Hip-Hop

Since exploding from the streets of New York in the 1970s, the cultural phenomenon known as hip-hopNext Hit has morphed from hard-driving dance numbers into sex- and violence-filled "gangsta rap" — and a record-label goldmine. Gangsta lyrics have sparked periodic outbreaks of indignation.

"'The hip-hop world and the gangsta world are about to collide, and we have to stop the body count,' says [youth activist Pee Wee] Kirkland....Mr. Kirkland, himself a former gangster and drug dealer, is part of a nascent reform movement spearheaded by some of the biggest names in rap. Called Hip-Hop 4 Peace, it's determined to use the power of the industry to reduce the violence and change the face of the controversial genre. It was launched [in November 2002] in New York by LL Cool J's former manager Charles Fisher and Grammy award-winning artist Chuck D....The campaign is part of a larger transformation under way in the hip-hop world....It's called 'raptivism,' and some analysts believe it has the potential of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s to transform America's political landscape."

"America for all her protests against violent rap lyrics has failed to acknowledge her role in the creation of this relatively new art form. There is no denying the language in some rap lyrics could be construed as offensive, however, just as other music forms are not homogeneous, neither is rap music. It is far too simplistic to portray rap artists as perpetuators of behavior deemed socially deviant without placing the artists and their life experiences in context. Instead, this article considers rap music as a creative expression and metaphorical offspring of America's well-established culture of violence."

The politics associated with the economics of black rap music and the six major record labels are scrutinized. "The relationship between black music and the 'Big Six' is a postmodern form of colonialism....Blacks in the inner cities, if not as an aggregate, share some of the classic characteristics of a colony....With rap, the inner cities have become the raw sites of 'cultural production' and the music is then sold to the suburbs, to white youths....If there is indeed a struggle for the control of rap, it is merely a battle between black gnats. The war for the control of black music was won many years ago by corporate America, aided and abetted by a black leadership that has never understood the cultural and economic significance of its own culture."

This profile explores the history of political rap, and argues that "the act of tying music to lifestyle--as synergy-seeking media companies have effectively done--has distorted what marketers call the 'aspirational' aspects of hip-hop while marginalizing its powers of protest." Ways in which "rap music today reflects the paradoxical position of the hip-hop generation" are considered.