Hip-Hop: Defense and Prosecution

I am a huge supporter of the Hip Hop Culture. Not the culture of the so called "Gangsta Rappers" or the booty I can easily catch on my television. I am a supporter of the true Hip Hop Movement. I am a fan of the true essence which consists of Dj-ing, B-Boy, MC-ing, and Graffiti. These four elements are the foundation to the true culture that first provided an alternative to the life of gang violence, of the degradation of women, and of oppression for all people considered minority. Hip Hop is a culture that should bring people together into a global family unit, only now it's being twisted in order to advertise adult entertainment and crude behavior within the community of the youth. When Hip Hop was born around the late 70's early 80's, it was embraced as something positive and also used as a culture of rebellion against the harsh living conditions of the streets which were infected with violence and poverty. It started with the Dj (disc jockey), who played the hottest tunes people loved and related to. Secondly, there came the B-boy which is short for break boy. When the disc jockey played a tune that went into a break down, mostly consisting of instrumental funk and pop jazz music, b-boys would dance on these breaks and along with the beat.The next two aspects of Hip Hop came separately. Mc-ing was born when an individual made a rhyme to a mixed tune the Dj created. It was called spittin, flowing, or rapping. The MC element became important because the people needed their voice to be heard and the MC could get a message across through rhythm and words. Graffiti is the last element that allowed for the message of the people to be heard through truly artistic measures. Murals would be spray painted on the wall with images that resembled what the people felt or of the tag name of the individual who tagged it. Knowing this information is crucial to when one compares the Hip Hop of today to the Hip Hop of yesterday. Two articles were written about the current affects of the Hip Hop Culture. The first article, “In Defence of Hip Hop,” written by Cathleen Rountree, supports Hip Hop and gives valid points on why the culture is falsely accused of being the cause of the many negative aspects of society. “…hip-hop music frequently assumes the central role of scapegoat when violent words and deeds erupt among the young—and sometimes the old, as we saw with the Don Imus escapade in April.”(Rountree 245). Rountree used this example to show the audience of recent events that relate to her argument. By doing this she creates the first argument that could be refuted by the opposition.
The opposition takes place within the second article. “Hip-Hop’s Betrayal of Black Women,” written by Jennifer McLune, figuratively beats the entire culture to a pulp while explaining how Hip-Hop degrades women and exploits the sexist and homophobic tensions of the men involved in the life-style. McLune wasn’t afraid to state that hip hop is the main reason why society as a whole still has not embraced the idea of a successful black woman.
Rountree’s article defends hip hop and shows that it should not be used as a scapegoat for the behavior of a community, while McLune’s article emotionally claims that Hip Hop should be crucified and exposed for its sexist content. What both articles failed to do was give me facts or statistics. I felt that both articles were running off of emotion and their personal studies just happened to contradict each other. My own personal involvement allows me to disagree with both articles on what the intent of Hip Hop really is. As stated before, Hip Hop was an alternative to an oppressive lifestyle. It valued the creativity and experience of both men and women equally. It also wasn’t created to try to please anyone who repelled against it.
What is worse, the content or the person who chooses to listen to the content? The Don Imus incident is brought to the table. In my opinion, hip hop is still a young art form and Don Imus is just too old to be including himself in it. The excuse that “Hip Hop made me do it,” is not acceptable. The man’s radio talk show is known to have some vulgar material in it. Rountree believes there is no excuse when one spills out a racial slur on national radio; he should blame it on hip hop.
Mclune on the other hand refutes this argument and shows the audience what problems hip hop has caused. When speaking about female hip hop artist Eve and her involvement in a video titled “Pigeons,” she states,”Her appearance displays her unity not with the women branded “pigeons,” but with the men who label them.”(McLune 249). She later explains how in hip hop, female artist familiarize themselves as masculine figures so they can further degrade other women.
I clearly believe that neither author truly knows what the intent of Hip Hop was. Both articles were written to prove that hip hop is either innocent or guilty of the accusations placed on it by society, but they never pinpoint what hip hop used to be or what it is now. In fact, this debate is almost pointless. I am sorry I couldn’t write an article based on this topic because if I did I would have made a complete comparison between the Hip Hop of today and of yesterday.

to be continued..

