Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes Assignment
The assignment for the Byron Hurt film: Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes should be posted here. Hit comment and paste your 250 word essay.
Identify Hurt's argument(s). In 250 words minimum, discuss the evidence Hurt presents in the film and whether or not you agree with his premise that commercial rap is misogynistic, violent, and promotes a negative stereotype of black manhood.
I want you to visit http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/hiphop/ and also cite a song which supports his claim(s) or refutes it. You can include the URL in your essay as the reference.
Other homework
There are no classes Wednesday, February 28. Homework is to finish reading Alice Walker's We Are the Ones.
The assignment for the Byron Hurt film: Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes should be posted here. Hit comment and paste your 250 word essay.
Identify Hurt's argument(s). In 250 words minimum, discuss the evidence Hurt presents in the film and whether or not you agree with his premise that commercial rap is misogynistic, violent, and promotes a negative stereotype of black manhood.
I want you to visit http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/hiphop/ and also cite a song which supports his claim(s) or refutes it. You can include the URL in your essay as the reference.
Other homework
There are no classes Wednesday, February 28. Homework is to finish reading Alice Walker's We Are the Ones.
posted by Professor Wanda's Posse at 12:38 PM
14 Comments:
Benita Pun
English 201 B
2/26/2007
Hip Hop: A Controversy Issue
Byron Hurt produced a documentary called Hip Hop: Beyond Beats of Rhymes. The film is about hip hop that has been overdone with gangsters, bitches, and hoes. Also, he confronts the issue of masculinity, sexism, violence and homophobia in the film even thought he is a life-long hip-hop fan. He interviewed many people such as Talib Kweli, Chuck D, Russell Simmons, Busta Rhymes, Fat Joe, Jadakiss and some people that were in the Daytona Spring Break. The first thing that Byron Hurt discussed was the fact that men in the media industry tries to expose their definition of manhood. Another thing that he wanted to argue about was that during their music videos, they often portray women as an “eye candy”. I agree with Byron Hurt because it’s all over America; it has turned into a controversy issue that is probably the reason why so many people are dying on the streets.
Hip Hop music didn’t started out about gangsters, bitches, hoes, or trying to be a man. It actually starts out in the Bronx of New York in the late 1900s where they started to turn funk and disco into rap music. Up until the early 1990s, a form of hip hop called gangsta rap arose that redefine the meaning of rap music. In the film, Hurt argues that the reason why black men are rapping about women being bitches and hoes, throwing money at them and at the camera and showing toughness in the music videos and or other places like magazine covers is to only project their manhood. Rappers often create that kind of image because they don’t want to be call weak, soft, a pussy, a chump, or a faggot so they do the opposite as a result a misunderstand of hip hop.
Hurt also argues that the hip hop culture portrays women as an “eye candy” or as sex toys in the video that lends up to unwanted touching. One of the rapper’s definitions of manhood is to have a lot of girls. They think that by having a lot of girls by their side is a way of saying that they’re a player or a pimp. But when Hurt interview girls at the Daytona Spring Break, they said that there were touching and it was unwanted. These girls were dress in bikinis and they think that the rappers weren’t talk about them; but they are.
In the film, Hurt argues that the rappers want to portray a different kind of hip hop because hip hop is not about manhood, killing people, and pimping hoes. Rappers think that by doing this, they will be look up to and become a man. But in reality, they are just showing us a fake personality and hiding their true self. He also argues that the rappers repeatedly portray women as an “eye candy” or a sex toy. However, a lot of them don’t want to those girls whom he refers to as bitches and hoes. Those that aren’t any of those girls are referred to as sisters.
Reference:
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/hiphop
As I was watching the documentary “hip-hop Beyond Beats and Rhymes” by Byron Hurt.
I was happy to see that someone is finally willing to point out the problematic issues of hip-hop music. I personally don’t considered my self a big fan of hip-hop music besides an occasional song or two. Some of the reason why I don’t like it is because I feel that now a days it is simply offensive, violent and derogatory towards women in particular. Second , it creates a negative illusion of masculinity and coolness and third, it helps to keep alive a negative stereotype.
