Hip Hop Music Mirrors All Urban Society

Hip Hop Music Mirrors All Urban Society

From 1950 to the late 1980’s, social conflicts all over the world encouraged the success of Hip Hop due its ability to mirror the negative and positive aspects of society, and in doing this, the concept of Hip Hop’s real lyrics were very easily translated and adopted overseas. To understand Hip Hop’s ability to migrate around the world, it must be understood what Hip Hop was created out of. First, American Urban society, from the Civil Rights Era until now has matured, creating Hip Hop’s lyrics in both its negative recap of the destruction of South Bronx and the new AIDS epidemic and positive reenactment of the solution brought by the Civil Rights Era and the urban society’s ability to attain wealth. Secondly, after the Cold War and the reconstruction of Europe and Asia, urban societies were more open to accept anything that reflected American culture, especially the idea of a genre that could explain the pain experienced as a result of the Cold War. Lastly, even though lyrics follow the urban society’s view on their own situations, many contemplate that the content can be mislead, over exaggerate or inappropriately describe the nation and its people.

As often as Americans preach the good word of fairness and equality, the American urbanites filling cities like Chicago, Atlanta and Watts were locked out of the sermon. During what historians call the Civil Rights Era (Timeline: Civil Rights Era 1954-1971), Americans would witness multiple changes in the country’s history in regards to minorities, especially African Americans. And to truly understand the lyrical significance of Hip Hop, it is imperative that the history leading up to the beginning of Hip Hop. Take year 1956, this is not only the same year Clive Campbell, the father of Hip Hop was born, but also the year that the Supreme Court found the segregation of the Montgomery Buses as an unconstitutional practice (Timeline: Civil Rights Era 1954-1971). And from that year on, that generation would enter into their teenage years witnessing the creation of greatest label known to Black society during that time: Motown, the Woolworth Sit-ins, the 1965 Watts Riot and the death of two political figures who were known to be the most influential African Americans alive: Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. By the time of both men’s deaths, it is 1968 and that generation is old enough to comprehend their environment and the lasting effects it would have on them as individuals. The African American children who lived in South Bronx, which is known as Hip Hop’s birth place, were influenced by much more than the national issues of Civil Injustice and the end of the Vietnam War. In the late 1960, the state government of New York ordered the bussing of inner city kids out of the South Bronx and into the suburban areas. Worried about the late arrivals of their children after school, many parents in South Bronx moved out into those suburban areas resulting in a large number vacancy in the South Bronx. On top of that, New York City is known for its rent control which gave building owners no incentive to improve their building, which resulted in more vacancies. With these two factors increasing the amount of vacancies and the economy of South Bronx deteriorating, the government blindly created thirty five story high housing developments for low income citizens. Now that the housing developments have pretty much destroyed the market value of that area, more vacancies occurred. And the market value was decrease more drastically when the state decided to concentrate the welfare households, making South Bronx home to thousands of welfare recipients. Then, by increasing the lump payments by more than two thousand dollars for low income tenants to move in, South Bronx became not only a borough of welfare recipients but a place where poverty ran ramped. And poverty didn’t end there. During all of this, the personal and business taxes were increasing. This, unfortunately, resulted in the self inflicted destruction of South Bronx. Business and Home owners began burning their own property as a way to escape with some financial stability. (City on a hill. The South Bronx: From Urban Planning Victim to Victor) Fortune magazine’s Herbert Meyer wrote an article about the South Bronx entitled, “How the Government helped ruin the South Bronx”, which describes the South Bronx as a “human hellhole”. It is reported in only five short years (City on a hill. The South Bronx: From Urban Planning Victim to Victor), due to the arsenal business and home owners starting and causing 68,456 fires (Yuan), South Bronx was filled with poor minorities who were economically and socially trapped. By this time, it is 1975 and the generations responsible for Hip Hop are now in their late teens and early twenties. They lived in those housing developments and not only did they witness the deaths of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X but they watched as their own state government abandoned them. This created Hip Hop. Its lyrical content was cocky but more importantly, bluntly honest. They talked about their clothes, their neighborhoods, the cops, but they offered the nation the opportunity to hear how the generation that endured grew up during that Civil Rights era felt about their own existence. Some microphone controllers, also called MCs, rapped about fighting “the powers that be” (Public Enemy “Fight the Power”) but it couldn’t be ignored the lyrically content of 1982’s “The Message”. Grand Master Flash, one of the pioneers in the genre known as Hip Hop wrote his song “Message” giving the world lines like, “Don’t push me, вЂ?cause вЂ?close to the edge. I’m trying not to loose my head. It’s like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder how I keep from going under”, where he descriptively narrated about his life in the Bronx. Even though African Americans are increasing their financial incomes and attending universities at a higher percentage (African American History Month: February 2006), they also, unfortunately, have the highest reported percentage of HIV/AIDS cases (Fact Sheet: HIV/AIDS among African Americans) and collectively are more poor than any other race in US (2006 Census Poverty and Income Data). Reacting to this major change in urban society where Hip Hop was created, the lyrical content changed to reflect that. As forty nine percent of the African American Community suffer from HIV/AIDS (Fact Sheet: HIV/AIDS among African Americans) in addition to having the highest poverty percentage among any race, the artist

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