What ever happened to rap and hip hop music that didn’t contain vulgar words and encourage destructive behavior? Will Smith, who has been making music since 1987, refuses to rap in a negative fashion the way most rappers in the black community do. And he’s one of the few. What kind of message are we sending the youth of today with videos featuring half-naked women and songs about killing other people? With so many rap songs containing the same vulgar content, they become more like noise to the ears instead of music. More artists should take the path of Will Smith and “get jiggy wit it.”I remember watching my first rap video, Naughty by Nature’s “Hip Hop Hooray” in the early 1990s, and wanting to wave my hands from side to side like all the cool rappers. I cannot recall the lyrics to the song, just the chorus, “hip hop hooray ho hay ho.” Kriss Kross’ “Jump Jump” had the same effect. I wanted to jump jump with all the energy in my body. At the time, I didn’t think anything of the songs except as a means of sheer entertainment.
But as I grow older, I’m noticing a potentially dangerous pattern beginning to form.
Looking back at the lyrics to “Hip Hop Hooray” and “Jump Jump,” I noticed only a tiny percentage of the two songs contain vulgar words or references compared to the lyrics of major rap stars today, such as 50 Cent, Eminem, Snoop Dogg and Kanye West.
The No. 1 song in America currently belongs to Kanye West, whose previous hit album was entitled, “College Dropout.” For 15 weeks, West’s song, “Gold Digger,” has remained on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. While the beat is great and Jamie Foxx’s impression of Ray Charles is near perfect, the message of the song makes me cringe.
West uses “niggaz” six time-all of which are in the chorus-“but she ain’t messin wit no broke niggaz.” The song is also filled with luxury items, such as a “baby Louis Vuitton” and “Benz.” At the end of one verse, after describing how he pays for this woman he loves who has a child, he sings, “And on her 18th birthday he found out it wasn’t his.”
What’s the message? It seems as though West is either pointing out the obvious gap between the black and white society or he’s furthering it. But then again, can you blame him? It’s what sells and makes him big bucks.
One rapper, who makes the Hall of Fame among young people with his saying “izzle,” is Snoop Dogg. Snoop’s been around for decades making music about hoes, liquor, guns, drugs and sex. In his recent popular song, “Drop it Like it’s Hot,” he and Pharrell Williams sing about all of the above. Things haven’t changed for this rapper with lyrics such as, “See I specialize in making all the girls get naked.” References to wet dreams, killers with guns, marijuana, gangs, sex and of course, the favorite term among rappers, “nigga” are all in this song.
Another rapper, who is no stranger to critics or the jury, is Eminem. When he performed his song “Ass Like That” for the MTV Music Awards last year, he was accompanied by oversized dolls featuring gigantic breasts and behinds. The performance stole the show-as did his lyrics-“I ain’t never seen an ass like that-you make my peepee go doing doing doing.”And there’s really no need to delve into 50 Cent’s lyrics, for his song titles say it all. Among the worst are his songs entitled, “F*ck you,” “Surrounded by Hoes,” “That Ain’t Gangsta,” “Make Money by Any Means,” “I’m a Hustler,” “How to Rob” and “I Smell P*ssy.”
Why aren’t we focusing more on rappers like Will Smith, who refuses to make millions from rapping about anything obscene and rude? I personally loved the song, “Just the Two of Us,” about the bond between Smith and his son.
So there we have it. The lesson all young children and teenagers learn: College is unnecessary to be successful in life and to become a person who gives back to society. Money, fame, hoes, liquor and drugs comes to those who succeed in the rap world. Women are hoes. Drugs and liquor equals wholesome hearts and fun irresponsible times. Profanity gets you everywhere.
But can you really blame rappers who focus on immoral and meaningless subjects? In a society that gives accolades to entertainers, with or without censorship, you can’t really blame it all on rap music. They’re making a living too. Since we keep buying their records and praising them on television and in magazines, their noise will just keep entertaining and bothering us.
As one of the legendary and late rappers, Tupac Shakur, once sang, “That’s just the way it is-Some things never change.”
Stacy Seebode is a senior journalism and dance major. She may be contacted at [email protected].