In my opinion hip-hop music has some great beats and forms of self expression but it does promote misogyny, women are usually completely naked, dancing around while being humped by a group of man. They are considered sexual objects and toys. Some of the statistics offered by Hurt were simply disturbing for ex, “black women are 35 percent more likely to be sexually assaulted than white women” or something even more disturbing is that “61 percent of black sexually assault victims are under 18”. In my opinion these numbers mean more than words. There is already so much violence against women all over the world, there in an enormous amount of child pornography, human sex slaves ( usually women and children), 70 percent of the poorest people in the world are single mothers and in many countries women have not even minimal human right. For example the lyrics of the song “Boys in the Hood” from NWA says “ she starting talking s--t wouldn’t she know, I reach back like a pimp and I slap the ho” I don’t think that is necessary to exploit women even more through musical videos and songs available on regular TV to our children. Second, in my opinion some hip-hop music creates a negative illusion of masculinity and coolness. I don’t think going to jail, selling drugs , sleeping with lots of women and killing people is cool. It does not look good on your resume when you want to get a job and it certainly would not give you a happy and successful future. Third, in my opinion I think hip-hop helps to keep a wrong and unfortunate stereotype alive. As it was shown in the film, people from cities or towns who are not expose to a large group of minorities can simply assume that all Latino and African American men and women behave this way. They can assume that all man are drug dealers who just got out of jail and that all women are willing to have sex with anybody for some money and jewelry. If they are not expose to people who can prove them otherwise, then these would simply be the way Latinos and African Americans are perceived as an ethnic and racial group. Which in my opinion only makes the racial antagonism and discrimination stronger and deeper.
Samantha Garrido
English 1A 8-9
Chin P Sun
English 201b
Beyond Beats of Rhyme
Beyond Beats of Rhyme, dirt by Byron Hurt. In his video his argument is that there are many problems with hip hop music business, because the lyrics of hip hop music is so violent, most black young male created many crimes. He also shows evidences to support his idea. Evidences like very violent lyrics, the way hip hop stars act and the way how hip hop music video is been record. He also interview some very famous hip hop stars and also show statistics about the rating of crimes.
We often see hip hop stars are very tough, a lot of profanities in their music, have something to do with drugs, they got some sexy women wearing a bikini in their video, nice cars, money and a lot of jewelries and often carry with guns. All these is giving a image to young black male that to become a hip hop star or to be cool you need a lot of money, mess with drugs and betrayed women. Since young male are acting so tough to each other, they became so violent they often got into a fight or gun shot. Guns, we seen a lot of guns in hip hop music video, after people watch those video they begin to think that is ok to carry a gun all the time and shoot people with it, and it is also ok for black young male to die early. Statistic shows that 49% gun victims are black young male.
In hip hop music business men often show as extremely powerful that no women can resists. Women are just a sex object and people call them bitches and that is very disrespectful for women. The statistic show that almost 60% of black young female are been rapped and all of them are under 18. People blame on the victim because of the way they are wearing, but in other European countries women can wear whatever they want on the street or nude on the beach and still nobody would touch them.
In conclusion it seems like we can blame all these problems on the hip hop stars, but they just doing their job and what they been told to do, so the real crime creator would be the music company. The music company doesn’t care how many people are getting hurt in the society and no intension of taking responsibility. all they care about is making money. They made these music videos so violent and very disrespectful so they could sell them for a million copies.
In the film of “Beyond Beats of Rhymes”, which produce by Byron Hurt. This film was about Hip Hop one of the pop music in America. Hip Hop gave me the impress of fast beat and highly dances, but after watched this film, it gave me the impress of influence. The Hip Hop fast beat with violence words, coolness of movement and high sexual dance it serious affect of our society.
In the film Byron pointed out that Hip Hop has a lot problems that it could affect toward our life, our society, and our safety. In the films that pointed out the sexual, violence, money throwing as background. These all related a part of Hip Hop as to make all Hip Hop audiences to craze, some of them even to imitate them. The teenager who were dress like the dancers, as them walk by some men were gaze and no respect to touch them. On one part of the film it mentions that many teens were highly dance with the beats of the bad words. Compare with the music with great and good lyric the Hip Hop dancers and it audiences were tell that singer to stop to sing.
