more women are wanting to be in videos or to date “bad guys”.  I can remember even from my middle school years that I, too would make jokes and comments with my cousins about being in music videos.  We would always argue about who’s going to be the girl by the pool, who would be the “main girl” of the video, and who would just be in the back blending in with the rest.  That’s usually the recipe for music videos.  The face that the desire or aspiration to be in a music video was prevalent says something about the effect to which these roles are glamorized among young girls.  The study, which found that the more young females are exposed to these types of videos and messages means the more that they will be willing to date young men who fit the role that these rappers put on, to accept dating violence, and to be engage in more risky sexual behavior really is astonishing.  I have to ask myself what can be done about this because it’s not just something of the past, it’s very much still a current issue.

The article on Enhanging Critical Consciousness in Young African American Men:  A Psychoeducational Approach was an uplifting source to the problematic outcomes of the images and messages in hip hop.  The Young Warriors program aims to educate young Black men on the messages that are put out in hip hop, and engages them in dialogue and discussion amongst themselves about these things.  I love the fact that it creates a space where young Black men can come together, look up to other respectable Black men, (creating alternative positive images for them), and where they can learn to openly discuss issues with other men in general.  The article also incorporates three of the Nguzo Saba principles.  The creed of the program promotes Kujichagulia, Umoja, and Imani.  This is a beautiful aspect of the program because it gets backs to the foundation of coming together as a community to improve as a whole.  I think that it’s great that these young men are addressed because they can then pass that on to the young women that they are friends with, come across, and potentially chose to date.  Not only are they coming together to be able to discuss these things, but those discussions, I’m sure, do not stop just at the program.  This is an example of a solution that has a lasting and spreading impact to tear down the problems associated with the Black community.