ENGL 1101 - Fall 2020 - Hip-Hop Reader - PEASE

   The music video I chose was ''Alright" by Grammy award winning rapper and song writer, Kendrick Lamar. The music video and song are centered around the issue of police brutality against African Americans in America. This song goes hand and hand with the issues that are brought up in Tricia Rose's "Rap Music" where she goes on to say, "Within a decade....have developed local hip hop scenes that link various regional postindustrial urban experiences of alienation, unemployment, police harassment, social and economic isolation to their local and specific experience via hip hop's language, style, and attitude ." (26) Kendrick Lamar has no problem making these issues apparent throughout the video through visuals and lyricism. 

   The video starts up with the a black teenager dead on the ground and then switches to a police officer standing behind his police cruiser. This makes it clear that the focus will be on the issue of police brutality. Following this, there is a clip of a black man attempting to flee from an officer that is trying to put him in handcuffs. While the man runs away, the officer brings out his pistol and fires a shot at the man. While the clip is rolling, Lamar says over the video, “While my loved ones was fighting a continuous war back in the city…I was entering a new one — a war that was based on apartheid and discrimination.” This quote adds to showing that this song and video are going to be about police brutality, and Lamar makes it clear that his people are fighting for their life everyday against the systematic racism that exists in America and within the police force. 

The image above shows the black teenager shot dead by the officer in the music video.

https://koncrete.com/kendrick-lamars-message-to-america/

This image shows the officer pointing the gun at the black man that ran away from him.

https://koncrete.com/kendrick-lamars-message-to-america/

   Right before the song starts, there is a video of Lamar and his friends in the car listening to music riding around town having a fun time. However, the longer the video plays out, it starts to pane back and reveals 4 cops at either side holding up the car. This is similar to the way people carry caskets, which signifies that the cops are taking these 4 black men to their grave. After the clip, the song starts with Lamar saying "All my life I had to fight... Hard times." Right off the bat he is saying his whole life he's had to fight against the oppressors in his community such as police officers and gangs. As the song moves along there is another verse that sticks out. Lamar goes on to say, "We been hurt, been down before, *****. When our pride was low. Lookin' at the world like, "Where do we go, *****?" And we hate po-po. Wanna kill us dead in the street for sure, *****." These lyrics hit hard, saying that they've been kicked around for so long and that they thought they had no where else to go. Then going further and saying the police want their community dead. On top of these lyrics, in the video there is a cop car chasing down another car through a neighborhood. These images and lyrics all tie back to what was stated in Tricia Rose's "Rap Music" where she talks about police brutality being a subject in hip-hop and how they use the genre as an outlet for the issues they face. The song is also sampled from the song "All My Life I Had To Fight" by The Color Purple. Sampling is a big part of hip-hop music and is even touched on in Tricia Rose's "Rap Music."

This image shows the cops carrying Lamar and his friends in the way people carry caskets to their grave.

https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/06/kendrick-lamar-alright-video

   Towards the end of the video, Lamar is seen standing on top of a light pole over top of the city singing and dancing, signifying he is on top of the city. He feels like he is on top of the world basically. The scene then switches to a police officer on the ground who aims a finger gun at him and shoots him and Lamar falls off from the light post. This scene shows that when black Americans are up and are happy, police will come and make sure to bring them back down. It also can be implied that with the use of the finger gun that police aren't only murdering by weapons to kill black people. The video ends after he hits the ground from falling. Ultimately, the music video is one big visual representation of how the police and the government in America mistreat black people. However, no matter how many hardships and injustices that the black community may face, Lamar says that it will be alright. 

The image above shows Kendrick Lamar being shot off of the pole by the officer and comes falling down.

https://www.promonews.tv/videos/2015/07/01/kendrick-lamar-alright-colin-tilley-little-homies/35227

   Kanye West has come up from being an only child in a low income family in Chicago with just his mother to being one of the greatest artists and producers of this current generation. With all the money being earned through this tremendous success, West has noticed that once you start to fill your pockets a little bit, your greed and desire start to show. West takes the direction that not many rappers do. Instead of flexing all of his possessions and high-priced clothing and materials, he instead shows the world why it is all just a scheme. Once you get the money, now you want the prizes.