According to the 1990s the controversy about violence of Hip Hop was that the crime increase rapidly, it was because the emphasis on non-violence has been greatly removed, with many rappers boasting about drugs, weapons, crimes, and violence. Within this time, hip hop music has also begun to appeal to a broader demographic. The way that the singers throw the money, it made us sick, because this is not the human respect.
To me that Hip Hop producer should be bans those violence as the singer should be. Money is important, yet that our teen’s goal of success is better important. If the producers use the Hollywood film to compare with the Hip Hop violence, then they were wrong they should look good example as roles. On the bottom that it was the great example of what a great music and highly rate.
You can take aa forward look at the 1980s that many singers success was not by their fast, highly, it depend on their talent and their power. Beatle was one of the better examples.
yanli
English 1A
Anisa Hassan
2/27/2007
English 1A 9-10
As I watched Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes in class, it made me think twice because I’ve never thought of Hip-Hop that way. I love Hip-Hop and I never thought about all the issues that Hurt addressed to us. I believe that the argument is that Hip-Hop artist are not secure with themselves. The reason I say that is because of all the issues in Hip-Hop society, such as Masculinity, violence, sexism, and homophobia. Every Hip-Hop artist has to remind us how “hard” they are, how many “hoes” they have, and who is a “bitch as nigga”.
I do agree with hurt when he explained to us that Hip-Hop now a days promotes a negative stereotype to not just black manhood but just men in general. When men see how the rap artist treat the women in their videos they think that they can do that to any women they see which is so not true. Like Jadakiss said in the film its like their making a movie, they’re playing a role in their videos. So therefore women are not just your “eye candy”. When they mentioned Nelly on the film it woke me up because he is my favorite rap artist but after they showed the video “Tip Drill” I became disgusted of how he disrespected the women in the video. Especially when he swiped the credit card down the ladies bottom. I am one of those girls that says there not talking about me so it doesn’t matter. But a man said that its like bush saying that he doesn’t like black people, he’s not talking about just one person he’s talking about the whole race, And I never put it in that perspective
When people see things on T.V. they get so manipulated in what their watching so they think that how man is supposed to be tough and having girls all around them. So I guess that Hip-Hop artist have to put women down so they can feel like their men. I’m never going to stop listening to Hip-Hop now I’m just going to be more aware of what I listen to.
Http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/hiphop/
Response to:
Hip Hop Beyond Beats of Rhymes
In Hip Hop history that is between 1980’s and 1990’s its lyrics had messages and meanings, which was against the white supremacy power. The mission was a conscious target for a struggle against this oppression and discrimination based on politically or in race of African Americans. Hip hop was used as a one way media of expressing feelings of minorities in those days.
Today Hip hop has a different face which is totally out of the culture like presenting homophobia, misogyny, black masculinity and violence. All these characters transmitted or reflected to audiences are now causing great catastrophe damage in a society especially to the minority class.
Most young African Americans are deeply drawn in with this kind of Hip hop music. They are feed with unnecessary messages, like they should act tough, or treat women as a sexual objects ,or to believe in hyper masculinity and violence. The Hip hop culture now has bad effects for the young generation that misgiving of a false image what a real manhood is. Women in a society should be respected and a man shouldn’t believe in chauvinism.
Why the governments do some kind ban before it is in market? I don’t see it as a free market since the music has bad influences for a society. It is really a tragedy. There should be strong strict control over the Music Industries before it reaches the consumers.
Audiences also should understand what meanings inside the text have and they must oppose it if necessary. Communities have to stand together to teach their young boys that to be a real man has a different view than expressed in Hip hop music.
Wondwosen
Wondwosen Abaineh
Eng 1A
Response to:
Hip Hop Beyond Beats of Rhymes
In Hip Hop history that is between 1980’s and 1990’s its lyrics had messages and meanings, which was against the white supremacy power. The mission was a conscious target for a struggle against this oppression and discrimination based on politically or in race of African Americans. Hip hop was used as a one way media of expressing feelings of minorities in those days.
