Rap: The New Form of Propaganda
In this modern age, where media exposure runs high, all thanks to advancements in technology, many people today find themselves sharing common ground with a love for a particular type of entertainment: music.
Music, especially amongst us African Americans, has played a vital role in expression, from telling our stories about dealing with racism, dealing with police brutality, poverty, and growing up in the projects, to our experiences with love and romance and even nights of passion. From genres of Hip Hop, R&B, Blues, Rock and Roll, Soul, and Neo-Soul, our songs broadcasted quite an array of great messages, especially in the 70s and 80s.
However, you notice a drastic change in the 90s and 2000s and going forward to the current day. As mentioned before, Hip Hop, or Rap, was created as a way to broadcast our voices and spread forth various good messages or meaningful ones. Popular examples range from Queen Latifah, De La Soul, Arrested Development, X clan, and many more. In this modern-day, if you were to simply divert attention from the rhythm of the song you hear and listen to the lyrics, you hear a common theme today’s rappers like to rap about:
“B%$ches, h%es, money, drugs, gang gang, F&^k these N-words, F%$k
these h&es, etc.”
With an endless reciting of corrupted messages within a seemingly endless stream of a piece of our culture turned propaganda, it seems each rapper in the mainstream world has a subconscious mission to see how much they can amplify how much nonsense and vulgarity they can produce. Some who tune in to today’s radio stations or music streaming services often do not know why this new age rap is appealing to their ears. Often their responses are: “It’s just music” or “I just like it.”
Some have become so enamored by this new age rap that it almost becomes blasphemy to criticize. One must understand, that many within our culture are oblivious to the fact that music has a higher level of influence over us than we think.
We must first understand one aspect of culture, and that is influence. In our youth, we’re influenced by what we hear, see experience, and especially by what we’re taught. Sadly, in many broken homes, what we’re taught is often either corrupted messages or via our environment, often a detrimental one (I.e., harsh forms of survival in the hood). Where I’m going with this is what the lord often tries to teach us: Words have power.
There is a reason why the Most High takes account of what we say, and many of these rappers today, whether they know it or not, bring further detriment and dysfunction to the Black community by what they put out. By how much, one may ask? I list one recent artist for example: “Glorilla”.
A recent single of hers, “FNF”, or “Let’s Go”, had reached a significant level of notoriety on social media. Reception showed both praise and rightful criticism from those concerned with the state of moral judgment and lack of values within the Black community. The song itself repeats not only a proverb amongst modern-day rappers but also appeals to women who have sadly come to embrace today’s form of feminism. What you hear in her song is the glorification of the ratchet life and free to embrace hedonistic pleasures.
And before I go any further, I encourage you to take a look at the music video itself. Why did you notice? A pregnant woman, and at least one little child hearing up close every corrupted message being said in the video. I must ask, what are these kids of these mothers and fathers being programmed to think? What is today’s rap teaching them?
And I know what some readers of this article might be thinking. “This guy sounds like an old man.” I pass on another thing to note. A continuation of Glorilla’s single, a video had surfaced of a 3-year-old girl not only listening to the song but reciting the lyrics, profanity and all, never mind the fact she was not wearing a seatbelt and her window was cracked open. This makes you wonder; how many times has she and many others been exposed to this song and many others like it?
Rap/Hip hop has played a major role in expressing our minds in the past, but now in these final days, factors of greed, cultural appropriation, and social engineering have taken a great piece of our culture and warped it, turning it into something different, something demented. I must say this though, we can’t entirely pin the blame on the rappers themselves. We must also hold accountable, ourselves, the people, in terms of what we have come to condone, what we value, and what we glorify. Rappers are unable to reach a high status without the support of the masses. Thus, I leave off with another question to be answered:
Who’s at fault for the degradation of Rap/Hip Hop? The music industry? The rappers themselves? Or the people who continue to support them?
