Categories of Violence
Here are the four key assumptions that underpin the tradition of concern about the effects of media violence:
1. ‘Violence’ is a unit of meaning that can be abstracted from occasions and modes of occurrence, and measured – with the correspondent assumption that the more violence there is, the greater its potential for influence.
2. There is a mechanism, usually called ‘identification’, which makes viewers of ‘violence’ vulnerable to it – such that it thereby becomes a ‘message’ by which they are invaded and persuaded.
3. The task of media researchers is to identify those who are especially ‘vulnerable’ to the influence of these ‘messages’.
4. All these can be done on the presumption that such messages are ‘harmful’, because ‘violence’ is intrinsically anti-social.
Monday 29 November 2010
media magazine
http://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/mm/subscribers/downloads/archive_mm/_mmagpast/MusicTel2.html
Studying music video – some suggestions
Pessimists often complain that music video television has made pop superficially image-based. But my description of MTV and music video in MediaMag 6 failed to address what is still its most central and significant element, beyond the control of MTV, Viacom and Motorola: the appeal and power of pop sounds!
I’d like to suggest that the sounds are the basis of a process of visualisation that serve to enhance, not restrict, the original pop sound effect. Pop music theorist Andrew Goodwin claims that a good music video is:
a clip that responds to the pleasures of music, and in which that music is made visual, either in new ways or in ways that accentuate existing visual associations.
Dancing in the Distraction Factory
If we accept the theory that pop songs on their own are not enough to create sufficient meaning and pleasure in the audience, the ‘added value’ of star image created by CD covers, live performance and music videos can be enough to inspire the consumer to buy into the whole intensely romantic myth of it all – and therefore actually buy the pop music.
Certainly, the whole music business is sustained by the few star guarantees of profit in an unstable market. This maybe explains the somewhat fetishistic behaviour of fans who will buy the CD even if they can easily get the tracks for free on some P2P provider – we want all the packaging, the sacrosanct details in the booklet, the assurance it really belongs to us, not just the ‘stacking up’ of sounds that is the song itself. However, I am keen to keep these sounds as the primary pleasure and driving force of the music industry. This focus, therefore, is reflected in the order of my ‘Top Five Things to Look for’ when deciding if a music video is any good.
Five things to look for …
I’ve turned the ideas in Goodwin’s book, Dancing in the Distraction Factory, into checklist form for you to test out on the current crop of music videos.
At number 1 ... ‘Thought Beats’ or seeing the sounds in your head
The basis for visualising images comes from a psychological process called synaesthesia, where you picture sounds in your mind’s eye. This idea is absolutely central to understanding music video as they build on the soundtrack’s visual associations in order to connect with the audience and provide that additional pleasure.
To use this approach you need to start with the music, sorting out the way the song works, taking into account the way it has been stacked up with sound. To begin, lyrics don’t need to be analysed word for word like a poem but rather considered for the way they introduce a general feeling or mood. Very rarely do song lyrics have a coherent meaning that can be simply read off; but they are important in at least creating a sense of subject matter. So key phrases or lines (and especially those repeated in the chorus) will have a part to play in the kind of visuals associated with the song.
Here, Roland Barthes’ theory of the ‘grain of voice’ is relevant – this sees the singing voice more as an expressive instrument, personal, unique even, to the singer, like a fingerprint, and therefore able to create associations in itself. The voice of a song may even possess trademarks that work hand-in-hand with the star image – so Michael Jackson’s yelp is a trademark sound that immediately sets him apart from other singers.
Finally, if songs are stories, then the singer is the storyteller and this obviously makes music videos stand out on TV, as they feature a first person mode of address rather than the invisible ‘fourth wall’ of television narration. Goodwin interestingly compares pop singers to stand-up comics in the way the personal trademark or signature dominates the performance. The music – or arrangement of the song, including instrumentation, the mix and effects, including samples – generally works with the lyrics and grain of voice. Generally we can look at key sounds, like the tempo (or speed of the song) and structure of the song in terms of verse and chorus. To give an example of how instruments can create visual associations, the slow twang of the steel guitar could create geographically-based visual associations from the Deep South of the US – a desert plain, a small town, one road out, men chewing tobacco … We all share a memory bank of popular culture imagery (intertextuality), a sense of shared cultural history without which these references would make no sense. Places, people, feelings, situations leading to mini-narratives – all these can be summoned from the sounds of popular music.
These visualisations can arise from more personal, individual responses, sometimes even tied to a place or part of your own autobiography, the specific details of your life story and emotions. A combination of these shared and personal images tied to the words and instrumentation form the basis of music video creativity.
At number 2 … Narrative and performance
Songs rarely tell complete narratives; we are used to studying them with other visual texts like film. The narrative fuzz in songs affects the way stories are used in music video representations of a song’s meaning (see number 4 on page 22 for more on this). So, often we get the suggestion of a story, a hint at some kind of drama unfolding.
There is another important reason why music videos should avoid a classic realist narrative, and that is their role in advertising. Music videos need to have repeatability built in to them. We need to be able to watch them repeatedly in a more casual way, with a looser approach to their storytelling. I’d suggest that more important than narrative is the way that performance is used in video clips, a point I’ll look at again in number 3. Often, music videos will cut between a narrative and a performance of the song by the band. Additionally, a carefully choreographed dance might be a part of the artist’s performance or an extra aspect of the video designed to aid visualisation and the ‘repeatability’ factor. Sometimes, the artist (especially the singer) will be a part of the story, acting as narrator and participant at the same time. But it is the lip-sync close-up and the mimed playing of instruments that remains at the heart of music videos, as if to assure us that the band really can kick it. Remember that pop music is a romantic art, all about truth, talent, and magic, so we need to believe in the authenticity of the performance first and foremost (which is why, in their effort to win our respect and affections, we get so much eye-rolling, gesturing and sweat from the wannabes of Pop Idol and Fame Academy). The supposed individual and original qualities of these performers leads me to my next point, the source of all profit in the business … the star!
At number 3 … The star image
The music business relies on the relatively few big name stars to fund its activities; it usually fails to connect with popular audiences – only about one in ten acts put out by the industry actually makes any money. Therefore, what we can describe as the meta-narrative of the star image will have an important part to play in the music video production process. Meta-narrative is a term that describes the development of the star image over time, the stories that surround a particular artist.
Michael Jackson – a mini case study
Michael Jackson’s meta-narrative has been a long, sometimes difficult journey and one he has lost control of in recent years. There have been a few crucial moments in Jackson’s meta-narrative of pop stardom. The first was the successful move from being one of a group – even if acknowledged as its central talent – as child member of The Jackson 5, to becoming a solo artist. He was then able to negotiate one of the most successful solo careers ever through developing both his trademark sound and image. The ground-breaking music videos for Thriller and Beat It were an important part of this mega-stardom. At some point in the 90s, though, this meta-narrative took a wrong turn and his unique ‘star image’ became ‘freakish’ and self-indulgent; we are reminded that this child star has never grown up. Thus, the Jackson talent, his natural birthright it seems, becomes the reason for his adult weirdness. His younger self – black, funky, energetic – is constantly held up to condemn his current abnormality – withdrawn, of no ethnicity, over-produced to the point of ceasing to exist. And yet, all this means he is still talked about, the object of mass media fascination and so, in a very real sense, still a star. Whether the most recent allegations of child abuse will finally render that stardom invalid remains to be seen.
Meta-narratives of star image are not simply a matter of manipulation, but a dialogue or negotiation of what the music business asserts about their star, and what we accept! Still, in each new video, Michael Jackson tries to regain control over his meta-narrative but he can’t just switch off all the different associations he’s accumulated during his career, whether good or bad. So music videos can best be seen as one of the most important ways that the image of the artist is ‘managed’.
At number 4 … Three ways in which music videos relate visuals to the song
We can identify three ways in which music videos work to support or promote the song. These are illustration, amplification and disjuncture and I find them extremely useful in attempting to generalise the effects of individual music videos.
• Music videos can illustrate the meaning of lyrics and genre, providing a sometimes over literal set of images. Here, then, is the most straightforward technique and the classic example of visualisation, with everything in the music video based on the source of the pop song.
• However, as with all advertising, the most persistent type of video adds to the value of the song. Amplification is seen as the mark of the true music video Auteur, the director as artist, and an increasingly common way to view music video creatives (VH-1’s Best 100 Videos clearly placed Spike Jonze in the Auteur category with his work always amplifying the original song’s meaning and effect, usually through surreal humour). Crucially, though, and what separates it from disjuncture, is the fact that amplification music videos retain a link with the song and work to enhance or develop ideas, rather than fundamentally changing them.
• Disjuncture is a term used to describe those music videos that (normally intentionally) seem to work by ignoring the original song and creating a whole new set of meanings. This is quite a radical technique and used by arty bands in order to assert their difference and originality. Usually, disjuncture videos of this type don’t make a lot of sense and may be based on abstract imagery. For example in Spike Jonze’s video for Daft Punk’s ‘Da Funk’ we see a man with a dog’s head and his arm in a cast walking round New York, ignored by all, with dialogue completely unrelated to the song itself. Sometimes though, disjuncture videos are just bad, ill-conceived and self-indulgent mistakes.
And finally at number 5 ... Technical aspects of music video
The last really essential aspect of music video to study is technical. This includes camerawork, movement and angle, mise-en-scène, editing, and sound. It is important to remember the more general features of music videos already mentioned when trying to work out the technical effects, especially those which are post-production, effects. Broadly, the technical conventions can be summed up as follows:
1. Speed! Speed is visualised by camera movement, fast editing (montage) and digital effects.
– Camera movement is often motivated by running, dancing and walking performers.
– Fast-cutting and montage editing creates a visually decentred experience necessary for music video consumption, with the images occasionally moving so fast that they are impossible to understand on first viewing and thus need to be viewed several times (repeatability).
– Post-production digital effects – a staple of music video where images can be colorized, multiple split screens appear, and so on, all to complicate and intrigue, providing pleasure again and again.
Not all camera movement is about speed though and some use slow pace through dissolves or static shots. This kind of editing – like Sinead O’Conner’s ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ – is striking and effective in setting the song apart from the hustle and bustle of most pop activity.
2. Meat! The meat of most music videos is the cut to the close-up of the singer’s face. This is because the voice is seen as the most important part of pop music.
3. Beats! Often, the video will try and represent the music through the use of the cut to go with the beat or key rhythm.
4. Lighting and colour may also be used to emphasise key moments in the song, using methods from lighting live performances for dramatic effect. Colour may be used to show a development in the song, going from colour to black and white or vice versa when the chorus comes in. Equally, any change in the mise-en-scène or camerawork can signal the same type of thing.
5. Mise-en-scène – obviously the setting for music videos is important, often to guarantee the authenticity of the clip rather than anything else. So mise-en-scène for many music videos is the concert hall or rehearsal room to emphasise the realness of the performance or the grit and practice that goes into attaining star quality. Increasingly, CGI is used, especially for dance songs, which don’t rely so much on being ‘real’ like rock, soul and rap acts.
Studying music video – some suggestions
Pessimists often complain that music video television has made pop superficially image-based. But my description of MTV and music video in MediaMag 6 failed to address what is still its most central and significant element, beyond the control of MTV, Viacom and Motorola: the appeal and power of pop sounds!
I’d like to suggest that the sounds are the basis of a process of visualisation that serve to enhance, not restrict, the original pop sound effect. Pop music theorist Andrew Goodwin claims that a good music video is:
a clip that responds to the pleasures of music, and in which that music is made visual, either in new ways or in ways that accentuate existing visual associations.
Dancing in the Distraction Factory
If we accept the theory that pop songs on their own are not enough to create sufficient meaning and pleasure in the audience, the ‘added value’ of star image created by CD covers, live performance and music videos can be enough to inspire the consumer to buy into the whole intensely romantic myth of it all – and therefore actually buy the pop music.
Certainly, the whole music business is sustained by the few star guarantees of profit in an unstable market. This maybe explains the somewhat fetishistic behaviour of fans who will buy the CD even if they can easily get the tracks for free on some P2P provider – we want all the packaging, the sacrosanct details in the booklet, the assurance it really belongs to us, not just the ‘stacking up’ of sounds that is the song itself. However, I am keen to keep these sounds as the primary pleasure and driving force of the music industry. This focus, therefore, is reflected in the order of my ‘Top Five Things to Look for’ when deciding if a music video is any good.
Five things to look for …
I’ve turned the ideas in Goodwin’s book, Dancing in the Distraction Factory, into checklist form for you to test out on the current crop of music videos.
