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

Makyla Walton

Visual Analysis 

ENGL 1101

        Erykah Badu's "Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip Hop)" reflects the ideal tale of hip hop. The visual of the song shows the evolution of hip hop and shows every aspect described throughout Tricia Rose's essay "Rap Music". While the lyrics of the song itself can represent a message of how music has taken a toll on her life. In the video, Badu represents herself as hip hop. Using different scenes to covey all the things hip hop stands as in the black community and all the different types of ways that people took pleasure in hip hop while doing so. 

        In the first scene, Badu introduces herself as hip hop and carries a boombox to a rooftop where she then challenges the dancers that were there to a dance battle. In Rose’s essay, she mentions on page 18, “Herc’s (Kool Herc) break-beats…. Inspired break-dancers’ freestyle moves and sparked a new generation of hip-hop DJ’s.” After the battle, the break-dancers are amazed at how well Badu danced and begin to enjoy her presence. This scene indicates how hip hop was introduced to break dancers and how hip hops and break-dancing go hand and hand.

    Badu then transforms her appearance as she moves along to the next scene. She walks into a room filled with men that are portrayed as the black panther, reviewing and discussing things over this table full of blueprints. Badu then raises her fist and then men do the same in return. Referring back to Rose’s “Rap Music” it reads, “like the consciousness-raising sessions in the early stages of the women’s rights movement and black power movement…., hip hop produced internal and external dialogues that affirmed the experiences and identities of the participants and at the same time offered critiques of the larger society that were both directed to both the hip hop community and society in general.” This scene shows how hip hop supports these communities and organizations. Hip hop is a way people speak about the issues the minorities face. It’s their voice. 

         Her lyrics throughout the song can represent symbolism. The song is based on Badu and a long-time love that she has experienced but others could interpret it as how hip hop and rap itself have connected with her and how she has loved it ever since. At the beginning of the song her lyrics read, “I met him when I was a little girl, he gave me poetry.” This could be where she first was introduced to rap.  Rap and poetry are alike in away. Both using rhyming and both emphasize a deeper message within their words. Also when she says, “ whenever I got lonely or needed some advice, he gave me his shoulder his words were very nice.” This could represent the times where she was feeling down and she turned to music to help lift her up. The song could have an entire alternate meaning to it.

       One of the lasts scenes in the video show Badu being rushed onto a stage and is to perform on the turntables in front of this large crowd. This scene really speaks volume since hip hop was dominated by men. “Women, in general, are not encouraged in and often actively discouraged from learning about and using mechanical equipment,” as reading on page 23 of “Rap Music”. In this visual, we see hip hop represented as a female that breaks that stereotype. As she proceeds, the crowd starts to enjoy and dance to her music. She then crowd surfs her way across the crowd and meets her feature artist on this song Common. Badu takes him outside where they are then met with a bus driven by Kool Herc himself. The bus’s destination says to the future. The message presented here is that hip-hop was driven into the future by Kool Herc, the one who started the whole sound of hip-hop.

       The overall message that this visual emphasis is on how much hip hop influenced and adapted to many different things over the course of it coming together. The break dancers and hip-hop are now a pair they are something that belongs together. The black artist still uses hip-hop to speak out on the conditions that people still yet live in and the challenges people are still facing. By Badu being the person that is representing hip-hop it coveys on how more women have and are still coming and taking over the rap game continuously changing the stereotype that hip-hop and rap is a male-dominated genre. Hip-hop has been through many stages and continues to keep changing.

Known to be a lyrical genius, Kendrick Lamar continues to amaze us with his music and the meanings behind them. His lyrics speak volume, whether he is talking about today’s injustices or relating back to his past experiences in life. Usually, most must listen more than once to understand the deeper meaning behind his words. Lamar’s use of figurative language throughout his rap outweighs other rappers by a ton. “Sing About Me, I’m Dying of Thirst” is a perfect example of how he uses figurative language to express himself and his message. The song itself is divided into two parts, the first part is “Sing About Me” while the second part is “I’m Dying of Thirst,” both parts emphasis the same massage but tell different stories in them.  

