Differences Between Hip Hop And Rap

This essay will focus on how race and gender is shown within the genres of hip-hop and rap (Which will be used interchangeably) The articles i have decided to base this piece on writing focus on two different points, the first is the commercialization of the genre of hip-hop when it gained popularity within mainstream media and the 2nd point is the detrimental (causing harm) effects this has had to both black females and males within the industry as they have been forced to move on from the original idea of rap in order to appeal to the mainstream audience if they want to be successful. Thus I will be arguing that the social constraints placed on the black race through rap, forcing males to portray hyper masculine identities and females to

One such example is Hookah by Tyga. The song is (quite obvious) from the title about vaping. Yet it features lyrics such as “I just paid a cop, now I 'm running out of court” Which reinforces the idea of the black male being a criminal. This idea of the black male is so enforced within today 's society that there is a task force within the New York police force targeted solely at rappers (Rebollo & Moras 2012.) This idea is actually quite different to what the original intention of the genre was; “Hip -Hop was an innovation where youth minority such as young latinos and black teens could express their angst and speak freely” (Rebollo-Gil & Moras 2002.) That was back in the 1970s, nowadays the genre is no longer controlled by mostly members of the African American population, rather it is at the hands of bigger labels and records which are dominated by white people. And thus this has reduced the genre to a “commodity that can be bought and sold, without the cultural and social markers that have defined blackness” -Sold Out on Soul; Mark Anthony Neal 1997. Both the articles I have mentioned within this essay so far talk of the commodification of hip-hop music by white people who just want to make money from the music and to do this they will market the material in a way that will lead to maximum sales. The problem lies here as “the ways in which rap has been consumed has had a deleterious (harmful) affect on how black people have been viewed not only in the united States but also globally” (Belle 2014.) By reducing an entire culture to a few stereotypes not only are you erasing the previous history of their race and the struggles they’ve been through but it also removes their individual identities and leads to an idea of them all being the same which doesn’t let them express themselves