Today Hip hop has a different face which is totally out of the culture like presenting homophobia, misogyny, black masculinity and violence. All these characters transmitted or reflected to audiences are now causing great catastrophe damage in a society especially to the minority class.
Most young African Americans are deeply drawn in with this kind of Hip hop music. They are feed with unnecessary messages, like they should act tough, or treat women as a sexual objects ,or to believe in hyper masculinity and violence. The Hip hop culture now has bad effects for the young generation that misgiving of a false image what a real manhood is. Women in a society should be respected and a man shouldn’t believe in chauvinism.
Why the governments do some kind ban before it is in market? I don’t see it as a free market since the music has bad influences for a society. It is really a tragedy. There should be strong strict control over the Music Industries before it reaches the consumers.
Audiences also should understand what meanings inside the text have and they must oppose it if necessary. Communities have to stand together to teach their young boys that to be a real man has a different view than expressed in Hip hop music.
Michael Dacoron
Eng 1A
In Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats And Rhymes by Byron Hurt he discusses the issues about the new hip hop. Hip-Hop in the 1970’s was a culture, in addition it involved dancing, music and rap. Rap was a way of discussing the violence in the neighborhood and what was happening in it. Now rap is a masculinity issue. Promoting violence and joining gangs which is a way of life. With gun violence on a rise is rap the reason for this? There can be other aspect in the violence but when rappers rap about it in their music it certainly isn’t help to lower it down. Especially in Oakland where every year we have 100+ homicides.
Hurt interviewed a lot of rappers such as, Busta, Talib, Jadakiss, and Fat Joe and they agreed that rap is different from the early rap but obviously those rappers are still going to what they do and rap about violence, girls and homophobia because it makes them a lot of money. Hurt also went to Deytona for the Spring Bling event hosted by BET. Hurt said “ it was like a huge rap video”. He showed in the clips of the trip and it really was like a rap video. Young men degrading women, calling them hoes and bitches. Fancy cars showed off to the crowd and young aspiring rappers rapping about the same thing, hopeful to get heard so they can get a record deal.
The other aspects in rap now is the girls in the videos. In Nelly’s music video “Tip Drill” he shows Guys Degrading women. The women were all shaking there butts, in skimpy clothes and were all doing things women usually don’t do. This shows the bad image to the public that’s why they don’t accept the rap culture. This is a bad image to these women making them really look bad. They should be ashamed to be in that video but if it’s a way to get money. What can they do? These rappers are basically implying that women come and go, dime a dozen.
I do believe that rappers nowadays are here just to make money. But don’t get me wrong it is also a gift for them to rap in songs, with the tight beats, and just being lyrical. Although some rappers are more lyrical then others but they still portrait the same image and rap about the same thing. There are a lot of things that come to pay here though. People buy these songs because most of what they rap about is real. They went trough that road selling drugs to make money and maybe even joining gangs. But maybe some are fake. These rappers also rap about where their from to show which side is better. Much like of what the media did in the 90s implying a west side, east side war. Causing 2 deaths of great rappers Tupac and Biggie. Rappers who are big now went to the same processes. First they land a big deal, sell there product, and try to protect there reputation to building there money flow to the max. who is to blame for the change in Hip-hop rap some say the white man in the suit who lands the big deal who don’t care if the lyrics and images hurt people. They are just here trying to make the all mighty dollar. And the rappers are the ones who help advertise it. Or it can just be the change in time in different eras.
To some degree, I agree with Hurt, on the premise that Hip Hop has become misguiding. We have all noticed the effect the media has on our lives. From overseas problems to those directly in front of us, our mass media has the ability to alter our views about ourselves. In the Byron Hurt film: “Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes”, these illustrations are very evident. Almost all rap videos portray scantily women dressed in almost nothing, men with guns; smoking on something, and an array of gold or platinum chains around his neck. We emulate these images. However, in contrary opinion, we should understand that it is not by choice that we choose to emulate the behavior of others; however, many children grow up without role models. Hence, we are forced to emulate those making the “cheese”.
