Class 78537
Professor C. Robinson
10 October 2015
Essay 1 Dr. Renford Reese, did and article back in the summer of 2000 on popular culture review. The title of the article “From the Fringe: The Hip Hop Culture and Ethnic Relations”. Reading this article I felt very enlightened, because I knew about Hip Hop music but not the background of Hip Hop music. The quote that enlightened me was, According to Geneva Smitherman, the foundation of rap music is rooted in “Black oral tradition of tonal semantics, narrativizing, signification, playing the dozens, Africanized syntax, and other communicative practices.” Hip Hop is a genre that has crossed cultural boundaries. Hip hop is a genre that has transcended beyond just music. It has …show more content…
The author states, “Irrespective of their ethnicity hip hoppers use adjectives such as dope, da bomb, legit, hittin, all that, to describe something that is excellent”. Some of the words I hear in the streets, or in rap lyrics are, my bad which means you’ve made a mistake, Gangsta, is a type of rap music, what’s up meaning hello, and mean mugging which means looking at you with a mean face. This one particular word is not only used in the streets today, but also it is used a lot in the hip hop music today as well. That word is “Nigga”. It is used as a form of endearment. For example, “AJ is my nigga,” it really means “AJ is my good friend.” The word is not used as the derogatory word “Nigger” it is used and spelled …show more content…
It is the genre of music that has crossed cultural boundaries. And hip hop has done that in their history, language, clothing, magazines, movies, and sitcoms. My favorite rapper is Tupac Shakur, he rapped about the truth, and his rap was pure poetry. For example, in the song “I Wonder If Heaven 's Got A Ghetto,” Shakur sings, "I see no changes, all I see is racist faces misplaced hate makes disgrace the racist...I wonder what it takes to make this one better place...take the evil out the people (then) they 'll be acting right cause both black and white are smokin crack tonight and the only time we deal is when we kill each other, it takes skill to be real, time to heal each other....". If rap artists focused more on positive messages such as this, the influence could be groundbreaking and can reach all