At number 1 ... ‘Thought Beats’ or seeing the sounds in your head
The basis for visualising images comes from a psychological process called synaesthesia, where you picture sounds in your mind’s eye. This idea is absolutely central to understanding music video as they build on the soundtrack’s visual associations in order to connect with the audience and provide that additional pleasure.
To use this approach you need to start with the music, sorting out the way the song works, taking into account the way it has been stacked up with sound. To begin, lyrics don’t need to be analysed word for word like a poem but rather considered for the way they introduce a general feeling or mood. Very rarely do song lyrics have a coherent meaning that can be simply read off; but they are important in at least creating a sense of subject matter. So key phrases or lines (and especially those repeated in the chorus) will have a part to play in the kind of visuals associated with the song.
Here, Roland Barthes’ theory of the ‘grain of voice’ is relevant – this sees the singing voice more as an expressive instrument, personal, unique even, to the singer, like a fingerprint, and therefore able to create associations in itself. The voice of a song may even possess trademarks that work hand-in-hand with the star image – so Michael Jackson’s yelp is a trademark sound that immediately sets him apart from other singers.
Finally, if songs are stories, then the singer is the storyteller and this obviously makes music videos stand out on TV, as they feature a first person mode of address rather than the invisible ‘fourth wall’ of television narration. Goodwin interestingly compares pop singers to stand-up comics in the way the personal trademark or signature dominates the performance. The music – or arrangement of the song, including instrumentation, the mix and effects, including samples – generally works with the lyrics and grain of voice. Generally we can look at key sounds, like the tempo (or speed of the song) and structure of the song in terms of verse and chorus. To give an example of how instruments can create visual associations, the slow twang of the steel guitar could create geographically-based visual associations from the Deep South of the US – a desert plain, a small town, one road out, men chewing tobacco … We all share a memory bank of popular culture imagery (intertextuality), a sense of shared cultural history without which these references would make no sense. Places, people, feelings, situations leading to mini-narratives – all these can be summoned from the sounds of popular music.
These visualisations can arise from more personal, individual responses, sometimes even tied to a place or part of your own autobiography, the specific details of your life story and emotions. A combination of these shared and personal images tied to the words and instrumentation form the basis of music video creativity.
At number 2 … Narrative and performance
Songs rarely tell complete narratives; we are used to studying them with other visual texts like film. The narrative fuzz in songs affects the way stories are used in music video representations of a song’s meaning (see number 4 on page 22 for more on this). So, often we get the suggestion of a story, a hint at some kind of drama unfolding.
There is another important reason why music videos should avoid a classic realist narrative, and that is their role in advertising. Music videos need to have repeatability built in to them. We need to be able to watch them repeatedly in a more casual way, with a looser approach to their storytelling. I’d suggest that more important than narrative is the way that performance is used in video clips, a point I’ll look at again in number 3. Often, music videos will cut between a narrative and a performance of the song by the band. Additionally, a carefully choreographed dance might be a part of the artist’s performance or an extra aspect of the video designed to aid visualisation and the ‘repeatability’ factor. Sometimes, the artist (especially the singer) will be a part of the story, acting as narrator and participant at the same time. But it is the lip-sync close-up and the mimed playing of instruments that remains at the heart of music videos, as if to assure us that the band really can kick it. Remember that pop music is a romantic art, all about truth, talent, and magic, so we need to believe in the authenticity of the performance first and foremost (which is why, in their effort to win our respect and affections, we get so much eye-rolling, gesturing and sweat from the wannabes of Pop Idol and Fame Academy). The supposed individual and original qualities of these performers leads me to my next point, the source of all profit in the business … the star!
At number 3 … The star image
The music business relies on the relatively few big name stars to fund its activities; it usually fails to connect with popular audiences – only about one in ten acts put out by the industry actually makes any money. Therefore, what we can describe as the meta-narrative of the star image will have an important part to play in the music video production process. Meta-narrative is a term that describes the development of the star image over time, the stories that surround a particular artist.
Michael Jackson – a mini case study
Michael Jackson’s meta-narrative has been a long, sometimes difficult journey and one he has lost control of in recent years. There have been a few crucial moments in Jackson’s meta-narrative of pop stardom. The first was the successful move from being one of a group – even if acknowledged as its central talent – as child member of The Jackson 5, to becoming a solo artist. He was then able to negotiate one of the most successful solo careers ever through developing both his trademark sound and image. The ground-breaking music videos for Thriller and Beat It were an important part of this mega-stardom. At some point in the 90s, though, this meta-narrative took a wrong turn and his unique ‘star image’ became ‘freakish’ and self-indulgent; we are reminded that this child star has never grown up. Thus, the Jackson talent, his natural birthright it seems, becomes the reason for his adult weirdness. His younger self – black, funky, energetic – is constantly held up to condemn his current abnormality – withdrawn, of no ethnicity, over-produced to the point of ceasing to exist. And yet, all this means he is still talked about, the object of mass media fascination and so, in a very real sense, still a star. Whether the most recent allegations of child abuse will finally render that stardom invalid remains to be seen.
Meta-narratives of star image are not simply a matter of manipulation, but a dialogue or negotiation of what the music business asserts about their star, and what we accept! Still, in each new video, Michael Jackson tries to regain control over his meta-narrative but he can’t just switch off all the different associations he’s accumulated during his career, whether good or bad. So music videos can best be seen as one of the most important ways that the image of the artist is ‘managed’.
At number 4 … Three ways in which music videos relate visuals to the song
We can identify three ways in which music videos work to support or promote the song. These are illustration, amplification and disjuncture and I find them extremely useful in attempting to generalise the effects of individual music videos.
• Music videos can illustrate the meaning of lyrics and genre, providing a sometimes over literal set of images. Here, then, is the most straightforward technique and the classic example of visualisation, with everything in the music video based on the source of the pop song.
• However, as with all advertising, the most persistent type of video adds to the value of the song. Amplification is seen as the mark of the true music video Auteur, the director as artist, and an increasingly common way to view music video creatives (VH-1’s Best 100 Videos clearly placed Spike Jonze in the Auteur category with his work always amplifying the original song’s meaning and effect, usually through surreal humour). Crucially, though, and what separates it from disjuncture, is the fact that amplification music videos retain a link with the song and work to enhance or develop ideas, rather than fundamentally changing them.
• Disjuncture is a term used to describe those music videos that (normally intentionally) seem to work by ignoring the original song and creating a whole new set of meanings. This is quite a radical technique and used by arty bands in order to assert their difference and originality. Usually, disjuncture videos of this type don’t make a lot of sense and may be based on abstract imagery. For example in Spike Jonze’s video for Daft Punk’s ‘Da Funk’ we see a man with a dog’s head and his arm in a cast walking round New York, ignored by all, with dialogue completely unrelated to the song itself. Sometimes though, disjuncture videos are just bad, ill-conceived and self-indulgent mistakes.
And finally at number 5 ... Technical aspects of music video
The last really essential aspect of music video to study is technical. This includes camerawork, movement and angle, mise-en-scène, editing, and sound. It is important to remember the more general features of music videos already mentioned when trying to work out the technical effects, especially those which are post-production, effects. Broadly, the technical conventions can be summed up as follows:
1. Speed! Speed is visualised by camera movement, fast editing (montage) and digital effects.
– Camera movement is often motivated by running, dancing and walking performers.
– Fast-cutting and montage editing creates a visually decentred experience necessary for music video consumption, with the images occasionally moving so fast that they are impossible to understand on first viewing and thus need to be viewed several times (repeatability).
– Post-production digital effects – a staple of music video where images can be colorized, multiple split screens appear, and so on, all to complicate and intrigue, providing pleasure again and again.
Not all camera movement is about speed though and some use slow pace through dissolves or static shots. This kind of editing – like Sinead O’Conner’s ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ – is striking and effective in setting the song apart from the hustle and bustle of most pop activity.
2. Meat! The meat of most music videos is the cut to the close-up of the singer’s face. This is because the voice is seen as the most important part of pop music.
3. Beats! Often, the video will try and represent the music through the use of the cut to go with the beat or key rhythm.
4. Lighting and colour may also be used to emphasise key moments in the song, using methods from lighting live performances for dramatic effect. Colour may be used to show a development in the song, going from colour to black and white or vice versa when the chorus comes in. Equally, any change in the mise-en-scène or camerawork can signal the same type of thing.
5. Mise-en-scène – obviously the setting for music videos is important, often to guarantee the authenticity of the clip rather than anything else. So mise-en-scène for many music videos is the concert hall or rehearsal room to emphasise the realness of the performance or the grit and practice that goes into attaining star quality. Increasingly, CGI is used, especially for dance songs, which don’t rely so much on being ‘real’ like rock, soul and rap acts.
media magazine
Crime and the media
Crime and the media is a topic which can accommodate all the key factors you need as an A Level Media student tackling independent critical research. Sean Dunne outlines some important current issues and suggests some possible routes for primary research.
Crime has always been one of the staple foods in the media consumer’s diet. From ‘Wanted!’ posters and the first newspapers to ‘most wanted’ websites and Grand Theft Auto video games, crime has been enduringly popular. Whatever the genre, for both audiences and producers, the tried and tested formulae of crime stories offer a guarantee of the widest range of human drama – viewed from the safety of our seats.
Any study will need a focus, and you’ll have to decide whether to investigate fact or fiction, drama or current affairs, news or film, documentary or reality shows. Start by listing all the different crime media genres you can. My students came up with 14 – can you beat them? Underlying each of these format are the same issues of representation, audience, narrative and ideology.
Representation and ideology
Some key representations in crime-based media have been:
• crime itself (a ‘problem’) vs the police (our protectors)
• criminals (the bad guys) vs criminal justice systems (a mess)
• lawyers (corrupt or freeloaders) vs courts (soft)
• social workers (incompetent, interfering do-gooders)
• victims (innocent) vs the public (a nuisance).
Although there is evidence of some change, we still take many of these representations for granted. ‘Of course’, we say, ‘crime is a problem.’
At this point, we need to step back and question our culturally-instilled values. Start by thinking about what we mean by the term ‘crime’. Are there any actions which are universally forbidden? Try to compare laws from different countries, such as those regulating drugs, alcohol and ages of sexual consent to see how much they differ. Laws relating to property rights, freedom of expression and killing vary around the world because they are culturally and historically constructed according to ideologies and values in societies. We cannot assume that our way is right; it’s just what we have been brought up to believe to be right. The media play a vital role in reinforcing such ideologies through the representations they offer.
Crime and the media is a topic which can accommodate all the key factors you need as an A Level Media student tackling independent critical research. Sean Dunne outlines some important current issues and suggests some possible routes for primary research.
Crime has always been one of the staple foods in the media consumer’s diet. From ‘Wanted!’ posters and the first newspapers to ‘most wanted’ websites and Grand Theft Auto video games, crime has been enduringly popular. Whatever the genre, for both audiences and producers, the tried and tested formulae of crime stories offer a guarantee of the widest range of human drama – viewed from the safety of our seats.
Any study will need a focus, and you’ll have to decide whether to investigate fact or fiction, drama or current affairs, news or film, documentary or reality shows. Start by listing all the different crime media genres you can. My students came up with 14 – can you beat them? Underlying each of these format are the same issues of representation, audience, narrative and ideology.
Representation and ideology
Some key representations in crime-based media have been:
• crime itself (a ‘problem’) vs the police (our protectors)
• criminals (the bad guys) vs criminal justice systems (a mess)
• lawyers (corrupt or freeloaders) vs courts (soft)
• social workers (incompetent, interfering do-gooders)
• victims (innocent) vs the public (a nuisance).
Although there is evidence of some change, we still take many of these representations for granted. ‘Of course’, we say, ‘crime is a problem.’
At this point, we need to step back and question our culturally-instilled values. Start by thinking about what we mean by the term ‘crime’. Are there any actions which are universally forbidden? Try to compare laws from different countries, such as those regulating drugs, alcohol and ages of sexual consent to see how much they differ. Laws relating to property rights, freedom of expression and killing vary around the world because they are culturally and historically constructed according to ideologies and values in societies. We cannot assume that our way is right; it’s just what we have been brought up to believe to be right. The media play a vital role in reinforcing such ideologies through the representations they offer.
media magazine
UK hip hop, you don’t stop
Simone Baird argues that it’s about time we recognised the limitations of US hip hop for the corporate all-encompassing bling it has become, and turned to our own home-grown UK grime for inspiration.
