Reality of the Hood through Music

 Tj Bush

Eng-2017

11-24-2021


Reality of the Hood through Music


What is usually heard in music is described as senseless violence and for the most part you are right, but it is simply reality those who come from the hood. Usually when an animal is in a different environment, it adapts to survive and its simply the same in black communities. When someone speaks out about animal savage like nature of communities it is unheard or just talked about in circles until people come to the conclusion to ignorantly do nothing. So how do those in the hood get heard when they make music? “American Popular Music, a time when deeply emotional, compulsively danceable and openly erotic music”, but in today this music is made by urban communities and also the main source of quality is killing and drugs only because they feel that's the only way they can live in peace.


Music goes on a rise for black people since the Harlem Renissance and later again with the introduction of gangsta rap in the 1980’s. “In this game it’s no love, either kill or be killed” stated Young M.A. a hip hop artist states and this is the truth figuratively and literally. In “Passing” murder or lynchings were heard about in just about every way possible. Considering this was older times people even managed to demonize this music which is by far more genuinely written. White people  back then demonized black people’s reality and today it has done the same for people and children in the hood. It doesn't make the music bad  or good. Artists compose their pain and experiences but all artists do not live the same. The most ignorant thing that is said to those who live to what is called thug, gangsta, and grimy lives  is to plainly not live the way that they do. As I thought about this i reverted to think about Passing. Clare simply stops being black and is fair enough to pass as white angers Irene at the lack of respect of her people. Black people are prideful people this would not be tolerated by the black community let alone the hood. In the black community this would be classified as “coon behavior” and would get you shunned . In the hood this is considered as a fake or unreal person which would get someone killed. So white people or people in general think it’s easy to not live the lives we do but if we do manage to break away from the hood, we lose a home, and then we become hated by both sides. Others do not understand and it makes them ignorant to the environment we are forced in. “This proposition draws from an understanding that environmental racism includes the mutual devaluation of Black bodies and the spaces in which they inhabit. I ground this study in Afro-Pessimist and Black geographies thought, research on environmental racism and cultural analyses of Black literary and performance art” stated by Willie Jamaal Wright .  So some reach out for help or even cry out for it with a very few being heard. So knowing there is no help coming we just simply do what we have to survive on a daily basis. Being seen as savages, animal or racial slurs to demean us. We show that we have music in our hearts and some make it for the world to see how the world we live is centered around drugs and killing. Edward G. Armstrong comments, “Based on the production-of-culture perspective, musical genres are considered socially constructed organizing principles and lyrics”. It’s also hard to break the chain of violence and hood activity as we see with gangsta rappers not being able to enjoy their fame and fortune simply because they simply want to be back in the place they know.


If money is the goal to better better why won't they be better after receiving it? The answer falls from my thoughts as well. With money and reach through music its a recurring source of pain and suffering. Errol A. Henderson article read “This Afrocentric rendering could help promote a national culture to replace the popular (faddish) culture of violence and sexism and both wed African Americans to the best in their culture and allow them to more directly profit from their cultural product.” One thing we don't seem to think about rap music does to those who are easily influenced is our children. Rap sends a message of pain and cold psychopathic behavior straight back in the community we try to uplift , but it seems that the music we make is doing the opposite of the uplifting. In “Passing” Irene is greatly aware of the killing of her people and tries to shield her children from the truth to save them from the hate developing in their hearts and hate from those around them. Whites killing blacks is not new but what is new is the ways of killing us. In today's society, it’s music. We may have invented but it is wide spread by those who see us as a means to an end or just a money maker. It's killing us slowly, but that's always been the goal for those outside of our communities to watch us die slowly even using things as small as whispers to something main stream and freely accessible for the entire community. These students experienced and reflected on violence in their lives and in popular culture…or reflected upon rap music and hip-hop culture, particularly its representations of violence,” This affects our kids, our future, and what future would we have if we kill each other if we have killed each with music.

Work Cited


https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/anti.12425

https://research.library.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1015&context=baahp_essays

Errol A. Henderson

Edward G. Armstrong\

Jabari Mahiri

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