Evolution of Hip Hop Drug Songs | Crank Lucas Video

[mo matik]

I've caught a lot of slack around here for suggesting that the way rap functions today is an overall net negative on the community. I want to use this video among others as a jumping off point for a discussion on the significance of music and other aspects of culture on performance.

Thomas Sowell discusses the significance of culture in 1984. He makes a lot of valuable points here based on his analysis of cultures and immigrants all over the world.




Many years later an older, and admittedly more curmudgeon-ish Sowell discusses culture and the pitfalls of a society that raises the values of multiculturalism and diversity to such heights. Near the end of the video he says that we can think of the impact of black subculture just as we think of southern white redneck subculture- that both are detrimental to the overall performance of the demographics that subscribe to them.

 

[frankmatthews]

Subbed

 

[C.Magneto]

The brother is a genius. Don't let the cliches behind illuminati in the title throw you off. 

Highly recommend his book. Just finished it today. 

Amazon product ASIN 0977235718

 

[doublemesh96]

Subbed

 

[360waves]

Subbed, great thread OP. Music is another form of suggestion in my personal opinion. There's specific genres that fit perfectly with what people are doing. It brings about emotion and passion which is why I think music is the universal language. I could listen to something I might not understand as far as lyrics but the rhythm, the tone, the beat, and tempo can put me into a mood.

What I'm trying to get at is the art of suggestion can be very strong with young folks and impressionable people. Mix that with the environment people are actually living (and listening to) can be detrimental to their mental health and well being.

People understand things better wirh experience. A kid who's born and raised in a hood (that was created but that's another topic) can relate to this music and connect with it more than a suburban kid.

This isn't a slight at gangster rap or rappers, at the end of the day they are selling a product and people buy into it. Parents shouldn't listen to this type of music around children. Now a days it's hard to go about life without listening or hearing about it but parenting is a main ingredient in this bowl of problems the African American community faces. Parents should guide their children from right and wrong until they are old enough to make logical decision by themselves. It's hard to do that if you live in that environment.

when I used to go out to the clubs with my homies, you can literally see what's about to unfold. You got alcohol which lowers inhibition and cognitive thinking, you've got women and you've got men who are listening to (more often than not) ego driven music. A lot of mainstream music talks about 4 things. Drugs, women, money, and broke enwards and rich Enwards. Mix that all up and it's a bad situation more often then not leading to violence. I can't speak for all clubs im sure many are a great time with great women I'm just speaking on experience. Dudes are posted with their crew mean mugging everyone else and flaunting their cash or bottle service, you got some brothers that are all about getting some alleycat, you got brothers and sisters having a great time enjoying their night then you got some brothers that are just up to no good. At a certain point conversation to solve problems is out the window, blame alcohol or blame the music it's all a combination or recipe for disaster.

Here in Milwaukee all of the major "hood" clubs or places that okay hip hop have swarms of police enforcement on horses. Maybe the subliminal suggestion mixed with alcohol and possibly the environment people are born and raised in are a factor in why some forms of hip hop and rap are detrimental to black people

 

[wavy daddy]

In before all the old heads talk about 80s rap.

 

[handullz]

In before all the old heads 80s babies talk about 80s 90s rap.

Follow on to your statement, sir.

 

[Nereyda Vuelve Por Dios]

Mainstream influence in art is actually counter-art. Hiphop is about speaking truth and having fun. It does not live in the mainstream since its inception was very underground. Just becuase it is marketed one way doesn't means the cultures loses its traditional value. Don't confuse the two.

You ain't hiphop,by the way, if you think the culture is only what you see on commercial tv and radio. You think that way your opinion on the matter is Obsolete.

 

[Mark Antony]

Interesting, subbed for later.

 

[RIP sleazyy]

 

[sooperhooper]

Definitely one of my favorite topics to discuss.

I think that the music is a reflection of society, to an extent, and the listeners accept and or celebrate this behavior.

When Ross spit that line about date rape, women's activist groups protested and reebok dropped him (the fact that they were surprised by the subject matter s still baffles me). But as long a he's talking about killing black people, selling crack in black hoods, degrading black women, it's all gravy. People support him and labels pay him.

Killing black men has always been acceptable, encouraged and profitable in this country. And probably always will be. Now they just have us doing it for them, then getting on the mic and bragging about it.

David banner made an excellent point, he stated that black people like to hear rappers talk about things like "I make more money than you, you will always be broke, I'll eff your woman, I'll put drugs in your community" because that's what our oppressor said to us for generations and generations, and people respect it because they're familiar with it.

I pointed out a young thug line that i felt was out of line: "I'll pull up on ya and pop at ya kid", cats were informing me that way worse lyrics existed, such as notorious big saying something about he's got a partner that will kidnap kids, rape them then throw them over the the bridge. That is reprehensible, in my opinion, yet he's highly regarded in the black community and people vigorously defend his name. Like how are people okay tuning it to that.

"it's just music" is bs to me. It's programming and its also a litmus test thats to determine what people find acceptable.

