Turn off the radio.

Recently, I have been audience too many conversations on hip-hop and its effects on mainstream America. And typically the rhetoric paints rap as mysogynistic and violent, which I do not think its fair. The rap that is played on the radio everyday is usually recycled between the themes of sex, guns, and riches. But who are these songs actually trying to reach? Who is this music made for? Black people do not purchase this music, the market focuses on white suburbia. Imagery perpratrated by the hip-hop elite allude to black males being violence driven and uneducated and the sad thing these visuals lead young black men to pursue activities that are self-destructive. Young Black men see these videos and listen to these lyrics and see only that. These actions are reciprocated, fake lines begin influencing real life. Even when I am outside at night, my image of someone who will cause harm to me is usually painted in black ink. Women in rap play no more a role than the necklace they wear and the cars they drive. They are objects that are used (often misused) and thrown out. Music videos of rap 'artists' rely on objectifying women to pull audiences. "Sex sells" and the rap industry is savagely siphoning off income generated by black female sexuality. But is the rap industry to blame?
It is common knowledge that what we hear on the radio and what gets promoted nationally is handpicked by very wealthy white men. Positive rap (which still exists) is thriving underground, and as I have found out, many college students are starting to understand that there is a place for it. Being a college student I, and my peers as well, begin to look at our choices through the lens of an adult. We question the music and critique the values the music is grounded upon, people who buy rap are typically those who are white but also, are young. I think that once we being interogatting why we like specific films and music, we start to see that some of it may be callous and nonsensical. I have grown from listening to bubblegum rap and graduated to new introspective lyrics of life. Lyrics that can spark debate, spark thought, spark change, spark understanding. Lines about how many girls I can get and how much money are silly and simple. Rap now fits perfectly in the Pop music genre and should be treated as such. It is purely superficial.
The damage, however, comes from the images. I know that what I see in a music video is fake but there are those that feel that this music is look into Black culture. Even Black people suffer from these repetitious images posing as an example to how black should be. Black men look at women exactly how they see on television. Women suffer from mistreatment because black men unconsciously seek to fulfill roles set forth by the examples of a Nelly or a 50 Cent. However I do not feel the fault lies exclusively on Black rappers. Sure they have a responsibility to their people but they unfortunately have a responsiblity to record owners as well. And even if they held their ground and denounced crap rap and stood for something real, there are a slew of hungry younger rappers that would take there place in seconds.
I find that as much as America likes to separate rap as its own minority inspired avenue for violence and misogyny, America itself needs to take the blame for those qualities. America is known throughout the world as a country of gun-totting cowboys, how kill first and ask questions later. The rhetoric of our president is riddled with Western vernacular and talks of "us against them". American culture is guilty of violence and being bullet ridden. Even our constitution allows for Americans to hold guns as long as its "a well regulated militia" that is set forth to protect free states. This is an outdated policy because we have a national military and no longer require a militia or an independent force to protect our states. But nevertheless we are the only country that allows gun usage, which just shows how gun focused America, as a culture, is. Our forefathers believed in arming themselves so why is it suprising that people now are killing themselves with guns. The explicitness of rap lyrics directly parallels American culture. These two are not mutually exclusive. Because the words are coming from a people who have a history of being oppressed, these words are demonized. I was shown clips of films that have been heralded in American cinema as being arguably some of the greatest films of all time, Dirty Harry, Good Bad and the Ugly, etc. And they shot down countless of guys all the time. Successful movies in America are largely big budget action flicks. Action flicks have been successful films since there were moving films. The market is here for violence, so why does rap catch flack for promoting gun-totting? There have been plenty of rappers actually referencing these western films in their lyrics. I do not like that hip=hop is being demonized for their gun violence when they are only promoting, through spoken word, what American cinema classics have promoted visually.