Gangsta Rap Chapter seven

by: Mallory Pelton

what is rap?• Rap is a package of texts, grounded in a distinct musical style

that goes along with fashion, elements of personal style and location.

• Rap has different genres associated with it but here we will talk mostly about Gangsta rap.

rap and pop culture

• Rap is a major force in popular culture and is loaded with social and political meaning.

visual rhetoric

• Gangsta visuals: music videos, movies, fashion, and everyday experiences in public places.

• visuals express social codes that are well known but cannot be spoken.

• “Gangsta is the ‘permissible’ expression verbally and visually, of the kind of appalling racist attitudes that we have all heard but know that we cannot and should not express”

Gangsta rap and African Americans:

• It is obvious in verbal and visual signs that gangsta rap is about African American culture.

• Even when people such as Eminem come into the context he is still surrounded with African Americans in all his pictures painting a picture for popular culture.

Gangsta rap creating a racist ideology?

• gangsta both expresses and naturalizes a racist ideology

• It does this because it constantly shows representation of African Americans using guns, demeaning women and selling drugs on the street corner. This makes people associate African Americans in a negative way when in reality there are many African Americans that do none of this.

• Claims of violence, materialism, and brutality are the main realities of African American culture and is a falsehood perpetuated by the genre.

Examples of common images in gangsta rap

false claim #1 (African American culture is violent)

• texts of gangsta are full of violent words and images.

• This creates people to associate African Americans as violent. This creates a stigma against black people in their everyday life. Some people switch sides of the street when they see African Americans walking towards them. The sad thing is that people who don’t know anything about African American culture except what they see through gangsta rap will automatically associate violence with African Americans.

how is violence portrayed through gangsta rap?

• violence is conveyed visually in music video images of physical confrontations, threatening gestures and swaggering postures.

effects on viewers• Once it is all linked on television African Americans and other

cultures begin to then adapt postures, gestures and physical aggression in public to be cool. People are told from a young age through music that violence is cool.

false claim #2: African American culture is obsessively sexual

• In gangsta rap, men regard women as sexual objects and define them only in terms of their ability to service the sexual desires of men.

• most songs feature the words “bitch” and “ho” as standard form of reference for women.

• They also talk about terrible things that will be done to women.

effects on viewers

• This effects an image of over-sexualization in the African American culture.

• The man is always the center piece and the women become the objects which creates an image of men not respecting women.

false claim #3 African American culture is crassly materialistic

• In almost any video or image that revolves around gangsta rap you will notice that there is a plethora of representations of expensive gold and platinum chains and jewelry.

• this shows that people are eager to spend money for show rather than substance.

• Most videos in gangsta rap show big houses, nice cars and lavish parties.

effects on viewers• It reinforces an ideology of crass materialism in the African

American culture

conclusion

• racism in the U.S. is that whites have often stood in a position of critique toward people of other races and their cultures.

• gangsta confirms racist attitudes in whites.

• rap generally could be an effective weapon against racism if it choose to be.

• visual rhetoric tells us that texts position audiences in particular points of view.

references• http://blogs.bet.com/celebrities/picture-this/2011/09/06/problem-with-authority-defiant-rap-

songs-that-fight-the-powers-that-be/

• http://www.boulderweekly.com/article-3783-book-of-rhymes.html

• http://www.examiner.com/article/rant-second-hand-gangsta-rap

• http://theurbandaily.com/2012/04/20/blow-your-high-10-hip-hop-marijuana-busts/

• http://www.gopixpic.com/480/rap-and-violence-myth-or-reality/http:%7C%7Cdangerouslee*files*wordpress*com%7C2012%7C07%7Crap_music*gif/

• http://raceandmediagroup.blogspot.com