Hip Hop Wars - Tricia Rose

Connections

The video and the Q&A by Tricia Rose is something that I've never really thought about. I've never really listened to hip-hop (I've been mainstream pop, and now all I listen to is country). So this is something completely new to me. I guess I had an idea about what hip-hop was like, but never really knew it's origins or anything. When listening to the video and read the article all I could think of was some of the articles we've already read.

In Rose's Q&A the question "In these hip-hop wars, what's one of the more prominent arguments from critics that you counter in your book?" She says the argument is "Hip-hop causes violence". All I could think of when reading this statement is the last piece we read by Kimmel. It's not the violent words in hip-hop music, it's masculinity (though hip-hop music may talk about what a "real man" should be like, I'm not sure). Rose says that it thought to  "create violence" because where hip-hop originated, but this is unfair. It really just shows racism and other issues to put tis label on the music, when in fact thats not the case.

I even think the Christensen piece can connect to hip-hop. When she talks about stereotypes. It seems like hip-hop faces a bunch of stereotypes, violence being one of them. All the questions she asks in this section about films can also be questions you could ask about the music. "What do they talk about?.. What would young children learn about women's roles in society if they [heard this music] and believed it? What roles do money, possessions, and power play in the [music]? Who has it? Who wants it?..What would children learn about what's important in society?" Rose says that most of the music was and is about political movements, education and so on. This would be good music for a child or anyone to listen to with the positive message. But now most of the music is sexual and violent. The reason for it is because this sells? But why does it sell?