For British students, there are few governments in the world as unpopular as the American Government is right now. In fact, American people the world over are getting pretty short shrift when it comes to being even socially acceptable. American-bashing is seemingly fine in our classrooms, offices, homes and on the telly; yet if you were to swap ‘American’ for ‘Jew’, ‘Muslim’, ‘Black person’... well, you’d be run out of town for being racist before you’d even had a chance to finish your sentence.
Despite the ever-increasing popularity of slagging off American politics, foreign policy and even food, the country’s urban music scene dominates our charts, record shops and iPods. While we loudly bemoan America’s all-encompassing influence, we devour its music at the expense of our own without a second thought to the anomaly of doing just that.
Arguments are put forward that American hip hop is one of the few acceptable faces of America: it’s street music made by people railing against the establishment, the often Black producers hate their Government as much as we do, right? They’re cool and underground, so therefore it’s okay. They’re not really part of ‘bad’ America. Anyway, it sounds way better than our own hip hop, doesn’t it?
This is the key point: American hip hop sounds glossier and better produced, and the artists look far harder and more serious than anyone coming out of the UK ever could. They’re dressed in diamonds and surrounded by gyrating women wearing, erm, not very much. We’re skinny, don’t get to see the sun and have no access to the source material (endless and hopeless ghettos and projects, a spiralling gun culture, ridiculously big cars...). There’s just no comparison.
It’s a catch-22 that the UK hip hop scene has battled against for around two decades. Yet it might be America’s obsession with bling and in-fighting with other producers that will give our own talent a fighting chance. The bloated American hip hop industry is now full of sucker MCs who work hard to look the part of ice-dripping superstar, but wouldn’t know innovative lyrics if they spelled themselves out using very small words. While Eminem, Outkast and the Beastie Boys do their bit, they’re hardly brand new. When was the last time you heard a new American hip hop producer and were blown away by the sheer excitement and newness of what they were unleashing? A brand new artist that truly didn’t sound like anything or anyone who had gone before.
It Happily, nothing coming out of America right now can compare with what is happening on our side of the pond, the sonic ride that is grime, and don’t the ringtone buying public just know it. The bastard offspring (or next evolutionary step) of UK garage and hip hop with a heavy Jamaican twist – all warp-speed spitting over raw and dirty beats – is tense and stripped back in a way that makes US hip hop look corporate and commercial. Yet despite the talent of the likes of Kano, Wiley and Lady Sovereign, they don’t stand much of a chance getting noticed when so many are happily force-fed American corporate hip hop. Our grime stars are happy if they sell 500 or 1,000 white labels in Bow’s Rhythm Division Records; how can that match up against the hundreds of thousands of units that even minor American stars shift around the world?
may well be that music afficionados will look back on this era of American hip hop as – bar some notable exceptions – a real lull. Back in the late 80s and early 90s, the likes of Afrika Bambaataa, Public Enemy, NWA, and the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy really had something to say, and were discovering brand new ways of saying it. They were political and respected their roots, rather than desperately trying to convey their ghetto credentials. Who in the UK can really relate to rants about bitches, cars, plenty of cash and revenge in the projects? The lyrics of Dizzee Rascal, Black Twang, Jehst, Skinnyman or Ty are infinitely more real. So why do we continue to lap up 50 Cent or G-Unit who are all about having a blisteringly hard image over some heavy beats and not much else? While we happily hate neo-Conservative America and all it stands for, we’re complicit in being force-fed extremely corporate hip-hop-by-numbers at the expense of our own young guns trying to break through. It’s interesting that despite becoming more politically aware, the music we’re buying is still about ‘thirty-two shorts in the clip/hollow tips in the Mach/But when I come through, shh/The talking stop/My money long now/I can make the Pope get shot’ (G-Unit ‘Beg For Mercy’).
Until the day when UK hip hop is at least as respected as its American counterpart, when it is no longer compared like-for-like but seen as our own, perfectly formed take on the music genre, microphone botherers in Bow, Birmingham and Merseyside won’t stand a chance of being anything than PlayStation producers.
It could well be that there is exciting, fresh talent Stateside complaining that they’re not breaking through because of their hip hop industry and, of course, America will always be the home of hip hop. But as more and more UK producers show up on our own radars, hopefully we’ll give more and more homegrown producers a chance to shake up our stereos.
Simone Baird is a freelance journalist and runs Media courses for students in London.
This article first appeared in MediaMagazine 12, April 2005
Simone Baird argues that it’s about time we recognised the limitations of US hip hop for the corporate all-encompassing bling it has become, and turned to our own home-grown UK grime for inspiration.
For British students, there are few governments in the world as unpopular as the American Government is right now. In fact, American people the world over are getting pretty short shrift when it comes to being even socially acceptable. American-bashing is seemingly fine in our classrooms, offices, homes and on the telly; yet if you were to swap ‘American’ for ‘Jew’, ‘Muslim’, ‘Black person’... well, you’d be run out of town for being racist before you’d even had a chance to finish your sentence.
Despite the ever-increasing popularity of slagging off American politics, foreign policy and even food, the country’s urban music scene dominates our charts, record shops and iPods. While we loudly bemoan America’s all-encompassing influence, we devour its music at the expense of our own without a second thought to the anomaly of doing just that.
Arguments are put forward that American hip hop is one of the few acceptable faces of America: it’s street music made by people railing against the establishment, the often Black producers hate their Government as much as we do, right? They’re cool and underground, so therefore it’s okay. They’re not really part of ‘bad’ America. Anyway, it sounds way better than our own hip hop, doesn’t it?
This is the key point: American hip hop sounds glossier and better produced, and the artists look far harder and more serious than anyone coming out of the UK ever could. They’re dressed in diamonds and surrounded by gyrating women wearing, erm, not very much. We’re skinny, don’t get to see the sun and have no access to the source material (endless and hopeless ghettos and projects, a spiralling gun culture, ridiculously big cars...). There’s just no comparison.
It’s a catch-22 that the UK hip hop scene has battled against for around two decades. Yet it might be America’s obsession with bling and in-fighting with other producers that will give our own talent a fighting chance. The bloated American hip hop industry is now full of sucker MCs who work hard to look the part of ice-dripping superstar, but wouldn’t know innovative lyrics if they spelled themselves out using very small words. While Eminem, Outkast and the Beastie Boys do their bit, they’re hardly brand new. When was the last time you heard a new American hip hop producer and were blown away by the sheer excitement and newness of what they were unleashing? A brand new artist that truly didn’t sound like anything or anyone who had gone before.
It Happily, nothing coming out of America right now can compare with what is happening on our side of the pond, the sonic ride that is grime, and don’t the ringtone buying public just know it. The bastard offspring (or next evolutionary step) of UK garage and hip hop with a heavy Jamaican twist – all warp-speed spitting over raw and dirty beats – is tense and stripped back in a way that makes US hip hop look corporate and commercial. Yet despite the talent of the likes of Kano, Wiley and Lady Sovereign, they don’t stand much of a chance getting noticed when so many are happily force-fed American corporate hip hop. Our grime stars are happy if they sell 500 or 1,000 white labels in Bow’s Rhythm Division Records; how can that match up against the hundreds of thousands of units that even minor American stars shift around the world?
may well be that music afficionados will look back on this era of American hip hop as – bar some notable exceptions – a real lull. Back in the late 80s and early 90s, the likes of Afrika Bambaataa, Public Enemy, NWA, and the Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy really had something to say, and were discovering brand new ways of saying it. They were political and respected their roots, rather than desperately trying to convey their ghetto credentials. Who in the UK can really relate to rants about bitches, cars, plenty of cash and revenge in the projects? The lyrics of Dizzee Rascal, Black Twang, Jehst, Skinnyman or Ty are infinitely more real. So why do we continue to lap up 50 Cent or G-Unit who are all about having a blisteringly hard image over some heavy beats and not much else? While we happily hate neo-Conservative America and all it stands for, we’re complicit in being force-fed extremely corporate hip-hop-by-numbers at the expense of our own young guns trying to break through. It’s interesting that despite becoming more politically aware, the music we’re buying is still about ‘thirty-two shorts in the clip/hollow tips in the Mach/But when I come through, shh/The talking stop/My money long now/I can make the Pope get shot’ (G-Unit ‘Beg For Mercy’).
Until the day when UK hip hop is at least as respected as its American counterpart, when it is no longer compared like-for-like but seen as our own, perfectly formed take on the music genre, microphone botherers in Bow, Birmingham and Merseyside won’t stand a chance of being anything than PlayStation producers.
It could well be that there is exciting, fresh talent Stateside complaining that they’re not breaking through because of their hip hop industry and, of course, America will always be the home of hip hop. But as more and more UK producers show up on our own radars, hopefully we’ll give more and more homegrown producers a chance to shake up our stereos.
Simone Baird is a freelance journalist and runs Media courses for students in London.
This article first appeared in MediaMagazine 12, April 2005
Thursday 25 November 2010
relevant links.
How rap music has gone from condemning drug use to glorifying it.
The number of drug references in rap music has risen sixfold since the genre revolutionised pop music.
Researchers who analysed the lyrics of hundreds of songs say rap has been transformed from one which warned against the dangers of drug abuse to one that routinely glorifies it.
And because many of the references are coded, many parents are unaware what their children are listening to.
The number of drug references in rap music has risen sixfold since the genre revolutionised pop music.
Researchers who analysed the lyrics of hundreds of songs say rap has been transformed from one which warned against the dangers of drug abuse to one that routinely glorifies it.
And because many of the references are coded, many parents are unaware what their children are listening to.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/47127/hiphops_negative_impact_on_kids.html?cat=9
Hip-Hop's Negative Impact on Kids
relevant links.
Rap Music, Violence and Cultural Perspective
Rap music seems to have a history of people going to jail or even suffering death. Of course, we all know the tragic history of Tupac and Biggie, who both were shot to death.
Celebrities and rappers are human beings who have built a reputation based upon an image, and it is a part of their mystic and reputation they feel they have to maintain. When the real world intercedes or even attacks
at that image, it often causes tension
Rap music seems to have a history of people going to jail or even suffering death. Of course, we all know the tragic history of Tupac and Biggie, who both were shot to death.
Celebrities and rappers are human beings who have built a reputation based upon an image, and it is a part of their mystic and reputation they feel they have to maintain. When the real world intercedes or even attacks
at that image, it often causes tension
relevant links.
Rap music 'glamorises gun violence'
By Sally Pook 12:01AM GMT 07 Jan 2003
David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, condemned violent gangster rap music as "appalling" yesterday and said anyone who glamorised gun violence in music should be made aware of what was acceptable and what was not.
He said on BBC Radio 2 that there was a link between the drug culture and music. "This is not just about guns and violence.
"We need to talk to the record producers, to the distributors, to those who are actually engaged in the music business about what is and is not acceptable."
By Sally Pook 12:01AM GMT 07 Jan 2003
David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, condemned violent gangster rap music as "appalling" yesterday and said anyone who glamorised gun violence in music should be made aware of what was acceptable and what was not.
He said on BBC Radio 2 that there was a link between the drug culture and music. "This is not just about guns and violence.
"We need to talk to the record producers, to the distributors, to those who are actually engaged in the music business about what is and is not acceptable."
relevant links.
Does Rap Put Teens at Risk?
Study: Association Found Between Video Viewing Time and Risky Behaviors
By Sid Kirchheimer
WebMD Health NewsMarch 3, 2003 -- Teens who spend more time watching the sex and violence depicted in the "reel" life of "gangsta" rap music videos are more likely to practice these behaviors in real life, suggests one of the first studies to specifically explore how rap videos influence emotional and physical health.
After studying 522 black girls between the ages of 14 and 18 from non-urban, lower socioeconomic neighborhoods, researchers found that compared to those who never or rarely watched these videos, the girls who viewed these gangsta videos for at least 14 hours per week were far more likely to practice numerous destructive behaviors. Over the course of the one-year study, they were:
Three times more likely to hit a teacher
Over 2.5 times more likely to get arrested
Twice as likely to have multiple sexual partners
1.5 times more likely to get a sexually transmitted disease, use drugs, or drink alcohol.
"What is particularly alarming about our findings is that we didn't find an association with just violence or one or two risky behaviors," says researcher Ralph J. DiClemente, PhD, of Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health. "We found an association with a string of these behaviors."
His study, published in the March issue of the American Journal of Public Health, only involved black girls living in Birmingham, Ala. -- all of whom were already sexually active. While the researchers surveyed viewing habits for various types of rap videos, gangsta rap was by far the most popular among the girls practicing these destructive behaviors.
