Hip Hop: Masculinity, Power, and Dominance

You never really think how anything influences yourself and others, but I realized that music really influences people a lot by watching this documentary. Young rappers who are trying to make it in the business think that being rude, and raping about how they are going to kill someone, and how the are going to rape their women, is the only way that they will be able to make it. Its sad because it is true, but it should not be like that, because when you see the rap videos, it is just degrading women, which we think that it never goes on, but it does. When the young kids watch those videos they may grow up as not knowing anything else but degrading people or women. Though it may influence each man differently, it will still influence them in one way or another. Rappers always rap about homosexuals and how it is wrong, and how that if you are a homosexual you are a “pussy” or a fag” You may notice that the men in society try to be better then the other man, but it is the total opposite for women, they are trying to be the same as other women to fit in.



What Russell Simons said about how poetry reflects society so really it is the society that is the issue and not the music. I do not agree with that one bit, because not every male degrades women like how it is portrayed in the music videos. People who listened to hip-hop or rap over 50 years ago were called a certain name though I cannot think of it off the top of my head. So if music has changed since then it obviously can change back, some of the hip-hop artists are already starting to change like for example Chamillionaire, his new album was able to hit stores without the parental advisory label on it. I think that if more people step up and show the other people what this music is doing to our society, I think it can start to change other artists, and then the album record companies may refuse to put their name on an album that has to have a parental advisory label on it.

Work Cited
“Hip-Hop.” 27. March. 2007. Online Image. Culturite. 10. January. 2008