In “Sing About Me”, Lamar portrays two different characters and tells their stories through their point of view. His first character happens to be a childhood friend while the other Lamar made up, but she represents most women that could be in the same position. The song starts with the chorus, “When the lights shut off, and it's my turn to settle down, my main concern, promise that you will sing about me.” This verse is a metaphor for when he dies, referencing how when the lights shut off, he hopes someone tells his story like he is telling the stories of the characters in the song. The first character’s story is him talking to Kendrick to try and ease his mind from the thoughts about how he killed the person who killed his brother the night before. For Kendrick, being from Compton, experiences like these are often common to him. He states, “When I ride it's a murderous rhythm, And outside became pitch black, A demon glued to my back whispering, "Get 'em", I got 'em, and I ain't give a fuck, That same mentality that told my brother not to duck, In actuality, it's a trip how we trip off of colors, I wonder if I'll ever discover, A passion like you and recover”. This verse tells how exactly everything went down and how he was reflecting on the whole situation.The imagery of this verse makes you picture him in the exact moment at the scene. Saying that a demon was influencing him to shoot to kill is a hyperbole of the rage he was feeling at the time over the death of his brother. The end of this line tells how he has hopes of being able to move on from this lifestyle he was placed in and be able to become more as Kendrick has. His verse ends with him saying, “Just promise me you'll tell this story when you make it big, And if I die before your album drop I hope..” Lamar used the sound of gunshots being fired cutting him off to reference that he ended up dying before Lamar could drop his album.

In the second verse, Lamar introduces the second character who he portrays as a young female prostitute. In her story, she is talking to Kendrick letting him know that she doesn’t like the fact how he mentions her sister, who was also a prostitute, in of his previous songs and letting him know how she is satisfied with the way her life is and how this is all she knows it’s what she has become accustomed to. She states  “Three niggas in one room, the first time I was tossed, And I'm exhausted, But fuck that "Sorry for your loss" shit, My sister died in vain,  but what point are you trying to gain, If you can't fit the pumps I walk in? I'll wait, Your rebuttal a little too late”. Basically, letting Kendrick know how can speak on what their situation is when he has no idea what they had gone through. The tone of her verse is angry, and she expresses it as so towards the end of it. “You lying to these motherfuckers, talking about you can help with my story, You can help me if you sell this pussy for me, nigga, Don't ignore me, nigga, fuck your glory, nigga, you ain't shit.” Lamar ends her verse with her voice fading out towards the end emphasizing that there is no hope for her or helping her trying to change her life before it’s too late. 

In the third and last verse to “Sing About Me,” Kendrick portrays himself now, explaining why he told their stories and how it has affected him personally and how death is something he isn’t afraid of anymore. “I suffer a lot , And every day that glass mirror get tougher to watch, I tie my stomach in knots,”. This explains the pain he feels going through the daily struggles he had to face. The meaning behind the stomach in knots references the nervousness and unpleasant feeling of not knowing whether Lamar would be able to live to see the rest of his life or have someone take it away from him.  “And your sister's situation was the one that put me, In a direction to speak on something that's realer than the TV screen, By any means, wasn't trying to offend or come between, Her personal life, I was like "It need to be told", Cursing the life of twenty generations after her soul”, referencing back to how he brought up the sister’s story he just wanted to use it defend his message and prove to people the actual real life that’s going on instead of the reality that people think when they think of California.

The figurative language use in this song brings out the deeper message which makes the lyrics and song itself so powerful. Figurative Language plays a key role in rap music and is what makes it so interesting to listen to and try to decipher the lyrics to get a better understanding. Kendrick’s songs are always a perfect example of the use of metaphors, allusions, and the rest of the figurative language.

     In the song “Sing About Me,” Kendrick Lamar portrays himself as two different people, explaining why he told their stories and uses symbols to emphasizes how death is something he isn’t afraid of anymore. His first character happens to be a childhood friend while the other Lamar made up, but she represents most women that could be in the same position she was in. The song starts with the chorus, “When the lights shut off, and it's my turn to settle down, my main concern, promise that you will sing about me.” Light in this sense symbolizing life and the darkness that comes after it when you turn them off is death. Death is something that we have no control over and is unexpected. People being murdered over reasons that could’ve been avoided if only they were handled differently. “When I ride it's a murderous rhythm, And outside became pitch black”.  Murderous rhythm could symbolize the sounds of the city of Compton being that death is common there and once again he presents us with the pitch-black concept of darkness. For him to compare death to something as simple as darkness shows how unfazed he is about dying it’s something we experience every night when falling asleep so we mentally prepare ourselves all the time without even thinking about it.  