Lastly, I whole heartedly believe that rap serves as marketing for prisons. An uptight, Caucasian can't get on tv saying 'young black kids, we need you to sell crack, break in houses, beat up women etc because we need you to fill up our prisons in order for us to get state funding', he'll get called a racist and people would be outraged. But if they get TIP to say it, the black youth will think it's cool. If Kevin Gates or young Jeezy promotes it, the imoressionable Youth is more likely to follow suit.

 

[Sir San Diego]

My struggle is does hip hop help keep alive a needed rebellious mentality for the oppressed or does it help us play right into the hands of our oppressors? If the music we listened to was about love would that have us behaving differently and seeing different outcomes? Hip hop and gangsta rap weren't around in the 50s, 60s snd 70s and we still had drugs and violence in the black community as well as disproportionate incarceration of black men. [emoji]129300[/emoji]

While it wouldn't hurt to have more positive music as an influence, I'm not sure what difference it makes at this point. The music is in some ways gallows humor.

 

[mo matik]

Hip hop and gangsta rap weren't around in the 50s, 60s snd 70s and we still had drugs and violence in the black community as well as disproportionate incarceration of black men. .

The black community in this regard was doing better in the 50s than they are doing now. Drugs, violence, and crime were far less of a problem than they are today.

Anyone who is serious about evidence need only compare black communities as they evolved in the first 100 years after slavery with black communities as they evolved in the first 50 years after the explosive growth of the welfare state, beginning in the 1960s.

You would be hard-pressed to find as many ghetto riots prior to the 1960s as we have seen just in the past year, much less in the 50 years since a wave of such riots swept across the country in 1965.

We are told that such riots are a result of black poverty and white racism. But in fact -- for those who still have some respect for facts -- black poverty was far worse, and white racism was far worse, prior to 1960. But violent crime within black ghettos was far less.

Murder rates among black males were going down -- repeat, DOWN -- during the much lamented 1950s, while it went up after the much celebrated 1960s, reaching levels more than double what they had been before.

Most black children were raised in two-parent families prior to the 1960s. But today the great majority of black children are raised in one-parent families.

http://www.pennlive.com/opinion/2015/05/poor_blacks_looking_for_someon.html

Sowell here is placing heavy blame on the welfare state, which is most definitely a more significant factor in explaining the current condition of the black community than rap music, and just as embedded into the culture.

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I would still argue that rap music is problematic though. I think much of the appeal of rap to boys and young men is powerful men refusing to give up on what they want (money fame women) just because laws or cultural mores stand in their way. So these rappers end up encouraging violence and drug peddling in their communities in order to attain goals that appeal to the youth. Individual success at the cost of the community at large.

 

[frshstunna]

Music has an influence /impact but some of y'all definitely overstating it ....all the bad stuff still gon happen whether rap is around or not ...one thing I do agree on is there need to be more of a mix of certain types of hip hop being played to the masses, we shouldn't have to go out of our way to find songs with positive messages or dropping knowledge

 

[C.Magneto]

frshstunna

Every effect has a cause. What would you attribute the abundance of negativity to?

 

[frshstunna]

frshstunna

Every effect has a cause. What would you attribute the abundance of negativity to?

negativity as far as what ?

 

[wavycrocket]

Terribly oversimplified, old head way to view "drug rap". Some truth to some of it, but I'll come back on my lunch break to break things down.

 

[C.Magneto]

negativity as far as what ?

"all the bad stuff still gon happen whether rap is around or not"

 

[frshstunna]

negativity as far as what ?

"all the bad stuff still gon happen whether rap is around or not"

O I mean its ust life ...all the stuff ppl rap about is happening n gonna continue to happen unless major changes happen in this country ( which wont happen anytime soon) ....songs about drugs, violence etc just didn't come from nowhere these are things a few of the artists are into n a lot of them have seen ...sure fans are gonna listen to the music and think it's cool but these youngins ain't out here wildin cuz 2 chainz told em too ...it's real life **** they dealing with and going through and the music is just the soundtrack for em right now

 

[C.Magneto]

O I mean its ust life ...all the stuff ppl rap about is happening n gonna continue to happen unless major changes happen in this country ( which wont happen anytime soon) ....songs about drugs, violence etc just didn't come from nowhere these are things a few of the artists are into n a lot of them have seen ...sure fans are gonna listen to the music and think it's cool but these youngins ain't out here wildin cuz 2 chainz told em too ...it's real life **** they dealing with and going through and the music is just the soundtrack for em right now

I feel you.

I think it's a catch 22. Does art imitate life, or does life imitate art?

I think it's a little of both. These cats are making music about what they see, but a lot of people are imitating what they see in the art.

I'm not here to bash musics current state. I think we need to realize it's inherent power. If they're able to move the masses with this low vibration of thought, imagine what's possible on the other end of the spectrum.

 

[dathbgboy]

Interested to see where this thread goes. Everything has so many layers to it when dealing w/ the plight of the black community, almost like we'll never get to the core.

 

[mo matik]

Bump...

 

[mo matik]

A reading of an excerpt from his book Black Rednecks and White Liberals.

 

[antidope]

In 2016 it's cooler to rap about using drugs than it is to rap about selling drugs and I don't get or like it.