Music in Schools Today is teaching literature through music in
the San Francisco Unified School System through our "Achieving
through Music" program. The following pieces are from different
collaborative middle and high school writing groups. Students express
their different views on Rap music.
"The reason why we love Rap is because it's
soothing to us.
It is often judged because of vulgar lyrics,
but people generalize about it and don't understand the true meaning.
It comes from the soul of our people and helps us face the challenges
of our life every day." ~ MW & JR
There is Rap from other cultures too. There's Spanish Rap. A famous
artist who performs this music is Cypress Hill. An interesting thing
about Spanish Rap from Mexico is that the rappers don't speak about
women in degrading ways, they want to be with them forever. They
do talk about other issues like smuggling drugs and dealing with
immigration.
Anyway, Rap began with how African-American people grew up, from
slavery, to the ghettos. They were expressing themselves about how
hard it was and how it still is now. Money and girls show status
and power. These were the only ways they had to be important. Good
jobs, education and politics were for the white people.
TuPac was one of the best rappers because his stuff got heard.
What he was saying was real. Unfortunately in 1996 he died. He made
the way for others. Now Fifty Cent is one of the best rappers, who
made the tune "Wanksta" popular. Some rappers are mixed with R &
B like Destiny's Child. Their lead singer now sings with JayZ.
Keepin' it Real & Powerful
Rap is real and powerful. It's a mixture of different forms of
music like Hip-Hop and R&B. The beat and lyrics are both important.
The beat is strong and the rhythms are accented. The lyrics reflect
real life situations on the streets. Life challenges, disrespecting
women, violence, material wealth, hard times, drugs, and gang battles
are some of the themes used. Sometimes rappers talk about other
stuff too; telling stories about growing up and women's equality.
As you can see, Rap is different, depending on the artist. For
instance, female artist rappers talk about romance more than other
topics in their music. There are also different schools of Rap like
Old School (Ol' Skoul) and New School (Gangsta). Old School artists
are from the beginning of when Rap started, including groups like
Run DMC, EZE, MC Hammer, Sir Mix A Lot, Queen Latifah, Beasti Boys
and Will Smith. Some artists started making rap differently, like
Snoop Dog, Bone, LC, Busta Rhymes, QTP, Missy and 50 Cent. This
led the way for the new style of Rap which has current stars like
Eminem, Nelly, JaRule, Diz, Most Def, and JZ.
Old School Rap is very different from New School, even though they
have their similarities. They focused on topics that weren't as
harsh as New School. The Old School uses basic rhymes, poetry and
journalism, and tells stories about the artists growing up. They
talked about the qualities of women too. They used a lot of skill,
which resulted in rappers doing "battles." The New School
Rappers of today use profanity and talk about violence, material
wealth, guns, hard times and drugs. Many focus on disrespecting
women. In New School Rap there's a lot of controversy in society
because of these topics.
We
rap about fake people who talk behind our backs.
When they see us they just smile to our face.
We are in the middle between the violent and non-violent.
It's hard to read between the lines to get the difference sometimes.
Some people don't like Rap, but this music is so important so that
people can get their feelings off their chest. Rap is an outlet
for cats who have had a messed up life and never had a break. They
always had the short end of the stick and never had any real chances
of making money legally because of a permanent record. It comes
from Black culture. Our society doesn't deal with what it makes.
It doesn't heal what it creates.
Supposedly, a rapper's life is the street life, living in poverty,
in the ghetto, in the projects. Not all of the rappers are real
like Tupac was.
Jail
Thuggin
Puttin the smash down
Ryde till we die
Robbery is a way of life.
The thing is -- Gangsta Rap isn't always about the artist's life.
It sounds real good, but it doesn't represent what's really going
on. The artists are famous and writing about the hard life, but
they're not living it. They're using people like us who live on
the edge in society, and they make money off of it. Rappers who
are rich are exploiting people in society.
Getting back to the history~
The history of Rap is about the people, their backgrounds and how
they grew up. Do you want to know how they grew up? Then listen
to Rap. You can hear sounds from Trinidad, Africa and the Deep South
-- Jazz! TuPac, for example, grew up in Jersey, Baltimore and New
York City before he moved to Marin City on the West Coast. He brings
elements from there. Louie Coli-on was a rapper from Sacramento,
California. Young people like these 2 artists because they represent
our people well.
Rap is a culture bonding music form for African-American people
to keep unified. In history and now, African people tell stories
and they always make music together with a beat. This is part of
our culture, and we're adapting to the times. The stories are hard
to listen to because we keep it real. People like LL CoolJ rap about
stuff that African-American people live with everyday. This helps
the people feel like they can call something their own, it's validating.
Rap is a style of music that will give more
ideas to people in the future, It may even create a new form of
music. Yo ~ we all have creation in common!
Peace
