The American media

The American media has recently been in the spotlight due to criticism of hip hop music. Moreover, in the aftermath of the social unrest experienced in educational institutions and public performances, which resulted in the loss of lives, the American media and affiliated political think tanks have resorted to connecting the genre with juvenile violence. Rappers’ ferocious rhymes have served as the backdrop for verdicts. Yet, the message is central, and, as with other musical genres, a logical study is required to subject hip hop to an examination of the reason for a deeper comprehension (Charry 24). Originated among the African American youths in New York, residing particularly in the South Bronx are the historical roots of hip hop. The rhythms were founded on the bongo drums, afro conga, and associated sounds of jazz in the 1970s by the English-speaking black Americans from Barbados. The music got into the American culture fully by the 1980s. Furthermore, the inception of web 2.0 technology as well as the utilization of sound cloud, YouTube, Spotify, and Myspace; the music spread to the audience across the world following these social networking sites convenience of accessibility. There are four central elements that characterize hip hop music, which includes; MCing, Djing, b-boying, and graffiti, which means orality, aural, dance, and visual respectively (Brooks 1114). Therefore, hip-hop is more of culture, a movement, a philosophical, social overhaul, than just any ordinary source of musical and entertainment the embodiment of blackness as well as black struggles.

When new artists enter the hip hop music and others age out, the culture of the genre changes and hence has been evolving across decades. The new artists have brought into being new styles, images, sounds, culture, and the otherwise perceived racial and traditional concepts, making the genre a universal platform for expression. Against all the odds Nevertheless, there are fundamental elements that characterize hip hop music, which entails the fact that all the artists value and embody blackness, raw expression, thug life, homophobia, criminality, and misogyny (Charnas 5783).

Considering that a majority of the affiliates to the hip hop music are African Americans, it has been a belief and an accepted tradition that the attitudes, ideas, and styles all symbolize the blackness culture, a critical aspect to which even the hip hop pictures portray, but remains meaningless in the contemporary world. A good example is the notable and central figure of hip hop music, Eminem, who is a white American, but he embraces blackness in all he does, including the possession of tattoos on his body, the styles of dancing and the diction of his wording. Therefore, blackness does not border on any specific race necessarily, as both the whites and the blacks can embody the blackness in the hip hop culture. Whatever comes out of the blackness in the hip-hop music is a hardnosed and rough symbolization. This is because the styles applied by the dancers and musicians mirror a culture that does not fear anything, rather, ready to fight for anything worth it (Charnas 5783). A keen analysis of the artists of hip hop reveals that most of them often seek to prove a point of being tough and rough, revealing the had images that stress on the core message of blackness in the hip hop mainstream culture. For instance, Eminem was quoted saying, “I come from Detroit where it’s rough, and I’m not a smooth talker. I am who I am, and I say what I think. I’m not putting a face on for the record” (Bailey 59). Across the board, such is the unmatched audacity among the hip hop affiliates.

The US is rated as a powerhouse of economic independence, and capable of taking care of all the American population and yet secure a substantial surplus. Nevertheless, discrimination founded on race is a primary ailment in the American society, especially fueled up by the capitalist culture of the West. Indeed, despite the efforts and struggles of the minorities, the people of color, they still are sidelined and marginalized forty years down the line (Brooks 1113). Blacks suffer unemployment and police harassment, as well as social exploitations in America. Being imprisoned and executed at very alarming rates, the black Americans add up to barely 13 percent of the US population, which raises a critical social imbalance. Exploitations, mass poverty, lynching, and related social injustices are pertinent to the black American lives. Therefore, in the guest to countering the effects, movements are often the way of expression by the marginalized blacks. To this effect, black struggle has been party to the avocations of equality and social fairness in America. Furthermore, the hip hop music has brought in a formidable force of campaigning for the change of the American society, express the message of the oppressed, the problems they face, and the urgent need for the mitigation of the problems by the relevant stakeholder in government and other administrative positions.

