Footsteps
This chapter in Footsteps in the Dark really aggravated me. I am a firm believer that all music is good. Music is a way of expressing ones self, so how can people get upset when all someone is doing is expressing themselves. Yes, the lyrics are not exactly PG but that is the language that they have been brought up on. They way that they are expressing themselves is the way they were taught to do so. Yes the language might not be the kindest but the views are very vivid and are things that listeners love to try and relate to.
A common theme in most of this music is putting down women. Do this creates a conflict between gangsta rappers and women in which these men struggle to empower themselves. Gangsta rap is their means of this empowerment. It is there way of expressing their emotions through music. The medium of rap music allows them, once empowered, the personal freedom to define themselves, their environments, their lifestyles, and their perceptions of the world. This is just like any other music. I think its hard to enourage someone to express themselves their entire lifes and then when they finally do, you are upset in the matter that they did it in. Just like other musics gnagsta rap draws from many different images.
The gangster rapper seeks to assert himself as a man, as white men are able to do when they become successful. But, in order to do so, he must claim his innocence as a power. That is, why must take on this "me against the world" mentality in which he trusts no one and labels himself greatly misunderstood. If the rapper can claim such innocence, then he can create a power position in which he can view black women as objects and also use them as scapegoats for his own shortcomings.
It may not seem like the most obvious thing to do, but this is the way rappers have been treating their music since rap first began, and how they all tend to have some of the same personal views. They have this because rappers tend to come from the same...
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