Mary J. Blige has been an influential hip-hop diva for many years. Many young women look up to her as a face of the struggle towards their future. Just recently, Mary teamed up with rapper, Ludacris, to create the masterpiece, “Runaway love”. This song illustrates the small percentage of rap songs that teach us about ourselves, as impoverished peoples. You can visit the song at, http://www.lyricsandsongs.com/song/773923.html .
Jeff Figueroa
English 1A 9-10 am
01 March 2007
"Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes" directed by Byron Hurt, is a documentary on how commercial rap promotes misogynistic, violence and gives black males negative stereotypes. Bryon Hurt grew up a fan of hip hop and he still is. Hurt’s arguments are not hard to disagree with and just incase one is to argue that today’s rap/hip hop music is not blatantly promoting sex, violence and misogynistic towards women, just listen to any current popular rap c.d.
Rap/hip hop has not always been about “bust’n caps” and “break’n hoes”. Back in the golden era of hip hop (1987-1992), it was all about who had the dopest rhyme and sickest dance steps. I know because I grew up in this so called “golden era of hip hop”. The music that was coming out in that time was new and different. When a person heard a song that they liked it made them want to get up and dance. That’s not the case in today’s day of age as to when a person hears one of their favorite songs, they transform into this hardcore gangster that is not to be messed with. Hurt interviewed a couple of well known rap artist; one of them was Fat Joe. Fat Joe even said that because of the image that rap displays, it makes every young male thinks he has to be hard. When it comes down to Hurts arguments of how today’s rap music promotes blatantly disrespect for women and promotes violence against each other.
Donielle Bryant
English 1A
Re:Hip Hop:Beyond Beats & Rhymes
The documentary by Byron Hurt titled,"Hip Hop:Beyond Beats and Rhymes," focuses on how hip hop music was derived from the black culture,and how it affects society as a whole(especially black people) today. In the film I was able to identify its two main arguments and premises which support the arguments. The first argument is that hip hop promotes violence within our culture. Secondly, the film also questions why or why not it is so important to be hard in hip hop. Because of the fact that the theme of violence and portraying a "hard" image is the norm for rap artists to portray in their videos,has caused us to question where these negative views come from.
In the film there was substantial evidence in which I agreed with proves why there is violence and it is so important to be hard in hip hop. Some premises in which support the argument that it is important to be "hard" comes from the history of black people and masculine identity. One gentlemen in the film said that being a black man you have to be more assetive and agressive, another stated "In general society limits the range in which you can express you emotions so people do so through hip hop music."
Throughout history black people have been oppressed in urban communities and a lot of their struggle is portrayed through music. I have seen negative images on television in which black men and women objectify themselves because I believe that is the only way they can get through to show their audiences that they are strong. Having money and cars and jewels,and having the option of different several partners is opposite of what these black rappers had coming from the hood,but only limited to experience the lavish lifestyles of the white men which have never came from the ghetto. Yes maybe the hip hop culture does promote some negative images and behaviors but you can not blame the rappers. I believe that rap music is influential only to a certain extent but the reality of things is that people living in ghettos everyday are subjected to the harsh realities and in a sense rap music is more censored than you think.
Brandy Lokken
English 1A- 8:00am class
Many people learn from society. We learn the negatives and positives. The argument in, "Hip Hop Beyond Beats and Rhymes," is about the negative ness our society has become, also in the argument is that in society there;s a lot of violence. The argument is that hip hop is known to be a negative influence on our society. The reason is because a lot of the negativity is directed to woman. It talks about the violence, sexism, and homophobia often. We see the violence everyday. Rap (hip hop) is a really large negative influence we have. Most things regarding rap is very violent. The sounds rhyme to rhyme with violence. In rap music rap stars who are gay aren't supported in their community of rappers. When hip hop doesn't fit in with booty shakings, and violence they don't get played. Therefore hip hop keeps getting violent because the public expect more. The evidence is that hip-hop is wild. There's a lot of violence being shown everywhere, on the streets, in schools, and on tv. People are grown to that culture and relate it to their music. I agree with the premises. I think hip hop is getting very violent. I think they should ban some of the violence being shown in hip-hop music videos. It's escalating a world of violence.
