Musical values are an important aspect of our social culture



Musical values are an important aspect of our social culture. In this essay I will explain why I chose rap as the genre and why I compared and contrasted the 80’s and the 90’s. The following are four rap songs and artists I chose in each genre:

1980’s

Beastie Boys – Fight for you right to party

LL Cool J – You need love

Sugarhill Gang – Rapper’s Delight

Toneloc – Wild thing

1990’s

2pac – Dear Mama

Bone Thugs and Harmony – 1st of tha Month

NWA – Fuck tha police

Snoop Doggy Dog – Murda was the case

In the 80’s rap music was not as commercialized as it is in modern times and back then they had a lot to overcome to become an accepted art form. In the 90’s rap changed its message from fun party rap to gangsta or issue driven rap. Some of the messages from the 80’s were still conveyed in 90’s rap, but there was a drastic change of style from the 80’s to the 90’s. Some of the biggest rap songs in the 80’s were about the whole hip-hop scene and culture. Since the culture was not main stream such song as “Rapper’s Delight” from the Sugarhill Gang summarized what hip hop culture was like. With such lyrics as

“The beat starts gettin' into your toes

You start poppin' your fingers and stompin' your feet

And movin' your body while while you're sitting in your seat

And then damn! Ya start doin' the freak, I said

Damn! Right outta your seat

Then you throw your hands high in the air,

Ya rockin' to the rhythm, shake your derriere

Ya rockin' to the beat without a care,”

You can see some of the things that define hip-hop such as doing the freak. Before hip hop the dancing was focused more and made by Caucasians such as disco, the twist, and the duck. From the feel of the beat you get a free flowing charismatic rapper who wants you to get up and start dancing the freak. Rap was also a different rhythm in that the artist uses beats to create a rhythm so they can flow with it. In the 80’s you can also see that girls were still viewed as a “trophy” instead of who they really are. All the songs from the 80’s except, “Beastie Boy’s - Fight for you right to party,” mentioned forms of having or wanting to have sex with a girl. From those songs you can see the value of females in the 80’s as defining who you are if you nail them.

“Rapper’s Delight”, Toneloc’s “Wild thing”, and LL Cool J’s “You need love” all show what men wanted to feel in the 80’s. With all four songs defining the party life you can compare that to the 90’s rap songs as a different reason to rap.

In the 90’s a lot of rappers used the medium as a way to cry out for help. That came with the rise of gangsta rap, where a lot of glorified gang members started rapping more about their life. Rappers such as 2Pac and Snoop Doggy Dog rapped about their former gang life and the troubles that it got them in. Snoop Doggy Dog’s song “Murda was tha case” was about his trial for murder. 2Pac’s “Dear Mama” showed how living up in a ghetto and living a gang life. NWA’s “Fuck tha Police” displayed the police brutality that African Americans deal with in a normal day atmosphere. 2Pac’s song “Dear Mama” displayed an image of why he did what he did. It showed the value of gangs; it showed that he had no one else to lookup to cause his dad was never there for him. All the songs had mentioned use of drugs, the most common being marijuana. Getting high and using drugs was something that was not valued in 80’s rap music.

The main differences in the rap music from the 80’s to the 90’s is that in the 80’s it was still defining hip-hop culture and what it was like. In the 90’s, not only it was defining hip-hop culture it was also revolutionizing it. They were using rap music as not only a mean to get them off the street, but also to tell the world why they were on the street in the first place. In the 90’s rap music valued the use of drugs, violence, and gang philosophy whereas the 80’s valued more on music, sex, and partying.

Tram Tran

FCS 320, T-TR 2:00

Wilder

September 9, 2004

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