"We wanted to focus on young, African American women, a population that is very vulnerable," DiClemente tells WebMD. "In these videos, men hold the power and women don't and as a result, are subservient. I'm not sure that the girls in our study were lashing out because of this, but more likely role-modeling the behaviors they see. The women in these videos are doing OK, they're hanging around with a man who is powerful, affluent, going to nice clubs and wearing nice clothes. For these girls, they may not be a bad thing."
His team is currently expanding its research to investigate how these and other rap videos may influence behaviors across other racial, gender and socioeconomic lines. Although gangsta rap videos depict tough inner-city "street" life, their largest viewing audience is white suburban youth, who have better access to cable television channels such as MTV and BET (Black Entertainment Television).
Of course, this isn't the first time that rebellious music has been blamed for society's ills. From Elvis to Columbine, the songs of music-obsessed youth have often been blamed for anti-social behavior. But rap -- and in particular, the especially violent and sexually-explicit gangsta variety -- has raised special concern.
http://www.webmd.com/baby/news/20030303/does-rap-put-teens-at-risk
Study: Association Found Between Video Viewing Time and Risky Behaviors
By Sid Kirchheimer
WebMD Health NewsMarch 3, 2003 -- Teens who spend more time watching the sex and violence depicted in the "reel" life of "gangsta" rap music videos are more likely to practice these behaviors in real life, suggests one of the first studies to specifically explore how rap videos influence emotional and physical health.
After studying 522 black girls between the ages of 14 and 18 from non-urban, lower socioeconomic neighborhoods, researchers found that compared to those who never or rarely watched these videos, the girls who viewed these gangsta videos for at least 14 hours per week were far more likely to practice numerous destructive behaviors. Over the course of the one-year study, they were:
Three times more likely to hit a teacher
Over 2.5 times more likely to get arrested
Twice as likely to have multiple sexual partners
1.5 times more likely to get a sexually transmitted disease, use drugs, or drink alcohol.
"What is particularly alarming about our findings is that we didn't find an association with just violence or one or two risky behaviors," says researcher Ralph J. DiClemente, PhD, of Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health. "We found an association with a string of these behaviors."
His study, published in the March issue of the American Journal of Public Health, only involved black girls living in Birmingham, Ala. -- all of whom were already sexually active. While the researchers surveyed viewing habits for various types of rap videos, gangsta rap was by far the most popular among the girls practicing these destructive behaviors.
"We wanted to focus on young, African American women, a population that is very vulnerable," DiClemente tells WebMD. "In these videos, men hold the power and women don't and as a result, are subservient. I'm not sure that the girls in our study were lashing out because of this, but more likely role-modeling the behaviors they see. The women in these videos are doing OK, they're hanging around with a man who is powerful, affluent, going to nice clubs and wearing nice clothes. For these girls, they may not be a bad thing."
His team is currently expanding its research to investigate how these and other rap videos may influence behaviors across other racial, gender and socioeconomic lines. Although gangsta rap videos depict tough inner-city "street" life, their largest viewing audience is white suburban youth, who have better access to cable television channels such as MTV and BET (Black Entertainment Television).
Of course, this isn't the first time that rebellious music has been blamed for society's ills. From Elvis to Columbine, the songs of music-obsessed youth have often been blamed for anti-social behavior. But rap -- and in particular, the especially violent and sexually-explicit gangsta variety -- has raised special concern.
http://www.webmd.com/baby/news/20030303/does-rap-put-teens-at-risk
10 links
Studies have been conducted to assess the effects of listening to rap music on teenagers and young adults. Findings thus far are mixed, but overall they suggest that listening to rap music does not cause aggressive or deviant behaviour.
Perception of Crime and Violence
One study found that young subjects who watched violent rap videos were more accepting of violent actions, particularly against women. Additionally, those who watched either violent or nonviolent rap videos were more inclined to express materialistic attitudes and favor potentially acquiring possessions through crime, as well as holding more negative views on the likelihood of succeeding through academic pursuits.
Another study found that adolescent females, after watching a rap video depicting women in sexually subordinate roles, were more inclined to express acceptance of violence against women in a dating situation. However, increased acceptance of crime and violence appears to be linked with viewing violent or sexist rap videos rather than listening to rap music on its own.
Attitudes Toward Women
Young men who had little previous exposure to rap music were the subjects of an experiment in which researchers had one group listen to rap music with lyrics, another listen to rap music without lyrics, a third just read the lyrics, and a fourth group neither listen nor read. After the exposure, none of the subjects held more negative attitudes toward women, but those who read or heard the lyrics were more inclined to express adversarial sexual beliefs.
As would be expected, only rap music with misogynistic themes appears to create misogynistic attitudes and greater acceptance of violence against women. Other types of rap do not have a negative effect on the perception of women.
Behavioral Problems
Although research has found a correlation between preference for heavy metal or rap music and behavioral problems, drug or alcohol use, arrests and sexual promiscuity, these behavioral problems usually begin before students begin listening to rap or heavy metal, which indicates that the music does not cause behavioral problems or addiction. Rather, it suggests that at-risk youth are more inclined to prefer heavy metal or rap music.
Academic Achievement
While a number of studies have associated lower grades with students who listen to rap or heavy metal music, one study found that white students actually improved their academic abilities after watching rap videos, as well as expressing more progressive attitudes—after watching politically focused rap videos, they were more inclined to support a liberal black political candidate. Unfortunately, there was no indication of similar research being conducted with black students.
http://www.suite101.com/content/rap-musics-psychological-effects-a53370
Perception of Crime and Violence
One study found that young subjects who watched violent rap videos were more accepting of violent actions, particularly against women. Additionally, those who watched either violent or nonviolent rap videos were more inclined to express materialistic attitudes and favor potentially acquiring possessions through crime, as well as holding more negative views on the likelihood of succeeding through academic pursuits.
Another study found that adolescent females, after watching a rap video depicting women in sexually subordinate roles, were more inclined to express acceptance of violence against women in a dating situation. However, increased acceptance of crime and violence appears to be linked with viewing violent or sexist rap videos rather than listening to rap music on its own.
Attitudes Toward Women
Young men who had little previous exposure to rap music were the subjects of an experiment in which researchers had one group listen to rap music with lyrics, another listen to rap music without lyrics, a third just read the lyrics, and a fourth group neither listen nor read. After the exposure, none of the subjects held more negative attitudes toward women, but those who read or heard the lyrics were more inclined to express adversarial sexual beliefs.
As would be expected, only rap music with misogynistic themes appears to create misogynistic attitudes and greater acceptance of violence against women. Other types of rap do not have a negative effect on the perception of women.
Behavioral Problems
Although research has found a correlation between preference for heavy metal or rap music and behavioral problems, drug or alcohol use, arrests and sexual promiscuity, these behavioral problems usually begin before students begin listening to rap or heavy metal, which indicates that the music does not cause behavioral problems or addiction. Rather, it suggests that at-risk youth are more inclined to prefer heavy metal or rap music.
Academic Achievement
While a number of studies have associated lower grades with students who listen to rap or heavy metal music, one study found that white students actually improved their academic abilities after watching rap videos, as well as expressing more progressive attitudes—after watching politically focused rap videos, they were more inclined to support a liberal black political candidate. Unfortunately, there was no indication of similar research being conducted with black students.
http://www.suite101.com/content/rap-musics-psychological-effects-a53370
10 relevent links
The G-Unit rapper, nick-named 'Fiddy', was apparently unrepentant, seemingly pleased that the protest had generated extra publicity for his movie. Gun violence seems to follow 50 Cent, who has himself been shot nine times, and always wears a bulletproof vest. Two known associates of the rap star were arrested at a 50 Cent video shoot in New York City after police found they were carrying loaded weapons. Then a 30 year old man was shot dead after a showing of Get Rich or Die Tryin' in Pittsburgh. In Syracuse police said that an increase in shootings was linked to a fight that began between two rival gangs when members of both groups saw 50 Cent's movie.
In the UK anti-gun campaigners called on stores to withdraw 50 Cent's computer game Bulletproof. Players follow Fiddy from crack-dealing gangsta to superstar by gunning down, stabbing and strangling rivals. Campaigners were angry that Bulletproof glamorises the gangsta lifestyle. The graphics allow a bullet’s-eye view of a gunshot as it ploughs into a rival’s exploding head. However, Fiddy’s bullet wounds miraculously heal, angering gun crime campaigners. Gleen Reid of Mothers Against Guns said: “The game glorifies guns and gangs at a time when we are trying to prevent real-life shootings. 50 Cent makes a profit out of the misery of parents who are burying their children.” Despite this, Fiddy says parents should buy the game for their children because he claims it will teach them right from wrong! "Just because it is rated mature doesn't mean you shouldn't buy it for your kids."
In the UK anti-gun campaigners called on stores to withdraw 50 Cent's computer game Bulletproof. Players follow Fiddy from crack-dealing gangsta to superstar by gunning down, stabbing and strangling rivals. Campaigners were angry that Bulletproof glamorises the gangsta lifestyle. The graphics allow a bullet’s-eye view of a gunshot as it ploughs into a rival’s exploding head. However, Fiddy’s bullet wounds miraculously heal, angering gun crime campaigners. Gleen Reid of Mothers Against Guns said: “The game glorifies guns and gangs at a time when we are trying to prevent real-life shootings. 50 Cent makes a profit out of the misery of parents who are burying their children.” Despite this, Fiddy says parents should buy the game for their children because he claims it will teach them right from wrong! "Just because it is rated mature doesn't mean you shouldn't buy it for your kids."
Friday 19 November 2010
NE-YO ALTERNATIVE
Ne-yo is seen as a alternative representation of males in the hip-hop genre. This is for the reason that he is not seen how men in this music genre stereotypically for example you would expect men to be muscular with tattoos and baggy clothing making this the dominate representation of males in the music genre whereas ne-yo has a alternative representation of males as he is seen to be wearing suits and sings rather than rapping. When listening to his music you can see the difference in lyrics to other singers as he give women the respect that he believes they deserve. Ne-yo is not seen as a man who in hip-hop usually would disrespect women one of his hit’s named miss independent was a song made in order for women to be seen as they can do everything on their own and do not need the support of men. In addition to his famine side he is not Sings from his heat, love songs. Dresses well connoting his fashion trend which is different to stereotypical males such as 50 cent
He doesn’t objectify women in his videos as he shows them more as female partners rather than subordinating them as sex objects.he also dances and shows that he is not a rough and scary figure as most rappers in hip hop videos do nothing but stand there looking cool.He is never shown in any violent or controversial way
He also has been rumoured to be homosexual, yet he doesn’t fight back at critics with anger or venom as most male artist in the hip hop genre would do. He simply just sings..
He doesn’t objectify women in his videos as he shows them more as female partners rather than subordinating them as sex objects.he also dances and shows that he is not a rough and scary figure as most rappers in hip hop videos do nothing but stand there looking cool.He is never shown in any violent or controversial way
He also has been rumoured to be homosexual, yet he doesn’t fight back at critics with anger or venom as most male artist in the hip hop genre would do. He simply just sings..
Monday 15 November 2010
relevant links.
Thirty years on from Rapper's Delight by the Sugarhill Gang becoming the first mainstream rap song to hit the US charts, hip-hop has played a surprising role in shaping modern British culture.
When the US elected its first African-American president, who did the grand inquisitor on the BBC's flagship news programme turn to for an insight into how the moment might be perceived by young black Britons?
A rapper, of course.
Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman questioned Dizzee Rascal about race, nationality and identity.
For some, the elevation of a rapper to the status of spokesman for a generation is part of a wider pattern in which hip-hop's elements - rapping, DJ-ing, breakdance and graffiti - have infiltrated mainstream British culture.
According to at least one of Britain's leading cultural commentators, hip-hop is now "the lingua franca of our time".
Ekow Eshun, director of the Institute for Contemporary Arts, says the language of hip-hop is "what young people speak - they understand each other, not just through the music but by the values that are embodied through the music".
He argues that the rampant materialism espoused by the genre's most popular artists have brought about a "curious inversion" in mainstream British culture to create a "culture of aspiration" best seen in the popularity of reality TV programmes such as the X Factor.
'Allotments are in big demand for growing fruit, flowers and vegetables, or just as a great way to chill out'
Conservative MP Tony Baldry (pictured)
chill v. 'A time to live, and a time to die A time to break and a time to chill'
S. ROBINSON et al. Rapper's Delight (song)
Oxford English Dictionary
Rappers routinely use their records to tell rags-to-riches stories of a past rooted in drug deals and gang life, re-inventing themselves as musical artists worth millions, often with lucrative spin-off projects in film, fashion and related merchandise.
This enables some artists to project an image of success by projecting a lavish lifestyle in music videos.
