In 2001, rapper Immortal Technique released the track, Dance With The Devil, on the album Revolutionary Vol. 1, produce by 44 Caliber. Dance With The Devil tells the story of little William, AKA, Billy Jacobs, growing up in the hood and his quest for reputation. Hood life during the 80’s, 90’s, and early 00’s was tough. Most people couldn’t afford to live stable lives, so many reverted to gang violence and drug dealing to make’s ends meet. Reputation is everything in the hood. For Billy, he lost his “street-creds” when he snitched for a crime, forcing him to attempt to regain his reputation. In Billy Jacobs’ quest to gain reputation in the hood, he and his fellow members kidnap, brutally beat, gang-rape, and kill a women walking on the street. …show more content…
Even though the legitimacy of the story comes into question, the conditions of the hood produce adverse effects on the youth growing up there. Specifically, when he says, “[a] nigga never had a father and his mom was a fiend… [But,] she put the pipe down.” For many African American families, children grow up without fathers due to their high incarceration rate, with mother’s being drug addicts. For some, they are able to get off drugs, and are then forced to raise a family alone. As he raps, Immortal Technique describes the various influences that exist in the hood. He says, “[Billy’s] primary concern was making a million…being the illest hustler that the world ever seen…[Billy] used to fuck movie stars and sniff coke in his dreams,” as a result of the illusion of success that the big hustlers gave off around him, all by the age of thirteen. Kids in the hood grow up wanting to make millions, just like anyone else, but the influences that surround them and the immense poverty often convince them that crime is the only way to achieve their dreams. On this path, many youths are locked up and sent to juvenile detention centers, ruining their dreams, and perpetuating a continuous cycle of crime. But, Immortal Technique gives a warning when he says, “Ask a nigga doing life if he had another chance…But then again …show more content…
Regardless of the facts behind this statement, it serves a purpose. By him saying this, it means he too grew up in this environment and helped to perpetuate the cycle, simply by participating in it. Even, Immortal Techniques background plays a major role in this story. He too, grew up in the hood (Harlem) in the 80’s, where drug use, crime, and gangs were prevalent. During his youth he too was influenced by the same factors that influenced poor Billy. He turned to violence and crime, but was able to escape it through education and good influences. Immortal techniques message is clear: that the conditions of the hood perpetuate an endless cycle of violence and it is up to the people and the government to stop this cycle. Without the help of the governmental intervention to provide financial support and stability to inner cities, who knows when or how the violence will end? The warning is clear, “when the devil wants to dance with you, you better say never…Because the dance with the devil might last you
Boyz N the Hood is a classic film for African American culture and depicts juvenile delinquency in the tough streets of L.A. They can relate all too well to the situations these three best friends went through. To apply this movie to the life-course perspective and strain theories we have to analyze these three boy’s realities from a structural, social and cultural level to determine why they ended up deviant and they way they started off. Sampson and Laub’s theory was, criminal activity as well as elements preventative of crime, change throughout the life-course. While all of the criminals have some form of a shared beginning. While Merton’s strain theories revolve around five different types, that puts people into certain categories; conformity,
The inner city can be a good thing or a bad thing, for African Americans it is often a bad thing as they get caught up in gangs thinking that this is the only way they will have family. This is true in some aspects, because depending on the family, children can be abandoned due to drugs or be subject to violence. In the movie, one of the children, who lives around the pizzeria, is a little girl is abused at home. This often happens in broken homes, like the ones depicted by Spike Lee. In other cases children come from good homes. For example, if one comes from a prominent African American family, they know that everyone takes care of everyone, they work together to take care of each other. In the film, there are several older black men that act like grandfathers to the people on the block. This is reminiscent in of one of the class readings, Family M...
In less than forty years, the city of Compton went from a shielded suburb near the confines of Los Angeles, to a terrorizing image of American culture. The results of this transformation and creation of “gangsta rap” is still well renowned today. Through de jure segregation, Reagan economics, undermining of black prosperity, N.W.A., and “Boyz n the Hood”, the city of Compton told its story and became a global image. This paper will analyze the shift of culture in Compton and the transcendent cultural effect it formed in America.
In the movie “Boyz in the Hood” director John Singleton, paints a clear image of the problems that happen very often in the African American communities. The movie deals with issues such as: the importance of a father in a young man’s life, the ongoing violence of black on black crime, and how black people are put in situations where they are put to fail and not succeed in life.
This film speaks for itself and tells you about life in the “hood”. In 1988, a noteworthy new gathering reforms music and popular culture, changing and affecting hip-bounce for eternity. Straight Outta Compton recounts the genuine story of how five youthful social agitators - outfitted just with their verses, swagger, bluster and crude ability - confronted the specialists that intended to hold them down and framed the world's most risky gathering, N.W.A (Niggaz With Attitudes). Also, as they talked reality that nobody had. The film takes off in Compton, city 20 miles or so south and some light-years from the Hollywood sign. A reference point of dark achievement in the 1950s, Compton had turned into an image of depression when Eazy-E, which is the famous American gangster rapper from back in the day, shaped N.W.A., and here basically fills in as a signifier for a poor, dark range under the police boot. Before sufficiently long, the eager strivers transform into hot properties who, after an excited flounder in distinction, confront arranged realities, alongside vocation characterizing intersections. For Eazy, that incorporates holding with the gathering's supervisor, Jerry Heller, a consultative betrayer who turns into each white trickster who has ever skimmed the finish off dark ability. "Straight Outta Compton," blends contention with its ruthlessly legit delineation of life in
What is it that determines and creates an abnormality in the mental state of a young man growing up in east Harlem the violence, gangs, drug abuse, or perhaps overall condition of poverty they’re brought up in? A young black kid that no one on the street expects to go anywhere or do anything with his life that is if he even gets past the age of eighteen, destined for doom before he’s even brought into the world.
