Post #10 Human Ignorance

One Sunday afternoon while watching television, I learned new information about how words can control you human psyche. While listening to music, a question jumbled my mind. Can music control the human psyche? Can it persuade people to do what the music asks them to do? What about human behavior? 

According to The Mystery of Hip Hop, where Patrick Hampton wrote about Hip Hop and Violence. Patrick Hampton believes that Hip Hop not only promotes violence but also creates it as well; also he got to ask a question, “Does music really have the power to change human psyche and behavior?” the answer was yes. As he stated, there were a lot studies that supported fact that music can shift the mood of a person without their permission. There were different rappers but they all seem to have the skills to influence us positively or negatively. Patrick Hampton stated a lot of examples of rappers that can influence people to listen to them, also rappers were used to sell and promote products. The studies also noticed that the songs create new words like what we use now, “gold” can be substituted for “bling-bling” and the words “chill”, “hood” and “crib” were added to the dictionary and has their own definitions.

Did you know that according to Patrick “The founders teach that Hip Hop was initially use to keep children off the streets and also use to channel their energy into positive pastimes to keep them becoming involved with gangs.” They are all well and good but were they true? He found out that Hip Hop only recruited the most notorious gangstas. Now Hip Hop has become a mainstream, that was because the people doesn’t have the attention span to listen to music that has “math, science and politics”, when the youth doesn’t hear words like pimpin’, drinkin’ or other stuff, the youth will call it lame and thus it will not sell. This is why the so-called Holy Hip Hop made the church its primary market. As Patrick stated Hip Hop has been fused with violence, misogyny and negativity, on purpose. Of course to sell records, Hip Hop artists must take now the responsibilities on their lyrics and also the industry should hold responsible for reinforcing the minds about violence.  

As to what I read, Hip Hop music really did made an influence through people who listens to it, some even stops on what they are doing just to listen and sing even though they do not know the lyrics of the song and what it says. Hip Hop really weakened nations not only in America but also in other countries, as long as people let them get influenced by Hip Hop and by these commercials they will still try to buy goods and harm others like cigarettes and their second hand smoke thus can also lead to cancer, as to what Patrick said this is caused by our own ignorance of the Hip Hop culture.

Post #9 Justice and Equality?

Everybody is searching for equality, everyone wants justice, but is that enough to say your served well? Misogyny; the hatred of women by men, I discovered this while studying in my English classes. While browsing through the Internet looking for new songs, I stumbled upon music that disrespects women. I got curious and opened the site because I have never heard such case. That kind of disrespecting is from songs that I liked, well everything has a down side but why this?

Coming across the site TheRapUp the article “11 Rap Songs to Disrespect Women to” written by Rizoh, I read the lyrics of the songs there and it was really disrespectful. Not to mention the songs are very verbal in a way that it wasn’t good anymore, some lyrics are just full of violent words, “fuck” is in it and again “bitch” that is called for a female dog and is use in the song to describe women. Rizoh said that he was shock having to hear those songs coming out of his speakers, as he squirmed on his seat he asked his self  ““Does music dictate culture or is it the other way around?” Are we about to see a bunch of young boys running around calling women “queen”? Does rap music encourage misogyny or does it simply mirror a culture of misogyny?” it was clearly something that your mind will bubble unto.

There wasn’t a lot that Rizoh said but there was a lot of information in his few words, I also tried to look for more other than Rizoh’s article. After reading his article I also stumbled upon “20 Most Misogynistic Songs Ever” in brains.org, it was stated there that misogyny is “the worlds oldest practice” because it started out during the Greek mythology and Roman Philosophers. The misogyny acclaimed that men are misogynist because of being jealous to the women having a different evolution, biology, phallogocentrism and other naturalistic theories. One song there that caught my attention was “A Lapdance Is So Much Better When The Stripper Is Crying” By The Bloodhound Gang” even the title was that bad to hear, I didn’t even want to listen to the song. Another song is “Don’t Bite the Dick” By David Allan Coe” it is really something.

Now that the fact is known, should we stop it? If so, how can we? Where is the justice in that? People tries to go for equality but is there justice in what they are doing. Some men are angry when women say Feminism is just right, but those men have reasons why they are opposing to it. In the Philippines there are also songs that are like that, but because the people there want to be “in with the crowd” all the time, they now do those bad things just because little they know its not fine, as long as someone is hurt.  But can you see the Feminism in some countries? How about in the article’s songs?  Are they still here for equal rights and justice? We can decide this for ourselves but its up to us if we will look for a solution to it.

Post #8: Drink while Violent

High School, a stepping-stone to greatness but some students tends not to graduate. Whenever my friends ask me “hey wanna go out and drink?” I always ask myself why do people drink when they’ll most likely do violent things, thinking about it made me more curious.

According to edublogs’s “Rap Listeners are Prone to Violence”, young people today who listens to rap music are most likely to have problems on drugs, alcohol and violence than people who listen to other types of music. It was stated there that “People should be concerned about rap and hip hop being used to market alcoholic beverages, given the alcohol, drug and aggression problems among listeners,” said lead author Meng-Jinn Chen, Ph.D., a research scientist at PIRE Prevention Research Center. “That’s particularly true considering the popularity of rap and hip hop among young people.” The statistic also showed that the survey more than 1,000 students was associated with alcohol and drugs also the music that they are listening to are techno types and reggae.

“Tipsy” –t pain                                                                                           “I know” – Jay-Z

I founded out that rap music is used for promoting products; most likely alcohol and drugs are advertised trough the media. But the researchers result was undetermined whether listening to that kind of music will result to violence and drugs but the other young people may be drawn to particular music styles for acting so aggressive and doing drugs. Also in that article Meng-Jinn said,  “While we don’t fully understand the relationship between music preferences and behavioral outcomes, our study shows that young people may be influenced by frequent exposure to music lyrics that make positive references to substance use and violence,”

Not only USA where things like this happen but also in other countries, we might not see it but if we look around close enough this is happening with our peers. As of the people in the 2000 and above generation, they increased rapidly because rap music becomes wider and rappers write song more often. But rappers are not to blame here, rappers mean no harm to us, they are just doing their job as songwriters but it is us who are doing what is right for us for our future.

(source:http://hiphopvtheworld.edublogs.org/rap-listeners-are-prone-to-violence/)