Thanks Brandy Lokken
http://rapstation.com/
http://rapstation.com/artists/artist.php3?artist_id=29101
Great responses, please leave your email address so I can respond to you directly.
To: Wanda Sabir
From: Gilberto Navarro
Date: February 28, 2007
Re: Hip Hop Video
Hip-Hop Music
I watched a video in English class called “Hip Hop Beyond Beats & Rhymes”. I am not a big fanatic of Hip-hop music, but I like it very much. When I hear Hip-hop music, it makes me shake my body from toes to head, especially when I am at a party. The only thing that bothers me about Hip-hop music is to not know how to dance and that makes me feel [down] angry. I think Hip-hop music has a lot influence to either good or bad behavior in a person’s life, as same as any type of music does.
When I was watching the video in English class, a thought interrupted my mind; it was about me being a Hip-hop singer. As I was watching the video and thinking about my illusion, I begin to get more into the video and see how most of the Hip-hop videos show and involve three interesting subject-topics. Those topics were money, violence, and with permission & apologizing, women. I started to analyze these topics from the Hip-hop video, and in my own opinion, I think those topics I chose are just a few of the more controversial topics all aver the world. They are part of the new generation world and humanity ambitions. Regarding money, I think that most of the people in this world wants to have money to accomplish their dreams and, so they can have better future economy, but these people whose concentration is all about money, they’re forgetting something very important; life itself at present time. These people are forgetting so many things about family-love, and they are concentrating too much in money issues. No wander now a days entire families get apart from each other. Maybe if artists would begin a new and renovated material of songs and videos where they would only sing and show new positive changes for the best of the population, than people might begin to dedicate more time to themselves and family members in order to make a real change in the life of new comers.
Violence is another hot topic I saw in the Hip-hop video during English class. I think violence is all around people's life not just on Hip-hop videos, but in many other ways, in particular, nowadays, it shows it globally through War. Violence in videos is less destructible, then living the real violence as people do in Iraq and other countries too. When I was watching the video in class, I remember how a few people driving a car killed another person that was walking by the sidewalk. Compare to what is happening now at this stage of the New Millennium, violence in videos is nothing. For example, in Mexico country, in many states, the president pass a new law in which all states are going to be excessively checked by the government in order to maintain less violence, drugs, and corruption, but this is causing more violence and deaths because of the bad people against it. At least, everyone knows that what happens in videos may not be true, although there are always true stories, but in real life, there is not rewind as we can rewind a video tape. What happens in real life does never come back again. It is the same as an every second that past, it never comes back, and there is no way to bring back people’s life.
Another controversial topic I detected in the Hip-hop video was about women. This topic about women took my attention because as well as many women are comfortable about what they’re doing in Hip-hop videos, others are not too happy about it. Some women got very annoyed for the reason of male singer misinterpreting women’s image. In addition, male singers make women look bad in videos. They look like street women because of all the nudity women they use in stage, so for some women that are making money their way, others may get the results of those nudity videos everywhere they walk. That is the reason why many man go to jail as sexual harassment. In one of MM’s songs I could actually imaging everything he was singing, as I would be watching a video on TV. The song title is “So Wrong” in which MM sings abut a woman who has cheated on him and he find out about it. Than he brutally tights her hands and ankles, and puts her in a big sack; throws her in his car’s trunk to take her to a bridge and through her in the water. That one song is one of my favorites about Hip-hop and Rap music.
Although, I don’t know how to dance Hip-hop music, I like the beat of it, and its rhymes. In conclusion, singing songs and watching videos about the topics I chose, I think they are not going to disappear soon because a lot of money comes out of it and because many man as well as women is taking advantage of it, whether using violence and or using nudity. Many topics would keep controversial because as human mind keep developing, controversial topics would come up even more.
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