   For Kendrick, being from Compton, experiences like these are often common to him and for him to tell the stories through the characters' point of view helps create a better understanding of why death is normal to him. “I suffer a lot , And every day that glass mirror get tougher to watch, I tie my stomach in knots,”. The pain he feels going through the daily struggles he had to face. The stomach in knots is the nervousness and unpleasant feeling of not knowing whether he would be able to live to see the rest of his life or have someone take it away from him.  He states,  “A demon glued to my back whispering, "Get 'em", I got 'em, and I ain't give a fuck”, .The imagery of this verse makes you picture him in the exact moment at the scene. saying that a demon was influencing him to shoot to kill is a hyperbole of the rage he was feeling at the time letting it take over him letting us know that he wasn’t himself at that moment. Usually, when people get angry and upset, they tend to blackout and lose themselves. 

Death is something that no one can escape. It's better to face the facts of reality inside of ignoring them. For Kendrick death is something that he thinks about and was raised around growing up so for him to be able to normalize the fact that death is just darkness that will never lighten up is mindblowing. The figurative language use in this song brings out the deeper message which makes the lyrics and song itself so powerful. Figurative Language plays a key role in rap music and is what makes it so interesting to listen to and try to decipher the lyrics to get a better understanding. Kendrick’s songs are always a perfect example of the use of metaphors, allusions, and the rest of the figurative language.

In today’s era, rappers are becoming a big influence on their audience. When people hear lyrics said in rap, they either tend to relate to it or want to relate to it. Over the years some rappers have lost the meaning behind their actual rap. Today’s mainstream artists are not what they used to be. Their music, lyrics, lifestyle influence their audience deeper than the artist think.   The most talked about things in many rap songs are drugs and the new wealthy lifestyle they live. Modern-day rapper, Future, flexes his accomplishments and emphasis his drug use and the women he sleeps with to his audience. Some other rappers, like J. Cole, choose to use their platform to bring awareness about other things than their fame and their wealthy lifestyle, for example, injustices, poverty, or their traumatic upbringing experiences. 

Platforms run deeper than the lyrics, music, actions, and money though. How each celebrity decides to present themselves can reveal a lot about that rapper. Future is known for not having much respect for women and both artists sort of share that quality in their lyrics, but in many of Future’s songs his lyrics demonstrate it. He has been in several different relationships with multiple women. In the song “Stick Talk” his lyrics read “ I ain’t got no manners for no sluts” letting his audience see how he truly feels about females and what he refers to them as. In J. Cole’s “No Role Modelz” it reads “Nigga I don't want no bitch from reality shows, Out-of-touch-with-reality hoes” his message behind this is that he is tired of seeing women trying to uphold the Hollywood reality as far as having their bodies worked on or the fact that they feel like they need to follow the trends of Hollywood. Both rappers do disrespect women throughout their lyrics but both give off different messages. J. Cole talks about not wanting to be with the basic Hollywood female while that’s what Future desires. Even though their rap or style may seem completely different they share some of the same qualities with some of their word choices.

Some can say that Future isn’t considered a mumble rapper and that in some songs his lyrics and his style can be somewhat meaningful in a way similar to J. Cole. For example, a line out of Future’s song “Use Me” reads, “ My life is more effective than a cocaine drop, 'Cause I was trappin' at grandma's house when I came out.” Future decides to rap about his upbringing a different way than J.Cole. Both artists were brought up in harsh environments. J.cole talks about the times where he was homeless and was struggling while Future talks about having to hustle to become successful which implies back to the fact how audience use their music to influence them. Having and hearing all the things that they have endured in the stories they ell in there rap, people feel like they can relate and put themselves in their shoes and relate to it.

Both rappers are sending different messages to their audience and can impact the way their audience receives from it. Platform plays a major part in society today, and the way celebrities use choose to use them also affects their audience. Both Future and J. Cole are very well-known artists. On the other hand, they both emphasize different messages in their rap lyrics, music, and music videos. J. Cole’s song “G.O.M.D” the visual he chose to represent the song some would say was very empowering in a sense. The video shows J. Cole and others portrayed as slaves overrunning their slave master. His message can be interpreted as black empowerment-based off on the visual itself. It has a deeper meaning behind it. In Future’s “Rich $ex” visual he shows him with female celebrity, Blac Chyna, as they flaunt around a mansion as if the two are in a relationship. The message his audience would get from this is to find a pretty woman and basically be rich, not a lot of meaning behind it. Future chooses not to influence his audience with irrelevant meaning while J. Cole chooses to open his audience's eyes and make them think about the bigger picture.