Hip Hop has been a thread of music that is deeply rooted in the struggle within the black communities of America. It acted as a window for people outside of the black community to acknowledge and experience, to an extent, what endeavors those communities encounter. Although Hip Hop’s central purpose is to denote the subjugation that was implemented on the black community, Hip Hop began as a mere offshoot of 1970’s jazz, funk, and soul.
Beastie Boys, now seen as a forefront in the gentrification of Hip Hop, were at first an anomaly. Being an all white group in a predominantly African-American industry was not a walk in the park at first, but once they showed their ability to rap; no one seemed to doubt that they truly belonged in the Hip Hop genre. I personally have found great solitude in their music because I find myself typically attracted towards the underdog. Being that people are not black, particularly white people, are a rarity in the hip-hop and rap industry, the Beastie Boys epitomized the classic underdog persona. When I became aware that there was a park in dedication to Adam Yauch, I capitalized on the opportunity to both pay homage to an outstanding human being, but also visit a park that is relatively new in relation to New York.
Adam Yauch was a member of the Beastie Boys. He grew up in Brooklyn Heights, which is the site of his memorial. The park at the time, Palmetto Park, was said to be the park that Adam learned how to ride a bike with his dad. (Rolling Stone), an important detail to take note of because upon visiting the park, I noticed that a large percentage of the park is used specifically for children.
If one listens to the Beastie Boys, you will find that the borough of Brooklyn was a prevalent topic...
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...ing lyrical, while at the same time implanting a family friendly feel to their songs. This is an important for me because Hip Hop reputation could be repudiated if people were both aware of the distinction between Hip-Hop and Rap, but also if people listened to artists like the Beastie Boys. In summation, Adam Yauch an enormous impact of music, Brooklyn, New York, and his fans, all of these are characteristics of one deserving a memorial.
Works Cited
Blistein, Jon. "Adam Yauch Park Dedicated in Brooklyn." Rolling Stone. Jann S. Wenner, 3 May 2013. Web. 6 Apr. 2014.
"Adam Yauch Park." NYC Parks. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2014.
Biography. "Adam Yauch Biography." Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 10 Apr. 2014. .
"Brooklyn Heights." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 8 Apr. 2014. Web. 10 Apr. 2014. .
The emerald jewel of Brooklyn, Prospect Park is often called the borough’s backyard and has been a serene and idyllic retreat for Brooklynites for well over a century now. In fact, the park recently celebrated its 150th anniversary with great fanfare, attesting its historic importance and role it’s played in city life for generations. Few people, however, know the true history of the park, such as its connection to Central Park and the role it played in the development of Brooklyn real estate in the late 19th century. To that end, here’s a quick look at the hidden history of Prospect Park and the key role it’s played in the city’s history over the years.
George covers much familiar ground: how B-beats became hip hop; how technology changed popular music, which helped to create new technologies; how professional basketball was influenced by hip hop styles; how gangsta rap emerged out of the crack epidemic of the 1980s; how many elements of hip hop culture managed to celebrate, and/or condemn black-on-black violence; how that black-on-black violence was somewhat encouraged by white people scheming on black males to show their foolishness, which often created a huge mess; and finally, how hip hop used and continues to use its art to express black frustration and ambition to blacks while, at the same time, refering that frustration and ambition to millions of whites.
How does one pay homage to such a great and revolutionary legacy? The most common way that this Facebook page seems to achieve this goal is to post portion of lyrics from various albums, sometimes they state where that verse is from and sometimes they don’t. One can tell the true fans of the group, because not only do they comment the title of the song, they list which album it is from and continue on with the next verse. What makes this type of homage so special is when viewers look through the comments and view the profiles of the people who comment on the posts. Members are able to notice how different each person is from the next. On March 31, 2010 someone posted, “Fuck the police comin’ straight from the underground young nigga got it bad cause I’m brown, and not the other color so police think they have authority to kill a minority…”(Post 1) One comment that exemplifies the diversity of fans is one made from a Caucasian woman in her mid-forties. She commented saying, “This is something to make me see the world in a new way...
Inside the album jacket, Serch sums up hip-hop in ‘89: “There was a time when nothing was more important than the New York Rap Scene.” It’s dilluted, but not divided.” To hip-hop afficionados, Serch’s quote sounds like the equivalent to a Vietnam soldier’s letter home. Obviously, the group saw the possibility of the hip-hop culture being tainted.
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.
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.
Hip-Hop became characterized by an aggressive tone marked by graphic descriptions of the harshness and diversity of inner-city life. Primarily a medium of popular entertainment, hip-hop also conveys the more serious voices of youth in the black community. Though the approaches of rappers became more varied in the latter half of the 1980s, message hip-hop remained a viable form for addressing the problems faced by the black community and means to solve those problems. The voices of "message" hip...
Even when one becomes an artist in the industry, there are many troubles that go along with the tag of being a recording artist in the urban division. One example is seen in the article, “The Business of Rap: Between the Street and the Executive Suite” by Keith Negus, where columnist, J.R. Reynolds, mentions the closing of the urban division at Capitol Records in 1996, calling it “the systematic extermination of black music at Capitol Records”, saying that it did not make any sense because the genre was doing well in the market (528). The black music division is often subject to this kind of cutting compared to others. Negus also states that “despite the influence of rap and hip hop on the aesthetics of music, video, television, film, sport, fashion, dancing and advertising, the potential of this broader cultural formation to make a contribution to music industry business practices is not encouraged” (534). The sad fact of the matter is that this is true. It is almost like the larger companies take from the smaller urban divisions in order to make themselves look better without giving credit where it is due and in turn, because those companies are not seen to be doing well in the market, they are dropped from the label. Ted Swedenburg explains this in the article “Homies in The ‘Hood: Rap’s Commodification of Insubordination”, when he states that “while the major academic rock critics usually acknowledge black musicians’ essential contributions to pop and occasionally write sympathetic a...
