When people are asked the question, what is beat? The usual definition one might think of would be as the main accent in music and poetry. It also might be defined as the act of hurting or defeating someone. But beat is not just all about the flow of music or to strike another person. Beat is also a type of expression, whether in writing, music, or art, it is about being free or having the freedom to do what is in one’s mind. It is all about disaffection and non-conformity. Beat is about being yourself and not being forced with the compliance with the living standards of society. Beat is about breaking boundaries, opening up and letting free of oneself. Beat sparked in the early 1950s with a group of writers who wrote about the cultural phenomena at the time after the Second World War which inspired a lot of people even up to now. The meaning and purpose of beat has also evolved and changed throughout the years. When beat was first introduced in the 1950s, it was a big deal. People who were Beat writers then were viewed as different, outcast and overlooked. It started a movement ab...
As I’ve stated, Lee’s critiques of the media, those in positions of power, the consumption of the audience in the black community, and his trope characters are all present today. We see similar images in television and movie roles available for black people and in rap and hip hop music representations. The media has an immense amount of power in how the black body is portrayed. The music industry carries a similar power in deciding what will and will not sell in music. These executives are the deciding factor of what is “authentically black” and interesting to
In Allen Ginsberg's Deliberate Prose, it is stated that "the original street usage meant exhausted, at the bottom of the world, looking up or out, sleeplessness, wide-eyed, perceptive" (Ginsberg 237), or beat. It was the Beat philosophy to question and criticize life rather than merely be content with it. Allen Ginsberg once again expresses beautifully what it meant to be part of the 1950s counter-culture by saying "It's weird enough to be in this human form so temporarily, without huge gangs of people, whole societies, trying to pretend that their temporary bread and breasts are the be-all and end-all of the soul's fate, and enforcing this ridiculous opinion with big rules of thought and conduct, bureaucracies to control the soul, FBI's, televisions, wars, politics, boring religions" (135).... ... middle of paper ...
...the Beats" in the late fifties and early sixties, paving the way for a more accepting American society and the tolerance of alternative lifestyles we enjoy today.
America was built on rebellion. This was no different for the Beat Generation whom took Americans in the 20th century, into a new way of life. Middle class free spirited people who questioned the practices of everyday lifestyle and mainstream culture, the beats lived in disillusionment with society. The fifties being a time of conservative family morals encouraged the bohemian nature of the beats for their want to experience more. The nature of this rejection is expected but, why? And how does such rebellion begin to take place, what forms does it take, and does such rebellion provide a lasting change?
While the 1950s and 60s were a time of segregation in America. Most Americans, especially older individuals and groups found the beat and lyrics to Rock ‘n’ Roll sickening. It reminded them of a kind of African American type music. They didn’t like the fact that their children were listening to it because “Rock ‘n’ Roll was credited with and criticized for promoting integration and economic opportunity for blacks while bringing to ‘mainstream’ culture black styles and values.” While Americans began to feel that they were beginning to grow closer and closer to the ways of Afr...
Oswald, Janelle. “Is Rap Turning Girls into Ho’s?” The Black Book: A Custom Publication. 3rd ed. Ed. Sam Pierstorff. Modesto: Quercus Review Press, 2012. 171-175.
In the words of rapper Busta Rhymes, “hip-hop reflects the truth, and the problem is that hip-hop exposes a lot of the negative truth that society tries to conceal. It’s a platform where we could offer information, but it’s also an escape” Hip-hop is a culture that emerged from the Bronx, New York, during the early 1970s. Hip-Hop was a result of African American and Latino youth redirecting their hardships brought by marginalization from society to creativity in the forms of MCing, DJing, aerosol art, and breakdancing. Hip-hop serves as a vehicle for empowerment while transcending borders, skin color, and age. However, the paper will focus on hip-hop from the Chican@-Latin@ population in the United States. In the face of oppression, the Chican@-Latin@ population utilized hip hop music as a means to voice the community’s various issues, desires, and in the process empower its people.
Tytell, John. Naked Angels: the Lives and Literature of the Beat Generation. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976.
These articles depict the controversies of the hip hop industry and how that makes it difficult for one to succeed. Many of these complications and disputes may be invisible to the population, but these articles take the time to reveal them.
Since hip-hop has expanded from the undergrounds in Bronx in the 70’s it has grew into a popular accepted music genre. Consequently, as it progressed from the golden age it gradually grew away from its original roots. If one were to evaluate the change of lyrics in hip-hop, they would see a difference between early hip-hop and today’s hip-hop. The current state of hip-hop is in a stage where things like hey young world are outdated. Instead of broadcasting out a positive message, hip-hop sends out a message of sex, drug, and violence. The early musicians who helped solidify hip-hop, by producing music that told stories on subjects of race, respect, or even music that had a positive message.
Hip hop has multiple branches of style and is a culture of these. This essay will examine Hip Hop from the point of view of the following three popular music scholars, Johnson, Jeffries and Smitherman. It will delve deeper into their understanding of what hip hop is and its relation to the different people that identify with its message and contents. It will also identify the history of Hip hop and its transition into popular music. In particular this essay will focus on what hip hop represents in the black community and how it can be used as a social movement against inequalities faced by them. This will then open up the discussion for the how this has influenced society, and the impact it has had in terms of race issues which hip hop itself often represents through music.
Firstly, the group of friends and writers most commonly known as the Beats evolved dramatically in focal points such as Greenwich Village and Columbia University, and subsequently spread their political and cultural views to a wider audience. The three Beat figureheads William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac each perceived an agenda within American society to clamp down on those who were in some way different from the accepted ‘norm’, and in response deliberately flirted with the un-American practices of Buddhism, drug use, homosexuality and the avant-garde. Ginsberg courted danger by lending a voice to the homosexual subculture that had been marginalised by repressive social traditions and cultural patterns within the United States.
Will sexism ever come to an end in today’s society? Are women going to let men step all over them? Jennifer Mclune discusses in her article, Hip-Hops Betrayal on Black Women, how black male singers objectify and degrade black females in the music industry. The purpose of this article is to show how black women are being deceived in the hip hop industry and being used as sex symbols instead of showing them for their true colors. Mclune (2015) voices her strong argument in attracting her audience by using ethos, tones, and the use of word choices.
One theme that is prevalent throughout much of the literature we have covered so far is that it is very critical of the conformist values of late 1950s society. In an era of Levittowns and supermarkets and the omnipresent television, there was a call to leave the conformist suburban culture in search of something higher. Two major proponents of the individual as opposed to society were Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg, two of the central figures in the Beat movement. Through their work one can gain a perspective on the anti-conformity spirit that was brewing under the surface in the Beat culture.