Lyrics in music is a very interesting thing. They're the main way for a musician to express him/her self and they can have no apparent meaning or weave stories of immense scale that carry a listener to and from. Yet, it seems like every now and then lyrics are used as a scapegoat when shootings or violent activities occur. Take the shooting of Columbine High School in 1999. Little did Marilyn Manson know that he would shoulder some of the blame for the 12 kids killed that day. It always seems to come down to two genres of music when violent lyrics are concerned, rap and heavy metal. According to Carrie Fried's 1999 article Who's Afraid of Rap she points out that while both genres are criticized for enacting violence, there is a slight difference between the two (Fried, 1999). She states "rap music focus on how it provokes listeners
to commit violent crimes and to endanger society. On the other hand, violent heavy-metal music draws concerns that the music will harm the listeners by driving them to use drugs or to commit suicide" (pg 707). While I may not agree with that fully, I can understand why songs such as Body Count's Cop Killer ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSvD5SM_uI4) are viewed as dangerous to our society. However, part of the reason songs like this, and rap in general, get a bad reputation is because we, as a society, tend to associate rap with "urban black males" (Fried, 1999, pg 707). This obviously scares people because our society has this stereotype that the "urban black male" is the one that's going to stick us up at gun point and take our money. Yet despite how violent some rap lyrics are, there are some metal songs with lyrics that are equally as violent (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R69BIYyfoa8 for example) but it seems as if metal isn't quite as high a priority when it comes to criticism of violent lyrics. I believe this has a bit to do with this idea of the "urban black male" being this feared and dangerous entity while the "suburban white male" (most metal listeners) is often seen as more docile and less violent (Fried, 1999). People fear the "urban black male" so when they see music that is connected with this image they instantly feel that it is full of violence and thus must be bad for society. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be much that can be done as of right now, though I do feel that the rap scene is slowly becoming more and more accepted in the eyes of many critics. I think as we get more and more racial diversity into the rap genre then I believe we'll begin to see a decline of this "urban black male" stereotype that is attached to the music.
I agree with your comment. Especially when you mentioned the fact that people are scared of the "urban black male"The concept of "black male" pertains to media, and how they portray black males in news and entertainment. You are right about the fact, that as time passes people might become less critical of rap music, however I do not think stereotype will ever be forgotten since there is this repeated image in news and entertainment about what black people or rap music portray in our society. The reason why suburban white males are seen as docile and less violent is because we are used to seeing violence linked to minorities. It is difficult to find whites being portrayed as "hardcore" "rude" violent type people in media.
ReplyDeleteI do feel that people are more accepting towards rap music and black male artist in general. We talked about "The Harlem Shake" dance today in class. The professor pointed out that it is easier to alter dances and bring change to art in order to consume the profits, and for our own personal gains. The professor also mentioned that many people do not know the history behind the "art". This is essential to understanding how stereotypes will remain part of society. When individuals are more accepting of other's "culture" or "art" for entertainment purposes, and do not know the concept behind it, it becomes more difficult to grasp why certain ideas become famous. It also become difficult to understand the circumstances that were linked to it. Therefore, this causes people to devalue art and make it seem more of an object rather than a connection.
Furthermore, if people keep seeing black artist or similar stereotypes being portrayed in a different light, it is going to become harder for individuals to understand where rap music originated form or why do some black artist like singing about certain things.
We can then question if it is because artist want to live up to the norms and stereotypes that people are used to seeing and hearing about?
or is it part of some cultures to present yourself a certain way? For example, using music to portray yourself as a dominant, independent man?