Originating in the urban Bronx area of New York hip-hop culture emerged in the 1970’s as a way for minorities to form identifies and social status. Contemporarily, hip-hop has evolved to contain numerous activities such as, “spoken word poetry, theater, clothing styles, language, and some forms of activism,” (Petchauer). Also, in his Journal of Black Studies, author Tobey S. Jenkins states that the core framework of hip-hop culture consists of five elements, and those elements are, “the B-boy/B-girl (dance or break dance), the emcee (voice), the DJ (music), graffiti (art), and knowledge (the consciousness),”(Jenkins,2011). Jenkins also states that it is common for society to replace these elements when a person is to affiliate themselves with a product of hip-hop by five core stereotypes of the Black male hip-hop artist: “the nihilistic, self-centered, caked-out mogul with a god complex; the uneducated, lazy, absentee father; the imprisoned and angry criminal;
In his essay, “ Brooklyn Bridge,” the author explores the “appetite” of a particular New Yorker. This woman is described as staring,full of awe,at the New York Skyline from another borough. She is ambitious and sees New York as full of endless possibilities. Throughout the collection he portrays New York transplants or prospective residents as being driven by the longing to grab a piece of the city for themselves.This drive is a pattern that is repeated in these works of Whitehead. In his essay “Port Authority instead of focusing on the New York ideal of one individual Whitehead focuses on a body of people about to move to New York. Througout the collection Whitehead switches back and forth between focusing on an individual and focusing on a crowd. In this essay Whitehead also highlights the sameness within the people hustling and bustling in and out of Port Authority. He implies that the same quality of brokenness has led them all here, “They’re all broken somehow… Otherwise they would have come here differently,”(15). Even though they are all from different places and all have different destinations the essence of New York has drawn them all here. Colson’s account of the passengers shows that they are all feeling the same feelings of hope in regards to coming to New York. Although they all hope for different things the theme regarding the passengers is
Some weaknesses of James McBride’s “Hip Hop Planet” include its cynical tone and his attitude towards the musical side of Hip Hop. McBride opens the essay with a reflection on what his ultimate nightmare is. He showcases the Hip Hop community in a negative light with phrases like, “music that doesn’t seem to be music—rules the world” (McBride, pg. 1). This starts the essay off negatively because it misleads the reader by letting them think he is not a supporter of the Hip Hop movement. As you read the entire essay you realize this is not the case. The article itself isn’t very inviting because tone of the entire essay is very cold and cynical. He also doesn’t agree with the typical Hip Hop sound saying things like, “It sounded like a broken record” (McBride, pg. 1). The sound of Hip Hop music is what helps define it and is a crucial aspect of
In Total Chaos, Jeff Chang references Harry Allen, a hip hop critic and self-proclaimed hip hop activist. Harry Allen compares the hip hop movement to the Big Bang and poses this complex question: “whether hip-hop is, in fact a closed universe-bound to recollapse, ultimately, in a fireball akin to its birth-or an open one, destined to expand forever, until it is cold, dark, and dead” (9). An often heard phase, “hip hop is dead,” refers to the high occurrence of gangster rap in mainstream hip hop. Today’s hip hop regularly features black youths posturing as rich thugs and indulging in expensive merchandise. The “hip hop is dead” perspective is based on the belief that hip hop was destined to become the model of youth resistance and social change. However, its political ambitions have yet to emerge, thus giving rise to hip hops’ criticisms. This essay will examine the past and present of hip hop in o...
Jonnes, Jill. “South Bronx rising: the rise, fall, and resurrection of an American city.” New York: Fordham University Press. (1986).
Hip hop has permeated popular culture in an unprecedented fashion. Because of its crossover appeal, it is a great unifier of diverse populations. Although created by black youth on the streets, hip hop's influence has become well received by a number of different races in this country. A large number of the rap and hip hop audience is non-black. It has gone from the fringes, to the suburbs, and into the corporate boardrooms. Because it has become the fastest growing music genre in the U.S., companies and corporate giants have used its appeal to capitalize on it. Although critics of rap music and hip hop seem to be fixated on the messages of sex, violence, and harsh language, this genre offers a new paradigm of what can be (Lewis, 1998.) The potential of this art form to mend ethnic relations is substantial. Hip hop has challenged the system in ways that have unified individuals across a rich ethnic spectrum. This art form was once considered a fad has kept going strong for more than three decades. Generations consisting of Blacks, Whites, Latinos, and Asians have grown up immersed in hip-hop. Hip hop represents a realignment of America?s cultural aesthetics. Rap songs deliver a message, again and again, to keep it real. It has influenced young people of all races to search for excitement, artistic fulfillment, and a sense of identity by exploring the black underclass (Foreman, 2002). Though it is music, many people do not realize that it is much more than that. Hip hop is a form of art and culture, style, and language, and extension of commerce, and for many, a natural means of living. The purpose of this paper is to examine hip hop and its effect on American culture. Different aspects of hip hop will also be examined to shed some light that helps readers to what hip hop actually is. In order to see hip hop as a cultural influence we need to take a look at its history.
Jackson, Kenneth T. The Encyclopedia of New York City. 2nd ed. New York City: Yale University Press, 2010.