Has the quality of hip-hop music declined over the years? As an African American female, I think not. However, my parents and other older people tell a different story. Those who are old enough to remember the first real rappers say that music today is "senseless", "derogatory to women", and has "no message" anymore. The old artists rapped about the senselessness of the violence in their neighborhoods, the flaws in government, and other important issues in society. Today we rap about sex, point blank. Personally, I rarely learn more than the chorus of a rap song, because I'm not someone to sit there and memorize a song. The beat of a song, not the words, is what draws me to it. So when I listen to older rap songs, or current artists like Common, I don't want to listen to their message because I just want something to jam to, not something to stop and think seriously about.
I think the lack of importance in the lyrics of today's rap music is directly influenced by the fact that society doesn't care about the important things anymore. Young adults and teenagers don't want to watch a television show on a political debate, or pay attention to a radio broadcast about dramatic political events in another country. Yeah, we might say to ourselves, "Oh my God", when we hear about the deaths of AIDS-infected children in Africa, but we are just as quick to forget about it. Our capacity for compassion is so small because, as a nation, Americans are self-involved, living in their own little bubbles of self-preoccupation. A perfect example of this is a poem I read recently, by Quincy Troupe:
"Lamentations! Lamentations! Lamentations!
Worldwide!
But in New Your, on Wall Street
The stock market went up 18 points..."
This is a basic guideline to our lives. Arond the world, people are dying. Our troops are at a war that we have largely forgotten about. Lamentations surround us and yet we see these events only i terms of our own lives. We mourn the dead child not because we truly feel compassion for the situation, but because we recognize that we are so much better off.
So is this the cause of the accepted misogyny and disregard for important events in music today? I tend to think so. It's not just the artists that are to blame. We must blame ourselves for it. We accept it, and we allow it to exist. We sing to it and we dance to it. Hip-hop isn't just mindless music. It's the soundtrack of our lives, and the way we treat every day.
I would love to hear anyone else's opinions on the state of music today.
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I listen for a combination of music and lyrics to music. The beat got to be bumping to get me out of my seat but the words must be good for me to recommend the song to someone else. I think music is deteriorating because society is deteriorating. We are moving backwards instead of forwards in a lot of instances. Examples the recent hate crimes like Jena Six, The rise in divorce, and the low tolerance for anything unorthodox. Its sad but only the next generation can change it.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth!~JFK