The dance that I will be focusing on is entitled: thinking sensing standing feeling object of attention. The dance, to me, symbolizes the socialization of persons in Western civilization concerning gender roles. In the beginning there are gestures that are separated from emotion and full-embodiment, but as the dance progresses the gestures become more meaningful and recognizable. The lighting starts out very specific and narrow, then the light encompasses the entire stage, and eventually the dancers are silhouetted as they return to a familiar movement motif in the end. The music is mainly instrumental with occasional soft female vocals, and the lyrics suggest emotion, which is interesting because the dancers do not convey emotion until the end of the dance. Also, the showing of emotion is directly proportional to how much clothing the dancers have on at specific points in the dance.
Violence being extremely prevalent is not only a way of life but also the key to success in the hood. In an interview Tupac Shakur looked back on his life growing up in which,
Although Boyz n the Hood helps to resist the stereotypes of young black men, and shed light on the real, lived experiences and institutional oppression of black people and young black men in particular, the film also reinscribes a stereotypical narrative that all black people are impoverished and become incriminated in gang activity. Not all black people experience poverty and gang activity. One could see this film as perpetuating the single black experience as if all black people are exactly alike and have exactly the same
The book emphasizes the idea of how difficult it is to leave the gang lifestyle. There are frequent cases of relapse by individuals in the book, who were once out to again return to gangs. This case is brought by what gangs represent to this in the book and what leaving entails them to give up. The definition of gangs presented to the class was, three or more members, share name, color, or affiliation, or must exist in a geopolitical context. To members associated with gangs, this definition can include your family members, neighborhood, everyone that they associate with. Take for example Ronnie from Jumped in by Jorja Leap it states,” Ronny’s role models are gangbangers. His family is a hood. His mentors are older homies in county jail.”(102). Ronnie and other gang members like him do not
Jeffries, M. P. (2011). Thug Life: Race, Gender, and the Meaning of Hip-hop. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Boyz N the Hood was a film created to convey an anti-gang message as well as to provide societal members an in-depth look at life in “the hood” so he or she can expand their culturally awareness of identifying societal issues (Stevenson, 1991). Upon the debut of “Boyz N the Hood” violence erupted at theaters across the nation, resulting in multiple shows pulling the film from scheduled showings to alleviate future violent behaviors (Stevenson, 1991). The film profoundly illustrates the realty of the events revealed within the storyline that frequently occur on a daily basis within every impoverish community; however, is overlooked by the individuals who are not directly involved and or affected (Leon-Guerrero, 2016) Children of lower socioeconomic status often are raised in ghetto neighborhoods where they often witness, crime, violence, gang activity, abuse, and drugs (Leon-Guerrero, 2016). Ghetto communities envelop tumultuous cycles of violence and substance abuse creating a pervasive occurrence within the residents of the community. This is prevalent in lower developed communities that unfortunately many children and the youth populace indirectly inherit and sadly conform to, as there are no other means to an end for them (Leon-Guerrero,
In recent discussion of hip hop culture, a controversial issue has been whether if hip hop makes people believe that money is everything you need to get respect and power. Some argue that you need to build respect and by building respect you become powerful and that will lead you to money. On the other hand, however, others argue that hip hop life helped them a lot by writing the lyrics and saying the things that they can’t do or say. One of this view’s main proponents, “money brings power, ” according to this view, people who have more money will get more power and then they usually use this power to do the most disturbing activities, such as crime. In sum, then, the issue is whether having too much power is good or it’s just a life destroyer.
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...
The torn down neighborhood, graffiti on the walls, gun shops and abandoned houses are what people living on the wrong side of 8 miles in Detroit saw in their everyday lives. Social disorganization theory according to Freda, Mueller, and Laufer (2013) is “A theory of criminality in which the breakdown of effective social bonds, primary associations, and social controls in neighborhoods and communities is held to result in the development of high crime areas” (p. 124). In the movie 8 Mile (Curtis Hanson, 2002) B-Rabbit lives in 8 mile where he is surrounded by delinquents that commit crimes, bums around the neighborhood and the alcoholic drunk of a mother he lives within a trailer park in the duration of the movie. He is a blue collar worker who does a lot of physical labor in a steel cutting factory where he tries to make a means to help support his mom and sister. But what he really hopes is to be a rapper, make a demo and sign to a label. So he goes where all other rappers go to get noticed, the “Shelter.” Rappers go and have battled to become a highly valued individual in the residential district. With such a large population that attend and participate in those battles there are less chances of any of them being sought out for a record deal. Others that lived outside of the 8 mile district thought less of the people that did live in that location. Even though they stayed together as people from the 313 there was always a better neighborhood or somebody who had it better. So who better to pick on than the white boy who survives with his alcoholic mother in a trailer, taking care of his sister, playing in a distasteful factory, and failing against the “Leaders of the Free World?” He was the perfect target just like many others th...