This, says Eshun, means that whereas past generations of British youngsters - Teddy Boys, Mods and Punks - detested the idea of engaging with the mainstream, there's a widespread desire to "make more money and live flashier than anyone else".
"Youth culture in Britain used to condemn its successes for selling out, for not being part of a minority. Right now the whole trajectory is about how quickly you can attain fame, status and the rewards that come with status.
"People on the X Factor all talk about how they want to make it. They want to be successful, make a name for themselves and make their family and friends proud of them."
Lawrence Lartey thinks rappers may inspire the next leaders of industry
The nature of hip-hop's roots, among black and Hispanic youngsters on the streets of the Bronx - a socially deprived part of New York - in the late 1970s - also meant that it was a subculture capable of being produced from very little - ie. recycled old records, breakdance and DIY art on walls.
For Eshun this DIY culture has rubbed off on successive generations of British youth, giving them the confidence to challenge authority and received wisdom both in the arts and everyday life.
"Young black people, disenfranchised people, found a way to articulate their hopes, desire and dreams on record. That desire spread to Britain, and that's not just about black people. That's what youth culture in Britain is about - to live as large and as fully as possible.
"This isn't just about reality TV. I see it in the clothes people wear and the way they speak. You are allowed to question authority and define yourself in terms that belong to you."
Had it not been for hip-hop, would Diversity have won Britain's Got Talent? Would Banksy be the revered artist he is today?
Lawrence Lartey
Has hip-hop grown up?
Life on planet hip-hop
How hip-hop changed fashion
Eshun points out that in his role at the ICA - itself sited at the very heart of Establishment London, on the same road as Buckingham Palace - he often sees aspects of hip-hop in areas once reserved for so-called high culture, be they graffiti exhibitions in the art world, to street dance theatre at Sadler's Wells.
This is a theme taken up by journalist and youth culture commentator Lawrence Lartey.
"Had it not been for hip-hop, would Diversity have won Britain's Got Talent? If it wasn't for hip-hop would Banksy be the revered artist he is today? Hip-hop has given the world a cultural platform for expression," he says.
But both Lartey and the ICA's director agree that, as Eshun puts it, "rappers have, at times, become demonised figures", amid concerns that they encourage gang culture and reproduce misogynistic imagery.
Lartey, formerly the contributing editor at urban music magazine Touch, says such an analysis lacks subtlety and doesn't stand up to close scrutiny.
"Gang culture would exist without hip-hop," he says. He accepts that "certain elements", such as the "ostentatious pursuit for money" by some artists, can "exacerbate" the problem, but maintains that it's unfair to label the entire culture and its influence as mostly negative.
'Can do' attitude
He argues that, away from the most notorious culprits, other well known artists within the genre such as Talib Kweli, Common and The Roots produce music which is thoughtful and complex.
Lartey also suggests that the culture of "multitasking" which saw Will Smith and Ice Cube become film stars, and Jay-Z balance rapping with a fashion label, has encouraged a similar "can do" attitude in this country - possibly acting as an inspiration for the next generation of entrepreneurs, particularly youngsters who aren't from a wealthy background.
He points out that UK rapper Tynchy Stryder has "realised that selling T-shirts is as important as selling CDs". Similarly, Dizzee Rascal is among a number of artists to set up his own label - Dirtee Stank.
Perhaps more than any other British rapper, Sway Dasafo embodies the entrepreneurial zeal described by Lartey.
Boris by Banksy, who has used hip-hop as a cultural platform for expression
The 27-year-old rapper and producer won the award for Best Hip-Hop Artist at the 2005 Mobo awards, ahead of established US artists, without a record deal. He developed an underground following by setting up his own label, DCypha Productions, and selling his CDs direct to fans.
Sway agrees with Eshun's assertion that "hip-hop has played a very important role in establishing a much more nuanced sense of who black people are within mainstream society".
He recalls growing up in the 80s and early 90s when there were far fewer black people in the media glare and argues that hip-hop has "played a part" in this cultural shift, which he feels has been aided by the internet and satellite television allowing people to "choose what they want to hear".
"Black culture is a lot more accepted now in society. Pop music now is urban music. Just look at the Top Ten and it's usually either hip-hop, hip-hop inspired or urban."
The rapper believes that the unforeseen consequence of successful black Britons looming large in pop culture is that it becomes commonplace for people to see the likes of June Sarpong and Ozwald Boateng in entertainment and fashion.
For Sway, who sees fans of various ethnicities at his gigs, the all pervasive nature of hip-hop in modern Britain also aids multiculturalism and eases class divisions.
"Everything has its time and right now it's all about hip-hop."
I listen to quite a lot of hip-hop but I cant help but feel some of the messages that some rappers send out glorifying violence and regarding getting rich through guns and drugs has had a negative impact, particularly on young black men. It inspires a get rich quick approach that combined with the modern celebrity culture for some young people seems to put them off actually working hard to achieve their goals.
Stickwithit, Reading
An interesting, if flawed, article. Music has always provided the intelligent working class with a means of improving their life if other routes are blocked, no matter where they live. The concept of "selling out" only emerged with punk in the 70s. Before then, if a band made it, everyone was pleased for them to get as much out of "the suits" in the time available to them. I suspect it is much the same today.
Donald Barker, Waltham Cross, UK
"If it wasn't for hip-hop would Banksy be the revered artist he is today"? Banksy became revered because his work is clever, it has genuine depth lying beneath its surface as it satirises the society in which we live. Satire is often considered the highest form of humour, ergo his popularity across the spectrum: he took a street style and injected it with intense political acumen. I'm not absolutely certain how hip-hop comes into this, seeing as many of today's rappers wax about accruing wealth and and the delights of excessive consumption with no hint of irony whatsoever.
Jay, London
Banksy's work is stencilled. Using stencils in graffiti associated with hip hop is considered cheating. Banksy has far more in common with clever, thought-provoking jokes written on the wall of the gents long before hip hop came into being.
James Stuart, London
The majority of the populace only read about these fashions/trends/genres - call them what you will - and they only affect most people's lives as an eventual trickle down effect that is a pale shadow of the core subject. I was a teenager in the punk era and a young adult when hip-hop came to town. Neither made much of an impact on my life at the time, nor do they seem to figure in it much now. I'm betting the same is true for a lot of people my age. Oh and by the way chill - as in chill out? The phrase was in common use by jazz/swing followers in the 40s, the beatniks in the 50s and anyone who considered themselves hip from the 60s onwards. It most certainly wasn't created or popularised by hip-hop. Sheesh...
Penny Ward, London
It's true that a lot of hip hop is misogynistic but so is a lot of music, it is just hip hop is more honest/explicit about it. Women in most rock and roll songs (indie is not immune to this) tend to be at the catholic extremes, virginal or slut. What's sometime missing is how the religious backgrounds reinforce rap artist beliefs and their clans and groups are extended family units. The artists mentioned in the article are good examples of positive influence, but I would include Roots Manuva, MIA, Kanye West (minus his 'look at me' days) and Saul Williams as positive examples of hip hop.
M Mansell, Walsall
Maybe without hip-hop, there'd be less homophobia and fewer attacks on gay people. It's surely a source of shame in our society that hip-hop has always had a vein of homo-cidal hatred, given that so many hip-hop stars come from a community which should know through experience just how damaging it is to be on the receiving end of bigotry. Homophobia in rap music? It ain't free speech, it is hate speech.
David Whitehouse, London
I believe the most positive roots of hip-hop lie in the older stylings from people like a Tribe Called Quest or De La Soul, however as you mentioned in the article there are now modern (but unfortunately slightly more underground) artists creating far more positive music, lyrics and attitude which makes a good change and hopefully the attitudes of original hip hop will shine through again soon.
N Bramley, Manchester
It's obviously a good thing that "black culture" as you call it is represented in the UK so strongly. But the fact that it is a) written about now that it has been assimilated by white kids, and b) we are still talking about differences between black and white culture in 2009 leaves a bit of a bad taste in the mouth. We are, after all, all the same. Hip-hop has been huge in this country for over 20 years - it's just that now its been hijacked by the corporations and sanitised and diluted, same as they do to everything.
Ben Skinner, Leeds
I'm a working class boy and I HATE rap music, it has nothing to do with me. It doesn't say anything about me. I can't relate to it and never will. Music I can relate to is bands like Oasis, The Jam, The Enemy, Arctic Monkeys. Normal working class lads, who go out with mates to the pub or to the football. People seem to think that all young people listen to is rap and hip hop which is so wrong. All my mates listen to is real and talented music.
Joe, Bracknell
I think it's very sad when people say they HATE one form of music or make out that only the music they like is "real" or "talented". Open your eyes and ears and learn there is quality to be admired in all genres of music and that it's not just white boys with guitars who are "normal working class lads".
Neil, Liverpool
It would be a nicer looking country as the graffiti that goes along with it wouldn't be here. Women would be treated with a bit more respect and people would wear their clothes properly.
R Rowell, Walsall
A lot of the comments being left are confusing the difference between hip-hop as a culture and hip-hop as in music. Many aspects of modern culture wouldn't be around without it, the same as aspects wouldn't be around without punk, ska, northern soul, The Beatles etc. So to argue about its validity or dismiss it entirely really shows that some people's mentalities are as closed off now as they ever were. I'll agree that you'll always get the "violent lyrics" argument, because there is a point to it, but the world would still be violent with or without lyrics that condone or suggest it. And don't make me laugh with your indie boy comments, indie artists take pleasure in telling journos they emulate their idols (The Beatles etc). So how's that being more talented?
SteveTheHipHopLifer, Leicester
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8303041.stm
relevant links.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/2073162.stm
UK hip hop 'needs ethics code'
So Solid Crew's lyrics have come under fire
By Colin Joseph
Community Affairs reporter BBC Radio Five Live
Race leaders, musicians and academics are discussing setting up an ethical code for the British black music industry to tackle the increasing use of offensive lyrics.
The debate has been organised by the Black Music Congress (BMC) which was set up to discuss issues around black music.
It is the first time such high level talks about the lyrical content of black British musicians' work has taken place.
Panellists include Lee Jasper - race relations advisor to London Mayor Ken Livingstone, Tony Sewell - columnist with black newspaper The Voice and an academic, and Justin Onyeka, entertainment editor at another black newspaper, New Nation.
More than 200 people are expected to attend the talks which are being held at City University in central London on Saturday.
Swearing 'prevalent'
Kwaku, co-founder of the BMC, said: "There needs to be a forum for these issues to be discussed, black musicians keep pushing at the boundaries.
Using bad language and showing explicit videos helps perpetuate negative stereotypes of black people
Kwaku
BMC co-founder
"You can go to parties with your children and the DJ is playing music with swear words in it and doesn't think it's a problem because offensive lyrics are so prevalent in black music.
"It used to be hip hop, garage and ragga but now it's even creeping into R&B"
The BMC will be seeking permission from those involved in the talks to write an open letter to the media and senior British record industry executives demanding that artists and record labels adopt and sign an ethical code.
The congress will also seek to agree that explicit lyrical content in black music does have a negative impact, particularly on young listeners and that explicit imagery in music videos devalues black music and black people by reinforcing racist stereotypes.
Young influenced
Kwaku added: "Using bad language and showing explicit videos helps perpetuate negative stereotypes of black people.
"Black music also influences the younger generation who look at the imagery and listen to the language as something to aspire to.
All we're seeing is a reflection of the world we live in
Agzilla
Hip hop producer
"Personally I feel disappointed we don't use other ways of using language and imagery."
Some of the UK groups which have been targeted by the BMC include controversial garage band So Solid Crew, hip hop artist Rodney P and former Spice Girls singer Mel B.
The idea of an ethical code is unlikely to meet with universal approval from recording artists.
Agzilla, a UK hip hop producer said: "All we're seeing is a reflection of the world we live in - so who's to blame? I wouldn't sign an ethical code.
"As for kids being influenced by the music it's parents who should raise their children not recording artists."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/2073162.stm
UK hip hop 'needs ethics code'
So Solid Crew's lyrics have come under fire
By Colin Joseph
Community Affairs reporter BBC Radio Five Live
Race leaders, musicians and academics are discussing setting up an ethical code for the British black music industry to tackle the increasing use of offensive lyrics.
The debate has been organised by the Black Music Congress (BMC) which was set up to discuss issues around black music.
It is the first time such high level talks about the lyrical content of black British musicians' work has taken place.
Panellists include Lee Jasper - race relations advisor to London Mayor Ken Livingstone, Tony Sewell - columnist with black newspaper The Voice and an academic, and Justin Onyeka, entertainment editor at another black newspaper, New Nation.