   Jumping right into the song, in the opening lyrics West says, "Doin' clothes, you woulda thought I had help. But they wasn't satisfied unless I picked the cotton myself." This is an example of a slant rhyme. The ending words in both lines do not rhyme perfectly, but the way that West words them in the song makes them sound like a rhyme. These lines basically state that West does his work for his clothing line with Adidas himself but people believe that he has gotten help for creating his ideas for his brand deal and that they also disregard his success he's had with his deal with Adidas and his previous deal with Nike. Following those lyrics, West says, ""What you want, a Bentley? Fur Coat? A diamond chain? All you blacks want all the same things" Used to only be niggas, now everybody playin'. Spendin' everything on Alexander Wang." These lyrics use imagery, slant rhyme, and assonance. I can visual a man standing in front of Kanye West in a wide open room with a Bentley behind the man with a fur coat and a diamond chain laying on top of the hood of the car. Not only that, but the rhyme scheme is a constant use of the "a'' sound. While the words don't exactly match, the use of slant rhymes collide with the use of assonance so the words everything, everybody, playin', and Alexander Wang all the repeated use of the "a" sound. Looking past the figurative language however, the lyrics mean that companies will take advantage of a person's desires so he can prove to others that he has come up from nothing by buying expensive products, and companies take advantage of that so they can sell their products. West also is talking about how black people used to really be the only slaves, but now due to people being materialistic, anyone can be a slave. By slave, West means that people will do anything and everything for the products these companies produce.

   In the second verse, West proceeds to start it off with, "I throw these Maybach keys, I wear my heart on the sleeve." Obviously, there is no actual heart on West's sleeve. The lyrics are using a metaphor. West means that he would rather be in the factory working on his designs than sit in his Maybach, and he is ready to lay his heart down on the line for it because he genuinely cares more about his products than his physical possessions.  West shows the world that you shouldn't have to own Gucci or a car that's worth 6 figures to show that you've made it in life. He backs that up by saying he shows it through his influence in the hip-hop community and through his deals with Nike and Adidas. Further down the verse West says, "I know that we the new slaves, I know that we the new slaves. I'm 'bout to wild the f*** out, I'm goin' Bobby Boucher." West takes inspiration from the movie 'The Waterboy' where the main character Bobby Boucher, played by famous actor and comedian Adam Sandler, would channel his anger when he was playing football and use it against his opponents. West uses this as an allusion to reference Bobby Boucher and his character and compares Boucher to himself in the sense that he is going to stand up against the people who try to put him down and try to take advantage of him. 

   Throughout the song, the tone its very angry and rebellious. He is showing everybody that corporations are out to take advantage of all people and that they are slaves to these companies and their products. West has no filter stating that opinion as well by saying, "They throwing hate at me. Want me to stay at ease. F*** you and your corporation. Y'all niggas can't control me." This portion of the song has strong diction that shows his anger towards the people who try to take advantage of him. The word choice is very blunt and to the point and also shows how angry West is, further backing up his other statements he has made throughout the song.

Rap music has evolved through the years and it’s sound has changed as artists start to experiment and start new trends in music. These artists are big influences in the rap community and become inspirations to others. Two rappers that have made their ways to become influencers that are similar but have some broad differences are Kanye West and Travis Scott. Kanye West actually is the one who paved the way for Travis Scott to be successful, and Travis Scott even says that Kanye West is his biggest inspiration and is glad that he signed under West's label. Travis Scott makes music that is more psychedelic and trap styled that piggybacks off of Kanye West's albums Yeezus and 808's and Heartbreak, and Kanye West makes a very broad range of music. Travis Scott is more in one direction sticking to one identity, while Kanye explores many different paths and always is looking at something new, and that none of his albums are the same or take inspiration from each other. You can make a lot of comparisons between Travis Scott's albums like Rodeo, Birds in the Trap, and Astroworld. Songs on those albums have similar types of styles, but it's as if those styles he's started with are perfecting better and better each album he puts out. Kanye on the other hand, his albums range drastically, 808's and Heartbreak, Jesus is King, and Graduation are all extremely different. 808's uses a very depressing style of music and the album is supposed to be based off of the passing of his mother and the recent break-up he had. Jesus is King is a gospel/rap album that has no swearing at all. Graduation is more of your kid-like rap music that is more uplifting and basic. Their styles may be different, but their lyrics are more meaningful and have more substance behind it and not watered down like some rap is nowadays. 

