Hip Hop And Youth Go Beyond Music

By Author: Luke Thomsen
Total Articles: 1
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Hip hop is a cultural representation; not only of the generation and the music, but also of the youth and its thoughts. And never before has the impact been analyzed like it is today. In an observation that Dr. S. Craig Watkins made, professor at the University of Texas-Austin, he stated that hip-hop scholarship focuses on interpreting content and culture.

It’s just that the scholars, who do these researches, need to examine the effect of hiphop and rap songs and entertainment media like hip-hop culture and understand what effect it has on the youth. Whether it is just a mirror of what the youth think or whether it even influences their social identity, is what really needs to be understood.

From where I look at it, it is pretty evident that these questions are inter-dependent. Something like, a wheel or a cycle. Gone are the days when “books were man’s best friends”. Today, in this i-pod-addicted, music-channel-viewing and disillusioned world, it is more of these new hip hop songs that influence and connect ...
... with the youth. Ask a young boy on the street, “What do you do if you are bored? Or even lonely?” he will most spontaneously reply “I listen to MY music”.

What is this “My” music?

The music that one listens to is most often a refection of ones own identity or perhaps what one wishes to be. So, in simple words, it varies form person to person. For a naïve-uninterested-aspiring-to-be-cool young man/woman, it’s only the “kick ass” music that will work. But for many others, it’s also about those lyrics that make you wake up and take things in your hand.

Looking at it from the perspective of an outsider, an observer; you can note that so much of this music can be detrimental – can influence negatively. But there still is so much more that can make a difference. Like in any social group or community or class; there is always good and bad and so it is here as well!

If you remember the Chiddy bang song – “Nothing on we“that inspires us to dream on and move on, you will understand what I mean. When we have thoughts like these, why should the Young with Hip Hop music relationship end at just that? We’ll let’s just look beyond, and go beyond.

“And if you dream that you could grab it
When obstacles arrive you drive past it
I learned there’s more to life when we had a smash hit
And the only thing guaranteed in life is a casket
That’s why I live it up
They try to rob me of my dreams, they told me give it up
Uh, I said I refuse this journey I pursue
And what I do to haters, I made them my own muse”