Ranting About the Rapping: The Evils of Hip Hop

Generations have passed since hip hop was first introduced as a formal music genre. But then hip hop stood. In fact, hip hop has been reinvented over and over, added flavors, colors, some bling bling. Do I like hip hop? Occasionally. Which means…I don’t, really.

Hip hop used to be a “good vibe” music, makes my head bang softly, a relaxing tune coupled with beats. I had no problem with beats—my heart beats. But today, hip hop has become more than just a musical genre. It has become a misleading lifestyle.

Careful when letting kids watch hip hop music videos or anything closely associated with it. In fact, if you look at the language that they use, rhymes are powdered with foul words, as if those foul words are integrated in the music. This is detrimental because the use of such words will be normalized and since hip hop is “fun”, such words will be deemed as acceptable. The truth is, hip hop is one of the avenues where newer foul words are born. Today, there are about dozens of words that can demean the persona. Words such as “shorty”, “slut”, “hoe” and “bitch” are used side-by-side “dawg” (dog) and “nigga”. These words only reached mainstream use when they appeared more and more frequently in hip hop songs. Tsk tsk.

Another thing that I don’t like about the whole hip hop fad is the way it glamourizes the use and abuse of drugs, alcohol and smoking. In a lot of hip hop videos, the aforementioned things are deemed as cool. The more expensive the drugs, the alcohol and the smokes are, the more powerful and “cool” that person is. Such things are portrayed as a luxurious lifestyle, and they are packaged along with all the bling bling, the beautiful women, the red carpet. When presented together, they create an image these things usually come together, and the drugs, alcohol and smokes all look “okay” and “acceptable” now. If you take out all the glamour, these things will revert to being easily recognizable social evils. That’s it. They’re evil. But hip hop is the mask that hides their evil-ness. Again, tsk tsk.

Lastly, the thing I don’t like most about hip hop is the way they treat women in their music videos. Usually, the women who appear in such videos are scantily clad, and they usually wear a face that’s more often than not the face of desperate seduction. (Rolls eyes.) These women are not just treated as social objects but they are explicitly flaunting such treatment. There are a lot of avenues where women are also treated as sexual objects. Take, for example, James Bond movies, other superhero movies, and even a number of chick flicks. However, in hip hop videos, women are always the ones who lured the men, the ones who surrounded the men, and no matter how beautiful they are, the men always rule. I repeat, tsk tsk.

I have no problems if you like hip hop. After all, there’s still the music part that pulls me into tuning my radio to hip hop still. But if you see the way I do, or completely oppositely, you may give me a ding---live_out_loud@ymail.com.