Fmeh

I was recently in a place in SL where I heard the most stereotypical song that represents literally EVERYTHING I hate about hip-hop/rap culture. These kinds of stereotypes that are glorified--they make it HUGE in sales, tons of people buy it. It's not the rare good artists that are the problem, it's this garbage that makes it in the mainstream and sells like hotcakes.

It's the glorifying of this crap that really pisses me off.

Here are the lyrics:

WTF? Why is this kind of absolute TRASH able to make it to the airwaves? Why is this kind of ABSOLUTE GARBAGE not part of standard conversation of what's wrong with America's youth, on news shows, on other places?

Why is the only place this kind of thing gets talked about is on BET where they have deep discussions, but the overall opinion is that if you speak against this kind of GARBAGE, you're racist. Why?

This is garbage!!!!

And how about this--the only news stories in Google News about this crap is this:

I'm-so-hood - Google News

Why? I'm not saying it should be banned, I'm saying it should be DISCUSSED. Oh no, we can't talk about it, people will call you racist for discussing it.

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prinţesă nină

RACIST!

Lucifer Baphomet

This is all Elvis Presley's fault for gyrating his hips.

That's where it all started, I tell you.

Siyu Suen

Ouch... my brain...

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I'm attempting to bring about the end of the world to usher in a new era of mask wielding overlords. This is how!

Asher Bertrand

You know, they're not the only ones. Consider the lyric stylings of some death metal bands:

Fmeh

As far as those metal lyrics--those are SOOO over the top that anyone listening to it KNOWS it's not something you go out and do. The rap and hip-hop that I'm talking about is stuff that people LIVE THEIR LIVES BY!!! People RESPECT those lyrics like to speak anything against what they say to do is some sort of blasphemy and makes someone racist.

People can rank on those kinds of metal lyrics all they want--and nobody is going to call anyone racist, nobody's going to say "you're just trying to bring us down", nobody's going to get in your face about it. They're over the top--they're NOT SUPPOSED to be something people build their lives upon.

If you're going to claim that people DON'T build their lives--their attitude, their outlook, their mannerisms, their style, EVERYTHING they do with their life--on the stuff that these hip-hop/rap artists are putting out (don't get me wrong--again--there ARE REALLY GOOD RAP AND HIP-HOP ARTISTS OUT THERE--they're just not in the mainstream).

Nope--people don't spend their life savings on hydraulics so they can emulate their favorite artists. Nope, people don't do the crotch grabbing "you got a problem" thug attitude. Nope, people don't treat women like property. Nope, people don't spend the rest of their life savings on bling--nope--it doesn't happen.

You see it happen ALL THE TIME. When's the last time you saw that kind of thing with hard rock? (the sound of crickets)


Ya gotta be down in the hood with your homies, yo G yo yo G yo. Get your bling bling yo yall puffimabah. And don't forget the poopity and the scoopity. Now get your weirdah drizza drizza dreer yeah, and wear your pants like a homie, 'cause you be from the hood, and dats what being "real" is all about, gotta keep it real, real stupid and ignorant. Let's take music and style hostage for 14 years so people who are 20 or younger think that's all style is. Yo yall, bling bitches and hoes! Let's treat women like crap because if you're not from the hood then you're just a piece of crap, trying to bring a homie down. Yo G yo yo G yo.

Dancien Graves

Hip Hop for the past 7-8 years has been going seriously down hill. Most of the time when listening to it, I just fade the vocals out and just listen to the music.

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Fmeh

There was a period in the early 90's when the scene was DECENT. Then the mid 90's happened.

There still ARE a lot of good hip-hop/rap artists out there, but NONE of them make it to the radio. None of them make it to the mainstream. Most of the time you have to search online to find them. They're NOT the ones who make it on the billboard charts--the music industry PUSHES OUT this crap, they advertise it, they promote it. They found something that represents rebellion and just kept going with it, no matter how corrupt it got.

Lucifer Baphomet

Fmeh..
you never hear about the Scandanavian church burnings and murders, by death/black metal bands and fans?

Try researching it starting with Burzum, Varg Vikernes, and Øystein Aarseth.

Mukatsuku

I think Fmeh has the same problem with this as I do, in that it's not really the music that we hate, but the way the criminal lifestyle is glorified (not in the song, but by the way the singers themselves indulge in dangerous, criminal activities, or at least pretend to).

Bob Marley and Eric Clapton wrote about shooting a sheriff but not the deputy, yet they weren't appearing on the news boasting about actually committing the crime like a huge number of hip-hop singers do.
I have no problem with the actual music, just the people who take it too seriously and live by it (spurred on by the "artist" who made it).

I am so sick of the music videos that go along with these too. Seriously, they need an imagination.
So many of them follow this list:
1. Hire a 2" tall midget to film the video, constantly looking up at the "singers"
2. Get women with large arses in skimpy clothes and make them shake rather than actually dance
3. Have a bouncing car
4. Wear more gold than Jimmy Saville
5. Make the same hand gestures over and over again at the camera.

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Fmeh

I don't know about the effects of things on countries outside the U.S., I just know the music industry PROMOTES the kind of crap that's here.

The kinds of things you're talking about I've never heard of happening in the U.S., and unfortunately, world news doesn't get mentioned much in U.S. media.