More than 200 people are expected to attend the talks which are being held at City University in central London on Saturday.
Swearing 'prevalent'
Kwaku, co-founder of the BMC, said: "There needs to be a forum for these issues to be discussed, black musicians keep pushing at the boundaries.
Using bad language and showing explicit videos helps perpetuate negative stereotypes of black people
Kwaku
BMC co-founder
"You can go to parties with your children and the DJ is playing music with swear words in it and doesn't think it's a problem because offensive lyrics are so prevalent in black music.
"It used to be hip hop, garage and ragga but now it's even creeping into R&B"
The BMC will be seeking permission from those involved in the talks to write an open letter to the media and senior British record industry executives demanding that artists and record labels adopt and sign an ethical code.
The congress will also seek to agree that explicit lyrical content in black music does have a negative impact, particularly on young listeners and that explicit imagery in music videos devalues black music and black people by reinforcing racist stereotypes.
Young influenced
Kwaku added: "Using bad language and showing explicit videos helps perpetuate negative stereotypes of black people.
"Black music also influences the younger generation who look at the imagery and listen to the language as something to aspire to.
All we're seeing is a reflection of the world we live in
Agzilla
Hip hop producer
"Personally I feel disappointed we don't use other ways of using language and imagery."
Some of the UK groups which have been targeted by the BMC include controversial garage band So Solid Crew, hip hop artist Rodney P and former Spice Girls singer Mel B.
The idea of an ethical code is unlikely to meet with universal approval from recording artists.
Agzilla, a UK hip hop producer said: "All we're seeing is a reflection of the world we live in - so who's to blame? I wouldn't sign an ethical code.
"As for kids being influenced by the music it's parents who should raise their children not recording artists."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/2073162.stm
Guardian Articles Highlighted!
The savvy, quietly raging, rapidly rising, south London rapper Giggs is an interesting one. Especially if you're looking for a sign of something in the midst of ALL THIS FABULOUSLY AVAILABLE MUSIC that might connect not simply with how intensely pleasing pop can be, but how provocative. Pop that turns over reality and then explores the resultant new dynamic, as opposed to pop that assembles more and more attractive, distracting layers of synthesised reality. Such engaged, oppositional pop might be old fashioned, even dead. Or it might be the next big thing, a backlash against pert, pretty, post-reality iPop.
I'm of an age to call someone roughly other like Giggs "pop", but he more or less inhabits some highly specified area that flickers in and around hip-hop and gangsta rap and the knotty domestic deviation, grime, that added certain ragged home truths and electronically quarried sonic grit to grabby, waggish hip-hop alertness. Although branding Giggs as "thug rap" just media-boxes him in as stereotypical troublemaker aggressively glamorising violence, pragmatic Giggs pleads guilty. "I'm a thug," he gamely shrugs, because according to nervous, middle-British standards that's exactly what he is, "and I rap."
The truth is more tangled and doesn't fit complacently established cultural patterns. You don't have to dig too far to uncover a distressed gentleness on the other side of the pilfered street poses, protective toughness and boastful defensiveness. He good naturedly indulges me as I explore the idea of him transcending certain stereotypes, but ultimately, there's a flickering, deflecting mask – of clothing, behaviour, gesture and language – that he must stay behind.
Born Nathan Thompson – he was nicknamed Giggs because of his tendency to slyly, even shyly, giggle, often at the absurdity of a given situation – he was influenced by the original sinners NWA and dirty south hip-hop. The hardcore American myths of fighting rivals, making it and escaping the hood mingle with the swagger, anxiety and wariness of an English black man born in broken Peckham in the early 1980s, raised by a feisty single mum, a father himself at 21, who ended up spending two years in jail on gun charges, numbly emerging in 2005 with a plan to better himself.
Living in the area that he did, intelligent but brutally ambushed by fate, race, education and history, he had three choices: "I could deal drugs, rob or rap. Who's going to give me a job with my record?" Inspired by one of his five brothers, he started to rap as a hobby. He "sold his businesses," desperate to embark on a legitimate new life. He made up sentences that helped explain to him, and therefore others in his dire, inhibiting situation, the bottled-up the pain he felt at being underestimated, pinned down, ignored, driven into the thieving, violence and ganged-up mischief that confirms all mercilessly applied stereotypes. He talked about what he knew. It wasn't pretty.
He worried that his voice was strangely low and slow and wasn't deft like his heroes', but there were those who rated it. It was something different, enough to separate him from all the competing others seeing rap as their escape. He drops some contesting declarations over a steamed-up astutely nabbed Dre beat. "Talkin' The Hardest" is a self-marketed undercover hit. His first album, Walk in Da Park, shifts thousands of independently pressed copies. He wins UK rapper of the year at the Black Entertainment Television awards in America in 2008, beating Chipmunk, Dizzee and co.
Words came to Giggs, gathering in a piled-up, motivated rhythm he had copped from Rakim and Young Jeezy. He didn't know he knew the words he thought up. "It's like the guy who painted the future in Heroes – my eyes roll white and this stuff comes." He gets tongue-tied talking about how great he feels when he comes up with a trippy image, a cracking rhyme, a tense punchline, the mute, beleaguered hoodlum society had made him into beginning to make a living. He is breaking away from a familiar, crushing cycle of despair and destruction, by being articulate and organised. By reforming himself.
For whatever the establishment now is, the idea of a black, British star transmitting an embittered, alienated slang that graphically illustrates urban blight, that draws unnerving attention to a tense, endlessly fracturing racial divide, is deeply unwelcome. Giggs having a voice is a threat. He faces being beaten back into his old life, or beating the deeply prejudiced system that even in apparently more enlightened times, never expects, or wants, an unruly, desensitised ruffian to transform into a transgressive, inspirational thinker.
According to the authorities, Giggs is still a potential riot-inciting menace, thickly eulogising vengeance and violence, using music to cover his tracks; a terrible example to susceptible youths who, apparently, will not be inspired by the grim, lonely, angry docu-dramas Giggs narrates to pull out of a wretched domestic imitation of gang life and find new ways to express and locate themselves. The obstructing forces of censorship and restriction slowly gather, while Giggs, ominously gaining in stature, signs to XL Recordings of Prodigy, Thom Yorke, MIA and Vampire Weekend fame. He's banned from appearing live in London venues. Radio would like him to be a little, or a lot, more Chipmunk. He says he has no intention of slipping back into a life of crime. "Better things to do." His ambition stretches to far-fetched America, where, he says, they're surprised to hear there are British blacks.
Can he make it – hard, progressive, conscientious, fighting free of the cliches – without losing his grip, dissolving into posture, whitening his stance, giving in to the softening, modifying temptations of post-real iPop fame? Will he have to float free of deeper, stranger truths in order to succeed or can he keep his sting? Like an episode of Lost, the questions keep coming. We can only hope the answers astound us.
I'm of an age to call someone roughly other like Giggs "pop", but he more or less inhabits some highly specified area that flickers in and around hip-hop and gangsta rap and the knotty domestic deviation, grime, that added certain ragged home truths and electronically quarried sonic grit to grabby, waggish hip-hop alertness. Although branding Giggs as "thug rap" just media-boxes him in as stereotypical troublemaker aggressively glamorising violence, pragmatic Giggs pleads guilty. "I'm a thug," he gamely shrugs, because according to nervous, middle-British standards that's exactly what he is, "and I rap."
The truth is more tangled and doesn't fit complacently established cultural patterns. You don't have to dig too far to uncover a distressed gentleness on the other side of the pilfered street poses, protective toughness and boastful defensiveness. He good naturedly indulges me as I explore the idea of him transcending certain stereotypes, but ultimately, there's a flickering, deflecting mask – of clothing, behaviour, gesture and language – that he must stay behind.
Born Nathan Thompson – he was nicknamed Giggs because of his tendency to slyly, even shyly, giggle, often at the absurdity of a given situation – he was influenced by the original sinners NWA and dirty south hip-hop. The hardcore American myths of fighting rivals, making it and escaping the hood mingle with the swagger, anxiety and wariness of an English black man born in broken Peckham in the early 1980s, raised by a feisty single mum, a father himself at 21, who ended up spending two years in jail on gun charges, numbly emerging in 2005 with a plan to better himself.
Living in the area that he did, intelligent but brutally ambushed by fate, race, education and history, he had three choices: "I could deal drugs, rob or rap. Who's going to give me a job with my record?" Inspired by one of his five brothers, he started to rap as a hobby. He "sold his businesses," desperate to embark on a legitimate new life. He made up sentences that helped explain to him, and therefore others in his dire, inhibiting situation, the bottled-up the pain he felt at being underestimated, pinned down, ignored, driven into the thieving, violence and ganged-up mischief that confirms all mercilessly applied stereotypes. He talked about what he knew. It wasn't pretty.
He worried that his voice was strangely low and slow and wasn't deft like his heroes', but there were those who rated it. It was something different, enough to separate him from all the competing others seeing rap as their escape. He drops some contesting declarations over a steamed-up astutely nabbed Dre beat. "Talkin' The Hardest" is a self-marketed undercover hit. His first album, Walk in Da Park, shifts thousands of independently pressed copies. He wins UK rapper of the year at the Black Entertainment Television awards in America in 2008, beating Chipmunk, Dizzee and co.
Words came to Giggs, gathering in a piled-up, motivated rhythm he had copped from Rakim and Young Jeezy. He didn't know he knew the words he thought up. "It's like the guy who painted the future in Heroes – my eyes roll white and this stuff comes." He gets tongue-tied talking about how great he feels when he comes up with a trippy image, a cracking rhyme, a tense punchline, the mute, beleaguered hoodlum society had made him into beginning to make a living. He is breaking away from a familiar, crushing cycle of despair and destruction, by being articulate and organised. By reforming himself.
For whatever the establishment now is, the idea of a black, British star transmitting an embittered, alienated slang that graphically illustrates urban blight, that draws unnerving attention to a tense, endlessly fracturing racial divide, is deeply unwelcome. Giggs having a voice is a threat. He faces being beaten back into his old life, or beating the deeply prejudiced system that even in apparently more enlightened times, never expects, or wants, an unruly, desensitised ruffian to transform into a transgressive, inspirational thinker.
According to the authorities, Giggs is still a potential riot-inciting menace, thickly eulogising vengeance and violence, using music to cover his tracks; a terrible example to susceptible youths who, apparently, will not be inspired by the grim, lonely, angry docu-dramas Giggs narrates to pull out of a wretched domestic imitation of gang life and find new ways to express and locate themselves. The obstructing forces of censorship and restriction slowly gather, while Giggs, ominously gaining in stature, signs to XL Recordings of Prodigy, Thom Yorke, MIA and Vampire Weekend fame. He's banned from appearing live in London venues. Radio would like him to be a little, or a lot, more Chipmunk. He says he has no intention of slipping back into a life of crime. "Better things to do." His ambition stretches to far-fetched America, where, he says, they're surprised to hear there are British blacks.
Can he make it – hard, progressive, conscientious, fighting free of the cliches – without losing his grip, dissolving into posture, whitening his stance, giving in to the softening, modifying temptations of post-real iPop fame? Will he have to float free of deeper, stranger truths in order to succeed or can he keep his sting? Like an episode of Lost, the questions keep coming. We can only hope the answers astound us.
Guardian Articles Highlighted!
Tinchy Stryder; Magnetic Man – reviewShepherd's Bush Empire; Heaven, both London
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Kitty Empire The Observer, Sunday 7 November 2010 Article history
Tinchy Stryder at Shepherd’s Bush Empire: ‘You never get the feeling that he’s about to turn the language inside out.’ Photograph: Tom Watkins/ Rex Features
Is there no genre so forbidding that it cannot be made into pop? The story of home-grown urban music begs the question. Over the past couple of years, previously grim no-go areas of sound have been turned into lush playgrounds open to all. Grime and dubstep have undergone radical and lucrative makeovers, prettified into a blooming strain of chart-pop.
Where once there were wastelands full of knives and upturned shopping trolleys, children now play. Literally – Tinchy Stryder's west London gig is full of 12-year-olds having a whale of a time pretending to be in a hip-hop video, eyed up warily by Stryder's older fans.
Often, all it seems to have required is a little creative redistribution – the theft of beats from dance music, or the application of a nice girl singer on the chorus – to smuggle previously unthinkable sounds into the charts. Both tactics are out in full effect this week, as Stryder and dubstep super-group Magnetic Man play out their latest successes.