Hip hop is indeed a platform for communication, and following its inception in the 1980s, the genre had been a single channel for the oppressed, the marginalized, the despised, and the prejudiced to air their problems to American society and the rest of the world. All that is hidden from the media and the mainstream of the American communities is let known to the US culture that it is part of the community and that people need to note, whether right or wrong. The drug abuse, violence in American cities, and the hard life on the streets are the core messages in hip hop music. The equal opportunity American society, with the embodiment of the American dream that everybody is meant to achieve and be successful in life, is often an irony demystified by the hip-hop stars (Brooks 1114). The overt expressive culture of hip hop has been a persistent reminder to the Americans that racial and social injustices are ailing the marginalized people, as the media seemingly gave up on the same and the responsible parties have ignored measures on mitigating the challenges. The victimization of an entire class of people in America, the continued poverty and oppression among the voiceless, and the persistent social injustices against the people of color have found a new base of letting the world know, and reveal all that is hidden from the mainstream to the Americans. Therefore, the embodied blackness and the black struggle are themes held as a core in the hip hop culture.

The new edition, well expanded and detailed to the core, the That’s the Joint! The anthology is one of the most theoretical literal works presented to demystify the blackness and the black struggle in the hip hop culture. The political landscape of the hip-hop nation, street authenticity, aesthetics, social movements, technology for delivery, and the culture of hip-hop as an industry in an independent society remain centralized in the twenty-first century. Furthermore, the hip-hop culture has become very diverse as to cover subjects which had otherwise been neglected by the American stakeholders in the marginalized communities like racial diversity, the global influence of hip-hop, and gender-based affirmative actions, as is engendered in the hip hop contemporary politics and social struggles. The profound impact of hip hop, cultural movements, aesthetic, and intellectual aspects are essential components of the pop culture. Since the advent of hip-hop music in the 1970s, the genre has remained relevant despite the earlier efforts to criminalize it and abolish its conception. Nevertheless, along the estimated four decades of struggle, the hip hop music has been capable of overcoming the hurdles of criticism, journalistic and scholarship challenges, to later emerge as a solely unprecedented anthology on the American soil. Therefore, it is not only imperative to appreciate that hip-hop is a genre of music, but also as a formidable social movement whose practices mirror the blackness and the black struggles critically (Gray 78). The pictures of the hip-hop stars remain unmatched among their contemporaries. The background and the redefinition of blackness to embody all the universal races, both the people of color and the white Americans, as well as the beauty of cultural synchronization and diversity towers above other genres of music alike.

The concept of beautiful struggle is a philosophical complex that has been exemplified and rooted into the cultural mainstream of America by the hip hop music. On the other hand, the embodied blackness has gained a new definition that mirrors a diverse society, in culture, diction, race, and philosophical aspects. As such, hierarchical elements are pertinent to the theme, made and emboldened by hip hop affiliates in the American society. On the other hand, a controversial element emerges when a keen observation is applied in the embodiment of the blackness, as compared to the otherwise social complimenting White Supremacy analogy. The latter is portrayed as an unwelcome portion of the American classism, which is not expressly embraced by the black Americans, however, if blackness was viewed in the same approach, then it is inevitable that the logic does not hold among the black communities (Bailey 63). The accountability of the philosophy of the white supremacy and the beautiful struggle both remain controversial, based on the detailed cultural diversity and pertinent practices hip-hop embraces.

Works Cited

Bailey, Julius. ”Conscious Hip-Hop versus the Culture Industry.“ Philosophy and Hip-Hop, 2014, pp. 59-70.

Brooks-Tatum, Shanesha R. ”That’s the Joint!: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader. Eds. MurrayForman and MarkAnthony Neal. Second Edition. New York: Routledge, 2012.“ The Journal of Popular Culture, vol. 45, no. 5, 2012, pp. 1113-1116.

Charnas, Dan. ”The big payback: the history of the business of hip-hop.“ Choice Reviews Online, vol. 48, no. 10, 2011, pp. 5782-48.

Charry, Eric S. Hip Hop Africa: New African Music in a Globalizing World. Indiana UP, 2012.

Gray, Claude P, and Giuseppe. Pipitone. No Half Steppin’: An Oral and Pictorial History of New York City Club the Latin Quarter and the Birth of Hip-Hop’s Golden Era. 2016.