Kanye West has been in the music industry since 1996 in his hometown, Chicago, and has come a long way to be where he is now. With 70 Grammy nominations, Kanye has made a very big impact on the hip hop community. Now, what makes him so influential? Him as a person plays a big part into why he is so popular and followed. He is very creative, and he does an extremely good job at expressing it. His dedication and confidence in his music is what makes people so drawn to him. He makes music that always charts, and people want to branch off from his albums with his own custom sound. One of the biggest contributions to the rap game was the release of his album, 808's and Heartbreak. With the release of this album, it brought the 808 drum to mainstream rap and allowed it to be more commonly used. It made a very big influence on the contemporary rap community, and allowed other artists, such as Travis Scott, to pave their way to success and find an area to identify with. West is very big on lyricism and enjoys using word play for clever verses, such as, “I’m gonna follow my heart and if you follow the charts or the plaques or the stacks, you ain’t gotta guess who’s back." While Kanye ages with hip hop, so does his style. He has gotten even other non-rap artists to be on his albums, such as Kenny G, Bon Iver, and John Legend.

Travis Scott came into the rap game about a decade after Kanye West did, and is from Houston, Texas. Travis Scott was more focused on lyricism and creative wordplay around this time of his career. With his first studio album, Rodeo, Travis played more into the trap style of rap. Very catchy beats with lyrics that will get you hyped up. He also did have good lyricism with this album as well, like off of song 90210, he said, "Mama called me up, that money was coming and she love me I done made it now, I done found life's meaning now. All these days her heart's break, her heart not in pieces now." After the release of Rodeo, Travis Scott made the flip into psychedelic rap. His second album, Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight, was where he found his identity and his own style that truly set him apart from other rappers. The songs were more about production with the sounds in the instrumentals than they were about lyrics. He had some good lyricism with this album as well, but nothing too crazy to stand out. It was more of the acid-trip styled instrumentals. He has made his way to become a big inspiration and big figure in the rap community with his creativity developing new sound styles. 

Music videos are a big part of the rap community as well. In these music videos, there are many different things rappers use for their videos. Perry stated in her essay, “Black men rapped surrounded by dozens of black and Latina women dressed in bathing suits, or scantily clad in some other fashion. Video after video proved the same, each one more objectifying than the former.” Travis Scott uses women in his music videos. In his music video for his song Butterfly Effect, he has women standing in bikinis in some parts of the video. He also had strippers and girls naked dancing on him in the video for his hit song, Don’t Play. This display of women teaches women and young girls that they should dress in a sexual way to be desirable, and this extends further with Perry saying, “The messages such videos send to young women are instructions on how to be sexy and how to look in order to capture attention of men with wealth and charisma” (Perry 136). This also sets unrealistic standards for women with how they look in music videos, which is something Perry also talked about. However, Kanye West does not use women in his music videos sexually. His music videos are more circled around imagery and creativity. His music video for his song Follow God, he was rapping with someone with him taking place in a beautiful field in Wyoming. He likes to focus his imagery in his music videos to be more meaningful and represent other things. There is usually a lack of people in general in his music videos, where the video is more centered around himself.

On top of the sexualization in music videos, hip hop culture has always had lyrics that are sexual as well. Hip hop albums and songs are almost always labeled as explicit. Kanye is someone who uses sexual lyrics in his songs as well. Kanye said in his song The Joy, “Gave her a handshake only for my man’s sake/ She in her birthday suit cause of the damn cake/ Now there’s crumbs all over the damn place/ And she want me to come all over her damn face.”, Just like in Perry's essay, men have always used sexual lyrics in their music. "Not only are women commodified, but sex as a whole" (Perry 135). Travis Scott also sets another example of using sexual lyrics in his song Pornography where he says, “You remind me of my ex, crazy love. We designed our love around the drugs. We both in this club, we both tryna fuck. I'ma rub a dub, tryna get a nut.” Both Kanye and Travis use sexual lyrics in their music to help add to the songs they produce, and do fit the issue that Perry outlines with the portrayal of women in rap music.

Throughout time, rap has been through many changes. Whether those changes have been about sounds, rhythms, and even different techniques. Artists like Kanye West and Travis Scott always set the bar for what is popular in the community, and have made their marks as some of the greatest artists in hip hop. Kanye represents the past in hip hop, and was the pioneer of his generation, and he has now passed that onto Travis Scott for him to be the current generation's inspiration. These artists have inspired many figures in the community, and those people are changing the way rap will sound in the future. The future has unlimited possibilities for hip hop now with the way these artists have guided the trends for rap for the younger generation to gain inspiration.