But perhaps the question is misguided. The problem lies in presupposing two monoliths, one with a shiny flag on it reading "mainstream" and one marked with a bullet-ridden plaque on which you can just about make out the word "underground". In reality, the progress of Tinchy Stryder (the bestselling British male artist of 2009, about to release his third album proper, Third Strike) and Magnetic Man (whose recent debut album was a Top 5 success) reveal more of a steady continuum in which old oppositions no longer apply.
In the encore to his short-but-sweet Thursday-night set, Stryder brings on N-Dubz singer Dappy to co-pilot "Number 1", their old hit from early last year. The crowd's screeching hits dog-whistle levels as the bouncy pop star appears, characteristically wearing a cagoule hood over a baseball cap. "Number 1" ticks all the boxes for crossover grime-pop functionality: romantic subject matter, club feel, big chorus, guest singer. It's flimsy but fun, and impossible to hate even if there are better songs out there (most of Dizzee's stuff, most of Tinie Tempah's).
The next track is something else altogether. The video-game themed "Game Over" features half a dozen rappers who have made the leap from pirate radio to record deals. Like an old-school grime mixtape come to life, Devlin, Professor Green, Skepta (who feels the need to wear a stab-proof vest but isn't actually on the record) and Tinchy's hype man Fuda Guy file onstage, led by Giggs. Giggs is a notionally reformed south London gangster whose stillness and delivery ooze real menace. But his guttural verse is lost in the screeching, whose volume exceeds the din that greeted Dappy. That these two visions of British hip-hop can coexist on one stage, and be received with equal hysteria by pre-teens, amounts to a defenestration of the rulebook.
The weakness in Stryder's non-stop, all-star show is Tinchy himself. An able operator who has signed a business deal with no less a mogul than Jay-Z, Stryder nevertheless lacks consistent verbal flair. His flows are perfectly adequate. His ear for a tune is sharp. But you never get the feeling – as with Jay-Z, or Dizzee, or even newcomer Devlin, tonight's support act – that he is about to turn the language inside out, which remains one old-school requirement for good hip-hop, wherever it charts.
Grime and dubstep's thefts from dance music have been obvious – exchanging ringtone sonics for raving synth stabs, for instance – and logically consistent. As long ago as the early 1990s, drum'n'bass – another theoretically unco-optable sound from a previous generation – was crossing over, with tracks like Baby D's shuffling "Let Me Be Your Fantasy", a model of sorts for Magnetic Man feat. Katy B's excellent "Perfect Stranger". Tracks such as Mr Oizo's "Flat Beat", meanwhile, introduced whumping sub-bass into chart discourse in 1999. So what dubstep producers Artwork, Benga and Skream are doing with their Magnetic Man project isn't exactly new.
But they have transposed formerly dank sonic aggression into something that vertiginously heeled 20-nothing girls can prance about to. And, witnessing how merciless MM are in their attempt to leave the crowd's eardrums discarded on the floor like so many crumpled plastic beer cups, it does seem a heroic project.
At its bass-y best – on the brilliant "K Dance" or "Anthemic", or any number of solo tracks by Skream or Benga that pad out the album tracklisting tonight – Magnetic Man's Wednesday-night show feels like being clouted round the head with two bin lids while a rodent gnaws its way into your navel. They play in a rig shaped like the prow of a ship, one covered in ever-mutating LEDs. Peering twitchily at MacBooks and pitch-shifting basslines with exaggerated movements, the three Magnetic Men give every impression of playing live while MC Sgt Pokes chats alongside them, like a pirate radio broadcast.
Suddenly, a revitalised Ms Dynamite appears onstage as though shot out of a rocket for a charged version of "Fire". But the working key to Magnetic Man's mainstream appeal comes in the form of dulcet-voiced Katy B, still loyally wearing her Rinse FM T-shirt even though the former pirate radio station's 16th birthday bash took place two months ago.
Her two tunes – "Crossover" and "Perfect Stranger" – don't feel like concessions or dilutions. "Crossover", for one, is full of dire warnings about crooks stealing your values. These are evolutions, in which a superbly paranoid genre has become something you could sing along to. And that whooshing noise? It's the sound of another rulebook flying out the window.
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Kitty Empire The Observer, Sunday 7 November 2010 Article history
Tinchy Stryder at Shepherd’s Bush Empire: ‘You never get the feeling that he’s about to turn the language inside out.’ Photograph: Tom Watkins/ Rex Features
Is there no genre so forbidding that it cannot be made into pop? The story of home-grown urban music begs the question. Over the past couple of years, previously grim no-go areas of sound have been turned into lush playgrounds open to all. Grime and dubstep have undergone radical and lucrative makeovers, prettified into a blooming strain of chart-pop.
Where once there were wastelands full of knives and upturned shopping trolleys, children now play. Literally – Tinchy Stryder's west London gig is full of 12-year-olds having a whale of a time pretending to be in a hip-hop video, eyed up warily by Stryder's older fans.
Often, all it seems to have required is a little creative redistribution – the theft of beats from dance music, or the application of a nice girl singer on the chorus – to smuggle previously unthinkable sounds into the charts. Both tactics are out in full effect this week, as Stryder and dubstep super-group Magnetic Man play out their latest successes.
But perhaps the question is misguided. The problem lies in presupposing two monoliths, one with a shiny flag on it reading "mainstream" and one marked with a bullet-ridden plaque on which you can just about make out the word "underground". In reality, the progress of Tinchy Stryder (the bestselling British male artist of 2009, about to release his third album proper, Third Strike) and Magnetic Man (whose recent debut album was a Top 5 success) reveal more of a steady continuum in which old oppositions no longer apply.
In the encore to his short-but-sweet Thursday-night set, Stryder brings on N-Dubz singer Dappy to co-pilot "Number 1", their old hit from early last year. The crowd's screeching hits dog-whistle levels as the bouncy pop star appears, characteristically wearing a cagoule hood over a baseball cap. "Number 1" ticks all the boxes for crossover grime-pop functionality: romantic subject matter, club feel, big chorus, guest singer. It's flimsy but fun, and impossible to hate even if there are better songs out there (most of Dizzee's stuff, most of Tinie Tempah's).
The next track is something else altogether. The video-game themed "Game Over" features half a dozen rappers who have made the leap from pirate radio to record deals. Like an old-school grime mixtape come to life, Devlin, Professor Green, Skepta (who feels the need to wear a stab-proof vest but isn't actually on the record) and Tinchy's hype man Fuda Guy file onstage, led by Giggs. Giggs is a notionally reformed south London gangster whose stillness and delivery ooze real menace. But his guttural verse is lost in the screeching, whose volume exceeds the din that greeted Dappy. That these two visions of British hip-hop can coexist on one stage, and be received with equal hysteria by pre-teens, amounts to a defenestration of the rulebook.
The weakness in Stryder's non-stop, all-star show is Tinchy himself. An able operator who has signed a business deal with no less a mogul than Jay-Z, Stryder nevertheless lacks consistent verbal flair. His flows are perfectly adequate. His ear for a tune is sharp. But you never get the feeling – as with Jay-Z, or Dizzee, or even newcomer Devlin, tonight's support act – that he is about to turn the language inside out, which remains one old-school requirement for good hip-hop, wherever it charts.
Grime and dubstep's thefts from dance music have been obvious – exchanging ringtone sonics for raving synth stabs, for instance – and logically consistent. As long ago as the early 1990s, drum'n'bass – another theoretically unco-optable sound from a previous generation – was crossing over, with tracks like Baby D's shuffling "Let Me Be Your Fantasy", a model of sorts for Magnetic Man feat. Katy B's excellent "Perfect Stranger". Tracks such as Mr Oizo's "Flat Beat", meanwhile, introduced whumping sub-bass into chart discourse in 1999. So what dubstep producers Artwork, Benga and Skream are doing with their Magnetic Man project isn't exactly new.
But they have transposed formerly dank sonic aggression into something that vertiginously heeled 20-nothing girls can prance about to. And, witnessing how merciless MM are in their attempt to leave the crowd's eardrums discarded on the floor like so many crumpled plastic beer cups, it does seem a heroic project.
At its bass-y best – on the brilliant "K Dance" or "Anthemic", or any number of solo tracks by Skream or Benga that pad out the album tracklisting tonight – Magnetic Man's Wednesday-night show feels like being clouted round the head with two bin lids while a rodent gnaws its way into your navel. They play in a rig shaped like the prow of a ship, one covered in ever-mutating LEDs. Peering twitchily at MacBooks and pitch-shifting basslines with exaggerated movements, the three Magnetic Men give every impression of playing live while MC Sgt Pokes chats alongside them, like a pirate radio broadcast.
Suddenly, a revitalised Ms Dynamite appears onstage as though shot out of a rocket for a charged version of "Fire". But the working key to Magnetic Man's mainstream appeal comes in the form of dulcet-voiced Katy B, still loyally wearing her Rinse FM T-shirt even though the former pirate radio station's 16th birthday bash took place two months ago.
Her two tunes – "Crossover" and "Perfect Stranger" – don't feel like concessions or dilutions. "Crossover", for one, is full of dire warnings about crooks stealing your values. These are evolutions, in which a superbly paranoid genre has become something you could sing along to. And that whooshing noise? It's the sound of another rulebook flying out the window.
Thursday 11 November 2010
regulation and censorship
Hip-hop has been making enemies for as long as it has been winning fans. It has been dismissed as noise, blamed for concert riots, accused of glorifying crime and sexism and greed and Ebonics. From Run-D.M.C. to Sister Souljah to Tupac Shakur to Young Jeezy, the story of hip-hop is partly the story of those who have been irritated, even horrified, by it.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/25/arts/music/25hiph.html?_r=1
this is a music video that has been baned from TV as it contains a sexual nature .
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/25/arts/music/25hiph.html?_r=1
this is a music video that has been baned from TV as it contains a sexual nature .
Gender Theories
How the Media Define Masculinity
Families, friends, teachers, and community leaders all play a role in helping boys define what it means to be a man. Mainstream media representations also play a role in reinforcing ideas about what it means to be a "real" man in our society. In most media portrayals, male characters are rewarded for self-control and the control of others, aggression and violence, financial independence, and physical desirability.
http://board.rapmusic.com/ladies-delight/996958-gender-stereotypes-representation-popular-media.html
Families, friends, teachers, and community leaders all play a role in helping boys define what it means to be a man. Mainstream media representations also play a role in reinforcing ideas about what it means to be a "real" man in our society. In most media portrayals, male characters are rewarded for self-control and the control of others, aggression and violence, financial independence, and physical desirability.
http://board.rapmusic.com/ladies-delight/996958-gender-stereotypes-representation-popular-media.html
THEORIES
Audience Theories
Audience theory is an element of thinking that developed within academic literary theory and cultural studies. Different types of audience theories include:
Two-step flow: The people with most access to media, and highest media literacy explain and diffuse the content to others. This is a modern version of the hypodermic needle model.
The hypodermic needle model: The intended message is directly received and wholly accepted by the receiver.
Reception theory: The meaning of a "text" is not inherent within the text itself, but the audience must elicit meaning based on their individual cultural background and life experiences.
Uses and gratifications: People are not helpless victims of mass media, but use the media to get specific gratifications.
Relevant Reading Material:
Audience Theories
Audience theory is an element of thinking that developed within academic literary theory and cultural studies. Different types of audience theories include:
Two-step flow: The people with most access to media, and highest media literacy explain and diffuse the content to others. This is a modern version of the hypodermic needle model.
The hypodermic needle model: The intended message is directly received and wholly accepted by the receiver.
Reception theory: The meaning of a "text" is not inherent within the text itself, but the audience must elicit meaning based on their individual cultural background and life experiences.
Uses and gratifications: People are not helpless victims of mass media, but use the media to get specific gratifications.
Relevant Reading Material:
Moral Panics
It may sound absurd, but Birmingham is increasingly being compared to the worst parts of Los Angeles, while some areas of London are said to be more dangerous than Soweto. And while this street warfare has caused many deaths, there have been few convictions, as English gangs practice their own Mafia inspired code of silence.