I don't doubt that some of those things happen there. I've heard before that some other countries get into MUCH harsher metal than what we have here, and what you have said proves that. I'm speaking soley about the United States.

But you partially proved me wrong. Partially.

Mukatsuku

I hate these people too, but at least they're HUGELY in the minority in the metal scene and if they live by this music out in public, they are not going to be taken seriously or seen as cool by the vast majority of people.
Obviously anybody who vandalises, murders, or hurts another person should be put away and these death metal followers you mention are sick.

Mukatsuku

Lucifer Baphomet

Don't get me wrong Fmeh....
I find most (not all) rap pretty unimaginative and monotonous.

I don't think that rap is creating the problem.
I think a lot of rap has grown out of that culture, and the problem is that this culture of violence existed before rap.
Chicken and the egg.
Or something
It's 5:30 AM
I should be asleep.
Thats as rational as I'm gonna get right now.

Fmeh

If the culture wasn't being PROMOTED by the music industry, it wouldn't have gotten as big so quickly. If it wasn't being PROMOTED by the music industry, people could speak against it without being labeled a racist, or "You're just a HATER!". If it wasn't being PROMOTED by the music industry, it wouldn't be MTV's main squeeze, it wouldn't be so high up on the billboard charts, it wouldn't be a lot of things.

It's being PROMOTED and PUSHED onto youth. The problem isn't the music itself, the problem is the industry and what they're willing to push out as role models for youth so they can make a buck.

The music industry can take something that's a pile of crap and push it out and advertise and promote it and polish ANY turd to be a blockbuster--it's all in the promoting, and that's what they've been doing for years with hip-hop and rap. They see an opportunity to make money and take it--the less effort they have to put into the actual product, the better, and that's why you end up with all this crap being pushed out there.

Mukatsuku

Go to bed, you nutter!

And, yes, I agree with you - I just wish these celebrities were put away and not allowed to make money based on their crimes.

Mukatsuku

You used the word I was looking for; "role model".
Yes, my problem is that actually behaving in a criminal manner and boasting on MTV about it as well as in their songs, these people are trying to be a role model for criminals.

If they sang about this, then said "hey, we don't do this for real and it would be stupid to do so" rather than the opposite, then it wouldn't annoy me (as long as the video directors got some imagination).

Fmeh

??? Their crimes? What crimes?

I wish they weren't able to make money by putting out crap like they're putting out, but for them to be put away--I'm not sure what we'd be putting them away for.

Maybe some of the heads of the music industry that approves of all of this--maybe THEY should be put away--but the people who make the "music", I don't think there's anything they can be put away for, and I don't think it would be right to put them away for it.

Mukatsuku

For you, Fmeh

Mukatsuku

Watch the video I linked to of Louis Theroux - LOADS of these artists are shooting each other and committing other crimes.
Tupac was the higher profile one, but loads of them promote doing this and are often arrested for committing crimes, but buy their way out.

Fmeh

I'm starting to see where you're coming from now. The problem with that is that people tell stories all the time--if we're to react that way to rap and hip-hop, what would keep that kind of reaction from happening to books, and movies? Should we have to have a disclaimer on all of those too, and when everything has a disclaimer, doesn't it do about as much good as warning labels on cigarettes, or "warning, flammable" labels on books of matches or fireworks?

Mukatsuku

Argh! Read EVERYTHING I've said rather than skimming through.

I didn't say there should be a disclaimer, I say they should be stopped from trying to instigate crime by saying acting that way is a good thing.
Do you see Eli Wood or Quentin Tarantino making movies about killing people then in interviews saying that killing people is a good thing? Or that acting that way should happen in real life and that they are actually making films about things that should happen?

They don't need a disclaimer - they need to be stopped from a) actually doing the crimes in their songs and boasting about it
b) standing out in public telling people the songs are real and acting that way is a good thing (instigating violence is illegal)

Asher Bertrand

Oooooh, you mean that sometimes lyrics aren't meant to be taken at face value? OK!

I've seen idiots like just about every genre of music. Srsly. And yes, a number of people who devote a whole lot of energy fitting themselves into some kind of subculture when it probably doesn't do much to improve their lives. I'm thinking rednecks here with country music, I'm thinking the Klebolds of the world with goth or metal. And yeah, you get some of them among rap followers, too.

Hehe, really? I thought the two favorite hobbies of any subculture are "They don't like me because I'm ____" and "You're not really a ____ because you do/don't _____"

Really, there are all manner of idiots out there. Some gravitate toward "gangsta" and some toward the Confederate battle flag. No one has yet managed to corner the market on stupidity. There's enough to go around.

Clancy Sullivan

Most rap is purchased by white folks who do not live the life style talked about in the songs.

Read some of Britney Spears lyrics, I contend that some of what she says is as lethal as what you point to in rap, just in another kind of way.

I'm a white guy. so, one day I asked some black guys, 'hey, do y'all live the life style promoted and glorified in rap songs?', and they said "No, ha-ha-ha, go back to Kansas, Dorothy."

Word.

Briar Bing

Slippery slope yo.

Plus - nothing new under the sun.

'Worse' lyrics than those were being protested in the late 80s by people like Tipper Gore (NWA> EZ-E, Ice-T, et al).