Aspcets of Death and Dying
Essay by review • October 4, 2010 • Research Paper • 2,212 Words (9 Pages) • 2,101 Views
Aspcets of Death and Dying
1/18/02
Music and Death: The Songs and Deaths of Rockstars
That Have Shocked the World
Music as we know it today is the voice of a generation. It gives us entertainment, and
speaks out for a community of people in many ways. Most people listen to at least some sort of
music, and serves a purpose in almost every facet of society. Just about any expression can
be shared through music, including
ideas and feelings about death. Music is used in various
way when pertaining to death, including songs about how a death occurred, or songs at a
service mourning a death. Whichever way you look at it, music serves an important purpose,
and the songs about death and the death of certain performing artists has a great impact on
society, especially the youth of society. It will be interesting to think about some of these
songs and musicians, and the effect their short lives and music can have in our society.
No matter which way you turn your head, your going to hear many different kinds of
music. Many artists look to cover as many topics in their music, and death and dying is a topic
that everyone in this world will sooner or later deal with, so it is a topic that it is covered. It is
interesting when looking at Rap industry, and two artists come to mind right away when speaking
about death. The Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur are two rap artists who both have died
within the last five years, and were both extremely popular. What one may look at is the fact that
both seemed to have an idea that they were going to die right before they did, and it was not
because of a terminal illness, it was in fact by being murdered.
Tupac Shakur was a very popular artist, whose talents were respected by people who
weren\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'t or aren\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'t even rap music fans. He was very young when he passed, at age 25, and there
are still people who listen to his music toiday, and there are even some people who question his
death even occurred. Many of his albums have thoughts of death and his lyrics represent these
thoughts, as he questions how much faith he has left, and how he seems to know his time is
coming to an end. One of his songs, titled only God can Judge me, talks about how there is death
all around him, and how it is hard to keep positive in the light of friends passing. Now, when
dealing with a popular rap artist who makes a lot
of money it is hard to judge his albums and lyrics
at face value. But indeed he even insists that it is difficult to escape your hard past, no matter
how much success comes forward. Some of his albums suggest his nature of knowing death as
near, such as his album Me against the World, and 2pacalypse now. Not being a Rap fan it is
hard for to judge what is going through his mind, but by reading some lyrics it is obvious that he
believes that he has a hard life, and that death may be the only answer.
The Notorious B.I.G. was a very famous rap star on the East Coast, and grew to
nationwide fame. His lyrics exemplify death even further, as he seemed to never give up his
gangster lifestyle. Before becoming famous he was a drug dealer, dealing Crack-Cocaine, so he
was well aware of death as a fact of life. His lyrics were different from Tupac\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s in that most of
his Death lyrics were about murder instead of his own death, that is until he started to believe that
his death was imminent. Like Tupac\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\'s lyrics, his songs are way to graphic to quote here, but
many of his songs had lyrics of him killing and in some rare cases even some sort of threats of
torturing as well. It would be reasonable to believe that it was because of his lifestyle on the
streets that made him think this way, as he did seem to be obsessed with murder and death.
One of his albums was entitled Ready to Die, and it has songs on both side of the
spectrum. The self titled song was about how is preparing to murder someone, and there was
also a song called suicidal thoughts, which was about how bad his self image was, and about how
he believed that he deserved to go to hell instead of Heaven because of all of his bad deeds. This
song is particularly disturbing, since it gives graphic depictions of what his life would be like in
heaven and then in hell, and it seems like he has a true belief in how bad he really is.
Both of these rap artists were immensly popular for the actually sound and catchiness of
their music. They both displayed a lot
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