Organised crime is on the increase not only in Britain, but worldwide, particularly in Europe, and many argue that much of the so-called 'gun culture' is inspired by American gangsta-rap. Artists such as Snoop Dogg, NWA and the late Notorious B.I.G are frequently condemned for espousing the values of violence, intolerance and the idealisation of guns in their music, with some US rap stars gaining greater prestige for their personal gun convictions. Closer to home, Ashley Wallace, aka Asher D of So Solid Crew, was jailed for 18 months last year for the possession of a revolver and live ammunition.
http://www.culturemachine.net/index.php/cm/article/viewArticle/7/6
A moral panic is the intensity of feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_panic
this link shows why the public would be having a mornal panic of hip hop in uk as it is seen to be a form of life that many peopleare scared of. due to hoodies and asbo's
Organised crime is on the increase not only in Britain, but worldwide, particularly in Europe, and many argue that much of the so-called 'gun culture' is inspired by American gangsta-rap. Artists such as Snoop Dogg, NWA and the late Notorious B.I.G are frequently condemned for espousing the values of violence, intolerance and the idealisation of guns in their music, with some US rap stars gaining greater prestige for their personal gun convictions. Closer to home, Ashley Wallace, aka Asher D of So Solid Crew, was jailed for 18 months last year for the possession of a revolver and live ammunition.
http://www.culturemachine.net/index.php/cm/article/viewArticle/7/6
A moral panic is the intensity of feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_panic
this link shows why the public would be having a mornal panic of hip hop in uk as it is seen to be a form of life that many peopleare scared of. due to hoodies and asbo's
Representation & Stereotypes
Representation & Stereotypes
Hip-hop music can be used to portray artists, their communities and their music in a profound way. Unfortunately hip hop is now using their music to portray a negative and demeaning image on the black community and women.
I think only black people can truly understand the impact being called the n-word can bring. Thats why I can't begin to understand why these rappers and hip hop artists (most of whom are black) can use the word and think of it like it's nothing. If a white person said that word, forget it. But to me I think it is worse to be called a b*ch by another women than by a man. Women know what it feels like to have these words slung at them, the same way black people know the power of the n-word. Why would you choose to promote that word in any way?
http://www.helium.com/items/358167-hip-hops-negative-effect-on-racial-stereotypes.
A stereotype is a commonly held popular belief about specific social groups or types of individuals. The concepts of "stereotype" and "prejudice" are often confused with many other different meanings. Stereotypes are standardized and simplified conceptions of groups based on some prior assumptions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype
this link above shows a negative represenattion on black and white females as they are seen as sex objects and only there for show.
Hip-hop music can be used to portray artists, their communities and their music in a profound way. Unfortunately hip hop is now using their music to portray a negative and demeaning image on the black community and women.
I think only black people can truly understand the impact being called the n-word can bring. Thats why I can't begin to understand why these rappers and hip hop artists (most of whom are black) can use the word and think of it like it's nothing. If a white person said that word, forget it. But to me I think it is worse to be called a b*ch by another women than by a man. Women know what it feels like to have these words slung at them, the same way black people know the power of the n-word. Why would you choose to promote that word in any way?
http://www.helium.com/items/358167-hip-hops-negative-effect-on-racial-stereotypes.
A stereotype is a commonly held popular belief about specific social groups or types of individuals. The concepts of "stereotype" and "prejudice" are often confused with many other different meanings. Stereotypes are standardized and simplified conceptions of groups based on some prior assumptions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereotype
this link above shows a negative represenattion on black and white females as they are seen as sex objects and only there for show.
Monday 8 November 2010
research
this is an american music video that sets of negative representation of hip-hop music this is for the reason that 'wiz' is seen smoking weed in the video for someone that had never seen this they would assume that all hip-hop stars are like this.
reasearch
this video does not set of such negativty as there is not much on the narative on the music video.
how ever if lyrics were taken into concideration then this can be seen as a song that spilts the audiance on weather it is a good representation or negative this is due to who's rapping.
research!
this is a music video that can seen as giving negative representations to young black males in the music industry this is for the reason that they are seen as hoodies, durg users and salers. when making my linked production i wish to follow these types of codes and conventions as i think this best answers my question on who is to blame for the impression given by these people.
Friday 5 November 2010
bianca's essay!
What are the different representations of women in adverts and how are they signified?
The representation of women can be positive: challenging the roles and expectations of women or negative: reinforcing a patriarchal society. This essay questions how and why these representations are constructed in an advert for Gucci Guilty Perfume and Stella Artois beer.
Firstly the Gucci advert is in widescreen which connotes a dramatic cinematic experience to engage its audience. More attention is gained by the female character first seen in the text and her protagonist is signified through this. The protagonist has female dominance which is signified through the use of colour- everything is in black and white while her hair is gold/blonde. This colour connotes gold, power and divinity signifying her importance in the text.
The use of intertextuality in this text will appeal to a particular audience. The film references a great deal to the neo film noir Sin City, with the use of colour and the female dominant femme fatale character. Sin City appeals to a male audience due to the action genre, this trailer could also appeal to the same audience due to the intertextuality. In terms of the Uses and Gratifications theory, a female audience might realise and accept the protagonist in the text is a form of escapism and also a male gaze, by theorist Mulvey, and therefore might aspire, from Young and Rubicam's 4Cs, to be the object of male gaze too.
Though the protagonist is an object of male gaze, it could be suggested that she sexually objectifies herself to tease the audience. The protagonist puts her leg into the frame of the shot. As she puts into the frame, it signifies self objectification, allowing the audience to fetishise her body. Another shot, a high angle, of their sexual activities signifies CCTV and spying which is voyeuristic. The fact she is on top signifies her control of the situation for both the male character and the audience.
Not only does the protagonist exert her feminity through self objectification she also presents herself as an anarchic character signified by adopting male stereotypes. The advert begins with a long shot of an unknown character speeding down the motorway, which stereotypically would be expected to be a male character. However, the audience's expectations are challenged when a medium shot of the driver shows to be a female.
In contrast, women are negatively represented in the Stella Artois text. The most obvious editing technique used in the advert is the split screen: one side shows the female getting dressed and the other side is of the beer getting "prepared". This use of split screen signifies that neither the beer nor the woman know they have been placed side by side. This puts the audience in position of control as they can voyeur the woman, in a socially acceptable way. Audiences may identify this control as patriarchy, and also identify with the unknown male character whose presence is felt within the text. This text then reinforces the idea of a patriarchal society and that women are subordinated by men.
Not only does the female share the screen with the beer, but the screen is split equally between the two "objects" which connotes the woman is equally objectified to the status of beer. It is suggested the audience is male due to the female and beer subject. Though the advert is targeted at men, it also negatively stereotypes men as people who have little respect for women which however is a dominant representation.
A range of close up shots of the female are used to fetishise her body. There is a close up shot of the female's leg slowly and elegantly rising from the bath tub. On one hand this could signify femininity and her control over it which is the oppositional reading. However, the more dominant reading is that her legs are an important part of the female body and connotes a male audience who can voyeur her body.
The text near the beginning of the trailer says "the preparation" which is an enigma code as the audience question "what event is the preparation for?". It is signified through the shots that the woman and beer preparation is for the male through the use of action codes. Action codes of both the preparation of the woman and the glass of beer are the same.
Women are represented as people who prioritise their looks and appearance, and this ad reinforces this ideology. Action codes including close ups of her: brushing her hair, doing her make up and putting on heels strongly represent women as image conscious. It could be said that the advert reinforces this representation, which is always seen in the media. Funnily enough, it could also be said that the media itself is the cause of this representation as this ideal, perfect woman is always represented in the media, and women feel they have to aspire to it.
In conclusion, both texts females are the protagonists and are sexually objectified for male audiences to fetishise and vouyer their bodies. However, while Gucci’s advert’s protagonist controls her sexuality through self objectification, the Stella Artois’ protagonist is objectified by an unknown but present male character.
In the Gucci’s ad, there are many examples in the text that signify the protagonist’s female dominance, but it is arguable whether this could be seen as a positive representation. The dominant reading is that the protagonist exerts her female dominance over the male challenging the historical patriarchal society and even subordinating males as easily manipulated and easily tempted by women and sex and this would favour feminism. However the oppositional reading which would favour the ideologies of the Stella Artois advert, might be that females can control their sexuality, but it is still for the male gaze and male dominant society.
Thursday 4 November 2010
critical investigation & linked productions.
critical investigation & linked productions.
• Are black people misrepresented in hip-hop music videos?
• Hip hop music video with examples of misrepresented people (gang, d
rugs)
Best idea-
Media Language- mis en scene- estate’s street corners houses
Institution-...
Genre- music
Representation- on young black males
Audience- black males, 13-19
Ideologies- sexually objectified women, chases, violance.
Narrative-...
Social- increase in crime lead by black people.
Historical- how has crime increased since grime/ hip-hop have become mainstream
Economical- ...
Political- is it due to representation from the media that the police are tougher on young black males.
• Are black people misrepresented in hip-hop music videos?
• Hip hop music video with examples of misrepresented people (gang, d
rugs)
Best idea-
Media Language- mis en scene- estate’s street corners houses
Institution-...
Genre- music
Representation- on young black males
Audience- black males, 13-19
Ideologies- sexually objectified women, chases, violance.
Narrative-...
Social- increase in crime lead by black people.
Historical- how has crime increased since grime/ hip-hop have become mainstream
Economical- ...
Political- is it due to representation from the media that the police are tougher on young black males.
Monday 1 November 2010
Media Magazine Conference...
Session 1 : David Buckingham - Why do people talk rubbish about media studies?
people angry over showing the simpons in lesson rather than shakespare
argument back to them would be that Simpsons shows a lot of social and family values.
media is important when considered for A-levels and University choices.
Media studies can provide students with life skills as well as knowledge on the world today.
Session 2: Dr jullian mcdougal Online Media
Media 1.0 - Print, Newspapers - dieing age of media
- he thinks that in 10 -15 years time books will be dieing or extinct.
Media 2.0 - Internet, Technology - New and developing age of media
- Media 2.0, then, will be more about people and less about ‘the media’.
Session 3: Pete Fraser - Practical Productions
Research
- Find real examples
- who is your Target Audience
- what Institution?
- Platforms are you going to chose
Plan
- Initial Plan - step by step of actions and to do lists
Show Evidence
- Story boards
Get feedback
- Keep record of it
- Diray
- produection log
Logistics:
People, place, props, costume
Get started early
Share contact details
Production
- Commence filming
- Record addtional footage
- Cover all and some extra angles
Session 4: Annete Hill - Paranormal activities
did not understand what her point was.
people angry over showing the simpons in lesson rather than shakespare
argument back to them would be that Simpsons shows a lot of social and family values.
media is important when considered for A-levels and University choices.
Media studies can provide students with life skills as well as knowledge on the world today.
Session 2: Dr jullian mcdougal Online Media
Media 1.0 - Print, Newspapers - dieing age of media
- he thinks that in 10 -15 years time books will be dieing or extinct.
Media 2.0 - Internet, Technology - New and developing age of media
- Media 2.0, then, will be more about people and less about ‘the media’.
Session 3: Pete Fraser - Practical Productions
Research
- Find real examples
- who is your Target Audience
- what Institution?
- Platforms are you going to chose
Plan
- Initial Plan - step by step of actions and to do lists
Show Evidence
- Story boards
Get feedback
- Keep record of it
- Diray
- produection log
Logistics:
People, place, props, costume
Get started early
Share contact details
Production
- Commence filming
- Record addtional footage
- Cover all and some extra angles
Session 4: Annete Hill - Paranormal activities
did not understand what her point was.
critical investigation & linked productions.
• Are black people misrepresented in hip-hop music videos?
• Hip hop music video with examples of misrepresented people (gang, d
rugs)
Best idea-
Media Language- mis en scene- estate’s street corners houses
Institution-...
Genre- music
Representation- on young black males
Audience- black males, 13-19
Ideologies- sexually objectified women, chases, violance.
Narrative-...
Social- increase in crime lead by black people.
Historical- how has crime increased since grime/ hip-hop have become mainstream
Economical- ...
Political- is it due to representation from the media that the police are tougher on young black males.
• Young blacks males represented in the news ‘hoodie culture’.
• Documentary covering the positives and negatives on young black males in the news.
Is the media responsible for the amount of gun and knife crime in the UK?
Documentary with youths stating how they feel on the way the media
• Hip hop music video with examples of misrepresented people (gang, d
rugs)
Best idea-
Media Language- mis en scene- estate’s street corners houses
Institution-...
Genre- music
Representation- on young black males
Audience- black males, 13-19
Ideologies- sexually objectified women, chases, violance.
Narrative-...
Social- increase in crime lead by black people.
Historical- how has crime increased since grime/ hip-hop have become mainstream
Economical- ...
Political- is it due to representation from the media that the police are tougher on young black males.
• Young blacks males represented in the news ‘hoodie culture’.
• Documentary covering the positives and negatives on young black males in the news.
Is the media responsible for the amount of gun and knife crime in the UK?
Documentary with youths stating how they feel on the way the media
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