Feb 16, 2018 With David Drake's amazing article detailing Keef's musical legacy, I think this is a pertinent discussion to have. For any philosophers out there, here's the wiki for "life imitating art" which largely applies to this discussion. To kick things off, here's an article with a former(?) g--- member from Chicago who points out the specifics of his relation with rap music as well as how he sees it perpetuating g--- violence in general. http://www.newsweek.com/2016/12/23/chicago-gangs-violence-murder-rate-532034.html
Feb 16, 2018 there's a huge difference between adopting g--- slang/fashion/imagery and actually joining a g---. (there's also a difference between joining a g--- and committing violent acts, but that's another discussion.) rap music plainly inspires some people, especially kids, to adopt the window dressings of g--- life, but "rap music" surely ranks very far down the list of reasons people actually join gangs. and if we go that route, we should also consider that there are plenty of kids for whom hip-hop––that is, being an active participant in some sort of creative scene––acts as an alternative to or deterrent from g--- life.
Feb 16, 2018 To probe further, how do you reconcile promoting/celebrating/enjoying rap music which promotes ideology that you disagree with? Not just violence, but sexism and materialism for instance. I've seen the argument that people aren't prone to give the same poetic courtesy to rappers as they are to white entertainers who dabble in similarly violent art, but there is a history of hip-hop rewarding authenticity in character and chiding people who just pretend. Just being the devil's advocate here really.
Feb 16, 2018 dumbass first of all, i reject the idea that this question applies uniquely to rap music. you get at that yourself, but i'm not sure i even agree with how you hedge it. like, sure, it's a cliche to say that rap fans demand "authenticity," but i don't think that actually means––as so many people assume––that rappers have to have literally done everything they rap about. three case studies: nas, rick ross, vanilla ice. nas was not the crime lord from It Was Written, and while jay-z used that against him pretty effectively, in a broader sense people accepted that because nas was from queensbridge and grew up with people who were those crime lords, he was doing the sort of reflection and reportage that we expect from art. ross takes it a step further: his music was outed as more or less pure fiction. but it was good-faith fiction, so after an initial blowup over his past, people more or less let it slide. with vanilla ice, rap fans correctly sensed a craven, cynical manipulation of rap's "authenticity" metrics. what distinguishes him from ross is, first and most obviously, race, but also the way ice was positioning himself relative to other rappers. he was leveraging middle american ideas about what rap was to make himself a star. but back to your initial question: i don't think art has any obligation to be moral. you have to engage with it on its own terms. i also don't think violent art is necessarily amoral art.
Feb 16, 2018 https://www.google.com/amp/www.foxn...ranscript-gangster-rap-bad-influence.amp.html @WPG Read it and weep dumbass
Feb 16, 2018 you said "look at the statistics" and then linked to a partial transcript of a bill o'reilly interview. i'm sincerely encouraging you to jump off a tall building.
Feb 16, 2018 but to answer the question in op, I don't think so but due to my upbringing i dont have a really great feel on the subject at hand.
Feb 16, 2018 Honestly WPG pretty much summed it up further up there but it would be dismissive to not intertwine the two cultures together since both sides have shared aspects of each other; disenfranchised upbringings, bonds of brotherhood, anti-establishment, etc. I came up with family that carried the blue/purple flags but never did I see that hip-hop music was the forefront of why they committed to that lifestyle, sure it was the soundtrack + style but not the core motivation of it.
Feb 16, 2018 It can be the soundtrack played while you gangbang but it's likely not going to be the reason you do it. Even if you think the s--- they're saying is cool and you idolize the rapper you're not going from angel to gangbanger because of an album.
Feb 16, 2018 The playing tough s--- is true though. Music does embolden you. But it's also a survival tactic.