The Emcee vs The Rapper: The Fight for Existence

I am a huge supporter of the Hip Hop Culture. Not the culture of the so called "Gangsta Rappers"or the booty I can easily catch on my television. I am a supporter of the true Hip Hop Movement. I am a follower in Hip Hop who practises the four elements of the culture. The true essence. Dj-ing, B-Boy, MC-ing, and Graffitti. The four elements are the foundation to the true culture that first provided an alternative life from gang violence, degradation of women and oppression of all people considered minority. It was a culture that brought people together into a global family unit. Now it's being twisted in order to advertise adult entertainment and crude behavior within the community of the youth.
When Hip Hop was born around the late 70's early 80's, it was embraced as something positive and also used as a culture of rebellion against the harsh living conditions of the streets which were infected with violence and poverty. It started with the Dj (disc jockey), played the hottest tunes that he knew the people could love and relate to. Secondly came the B-boy which is short for break boy. When the disc jockey played a tune that went into a break down, mostly consisting of instrumental fuck and pop jazz music, b-boys would dance on these breaks and along with the beat.
The next to aspects of Hip Hop came seperatly. Mc-ing was born when an individual flowed a rhyme to a mixed tune the dj would make. They called it spittin, flowing or rapping. The mc elemnt became important because the people needed their voice to be heard and the mc could do just that while getting the message across through rhythm and words. Graffitti is that last element that allowed for the message of the people to be heard through truly artistic measures. Murals would be spray painted on the wall with images that resembled what the people felt or of the tag name of the individual or tagged it.
Although, Hip Hop Started as a positive cultural experience, it quickly became a mainstream culture showing up all over the nation. And with any new culture or way of life, it evolves. Look at what Hip Hop has evolved to after the "Hip Hop" was put into the hands of business who viewed another way to make money. They created the gangsta rapper. With the already harsh conditions people were livin, if you give any oppressed indivdual some money to spit about poppin dudes and smackin bitches, you have one less broke dude on the street. Instead he in hollywood spreading his filth.


to be continued...

Tannen Technique's

In her article “We Need a Higher Quality Outrage,” Deborah Tannen stresses the importance of genuine opposition. Throughout the article Tannen utilizes important writing techniques to help prove valid points and make suggestions in relation to developing proper opposition. In doing so, she expresses some of her own ideas in the article. She believed citizens of America should create logical questions, investigate the motives of politicians, include their voice on important issues, ignore any outside mass media influence, and form valid arguments towards their government. She organizes these topics well making the article easier to read. In other terms, the article flowed
Most writers who write a formal article, essay, or research paper usually tend to write their thesis statement somewhere in the middle of their introductory paragraph. You may even find it somewhere later when the persuasive arguments are being made. Tannen chose to write her thesis in the first sentence of the article. “We need to ratchet up the level of opposition in our public and private discourse.” (Tannen 55). This helps the set her argument by firmly stating her position and allowing for no immediate questions to be asked. This idea of this sentence will be referred to back and forth to emphasize the argument, making it a straight forward statement to rely on and to help her remember her position.
Tannen displays another persuasive technique that the class learned in chapter four. She acknowledges the opposition. She previously wrote a book called The Argument Culture which she recognizes could’ve been used as material by the opposition to refute the current argument she presents in this article. In using this technique and then supporting her change with facts, she successfully defends her position and further displays the authority in which she has. This was a crucial move in her efforts to persuade the audience.
Throughout the first three paragraphs of the article, Tannen is constantly defining the term “agonism.” This is important because she gives the audience different definitions and examples to show how the term will be used throughout her article. She first gives her own definition, then the general definition, and finally the definition as used by journalist. She plays with the example of a street brawl in order to define agonism in a way that the audience can relate to. By doing so she allows a better understanding of where she stands in her argument and starts to build an intangible bind between herself and the reader.
In the body of the article, Tannen makes her persuasive arguments. She uses current events that most people are familiar with to help state her case. This is great for grasping the attention of the reader. “One can argue that the president is using the Sept. 11 attacks to bolster his public profile without going so far as to claim (as does a message circulating on the internet) that he played a role in authorizing the attacks.” (Tannen 55). By tracking back to this thought, she shows the reader how arguments can be organized to show relation between two ideas without falling back to creating wild assumptions. She firmly solidifies her position and reaches deeper with the audience.
Tannen wrote this article strictly for the educated public and lower level politicians. She uses strong vocabulary that she assumes the audience would recognize, but defines vocabulary that is vital to her argument. One would need a dictionary by his/her side to read this article. She plays with certain words and ends up appearing sarcastic with her writing in terms of the context. In defining agonism, she states, “…ritualized opposition, a knee-jerk, automatic use of warlike formats.” (Tannen 55). Not only does Tannen utilize some hard-core vocabulary, but she also keeps the article straight-forward. With each new paragraph in which she introduces a new idea, she keeps to her format and gets to the point, making the task of reading her article an easier burden to deal with.
All in all, this article was well written and touched on the points in which it set out to do. It kept a consistent tone and allowed the reader to enjoy it. Tannen used the best writing techniques set for a persuasive argument which shows that she clearly knows what she is doing. She defined the term important for her article, used current events to help the audience relate to what she is writing, stated her position very early to negate any immediate opposition, acknowledged her opposition and allowed her own opinions and suggestions to enter into the article. Deborah Tannen seems to be a great writer and would be even better in debates.


Works Cited
1. Tannen, Deborah. “We Need a Higher Quality Outrage.” Perspectives on Contemporary Issues: Reading Across the Disciplines. 5th ed. Katherine Anne Ackley, ed. Boston: Wadsworth Cengage, 2009. 55-57
This article can also be found in the Christian Science Monitor October 20, 2004 issue.