Thursday 20 November 2014

Notes and quotes

"Them hoes use to diss when we always bruk"
The word "hoes" objectifies women which makes young boys believe women are good for nothing. 
"I hit that bitch one time"
Again objectification with the word "bitch" 
"Even though I'm star im out here selling coke"
This shows he is a drug dealer and is not ashamed to tell the world.
"If her body looks dead ill just probably get head"
Again making women look bad, also doesn't mind telling people how he treats women. 
"Then I taught him how to whip crack"
Teaching the younger generation how to make and sell drugs. Makes younger kids think this is cool.

"If I count my stack I finish a day later"
Showing the amount of money drugs can generate. Makes kids want to go into the drug game. 
"Niggas say I move hot because I make the tools pop" 
Hes not afraid to shoot anyone, which is a mentality alot of youth have today. 
"When i come through them hoes fix up their weave"
Shows that if you have money, accroding to nines, girls will run to you. 



Main Texts 
Negative influence of Rap
Impact of Rap on youth
Two sides to the argument
Nines jailed
Giggs Interview- Guardian

Rap music and Crime 
Daliy Mail
“Rap music and hip hop, with their particular emphasis on sex and demeaning depictions of women, were blamed for encouraging early sexual behaviour, leading to the spread of disease and underage pregnancies.”
This quote from the Daily Mail implies that the rap music listened to can influence people to have sex and have teen pregnancies and get STD’s. But is it really the music that does this or peoples lack of awareness and morals?
"These lyrics depict men as sexually insatiable, women as sexual objects, and sexual intercourse as inconsequential.
He believes, in music videos, rappers objectify women and make them like a medal because when you get them, people gain more respect for you. Refer to (“Nines music videos” section).
"These portrayals objectify and degrade women in ways that are clear but they do the same to men by depicting them as sex-driven studs.”
He believes women are put down by the men, and not viser versa. This may be the case in rap music, but in pop music by females, men are portrayed as dogs. This may balance it out.
“Musicians who use this type of sexual imagery are communicating something very specific about what sexual roles are appropriate, and teenage listeners may act on these messages.”
Teenagers and youths are more likely to do what these rappers are saying as they are condoning it and making it look cool.
“These lyrics are likely to promote the acceptance of women as sexual objects and men as pursuers of sexual conquest. Despite the fact that degrading sexual lyrics are particularly demeaning for women, they affect adolescent boys and girls similarly."

This quote shows that due to the music, boy want to chase girls to become like one of the rappers, because their lifestyle looks good, and any youth that hasn’t seen life as good as that, which makes him take everything the rappers say as truth and something to aspire to be like. Also because women are objectified in the music, girls who don’t have that positive female influence may go on to be objectified because they think it’s normal.
"Censorship is not a solution. But talking to children about music's sexual content can give parents a chance to express their own views, and may prompt teens to think more deeply about the ways in which sex is portrayed - and perhaps distorted - in the music they listen to," 
He believes that youth need to be taught that thing said in music videos are wrong and some of the concepts are wrong, but it shouldn’t be censored because it is their passion, but if children are told that the topics they talk about may be wrong, they can just listen to the music and not be lead down a wrong path by the music.

"There are a lot of degrading lyrics but I don't want to shut these guys down. I hope that parents can steer kids away from these kinds of things until they are old enough to understand them," 

This quote shows that she doesn’t think rap music should be cut down, but the teens and youth that listen to it should be at an age where they understand how to just listen to the music and not do everything the rappers say are cool. 
BBC News
“But the government is being criticised on two counts. First that the proposals are a knee jerk reaction to the New Year killings and woundings in Birmingham, and secondly that they are making a dangerous link between guns and black rap music without any evidence.”
The government or police, have no real evidence that rap music is the reason for all the deaths and stabbings in the UK. The government and police are using this as shorthand, and scapegoating rap music, as it can bring a moral panic to a genre of music that is heavily scrutinised by many people in the UK.
“In particular the Culture minister Kim Howells warned that black rap musicians were creating a culture in which killing was almost a fashion accessory.”
This is a quote that many people would agree with, because of the lyrics that some of the songs have. But is it really the main reason why people are killing others. Other aspects of their life could be the reason for this.


NY Times
Daily Mail 2




Documentaries and Videos 

Giggs Interview 
Giggs Interview with the Guardian
“We can't hide away from our history of gritty youth culture”
This quote from Giggs shows that he doesn’t mind showing people about drugs guns and crime because it was his life and he is not ashamed of doing so.
The gritty culture has made gigs the person he is not with an XL deal and a father.

“It’s a sign that music can have power”
This shows that what rappers say can be taken as gospel from the youths that listen to their music, and if the music is not promoting good behaviour, crime and drug use may go up.

“Everyone says it’s negative what I’m talking about, but its everyday life to me”
Music is used to express life and because a lot of British grime and rap artist are living in hardships, they then talk about that as it is all they know.

“Nearly everyone’s got one for protection”
This shows that guns are normal in society and people use it for protection which shows the lyrics in the songs are real and are not meant to make everyone get a gun but to tell people that having a gun is the norm.

“How much people are oblivious to it”
It seems like a shock because other people are in their own bubbles and don’t know how bad it is in some estates and how bad the poverty can get. This means that when they hear the explicit content of the music videos and the lyrics, they are shocked and hardly believe it.

“It sounds like you’re making it up or bragging”
Due to the videos and the sounds, it may seem like rappers are happy with the life they are living, but it maybe that they are just giving a visual representation of their life.

“They’re scared of that world being true”
Because they are doing so well in life, some people don’t want to look at poverty in the streets, but they would prefer to scape goat them and condemn them.

“I’m going to talk about what I am going to talk about”
This shows that regardless of whether people like his music or not, he will still rap about the same things because those things are the things that mean a lot to him as he has went through that in his life.

“That’s not the life I am living”
He’s not going to change is lyrics to nice fun things because his life isn’t nice or fun. This shows he raps about how he feels and relevance


“Personally, in my opinion, I absolutely hate rap, rap is the worst music for a child's cognitive development, because, all rap sings about is poverty, sex, youth violence, high school/college drop outs, substance abuse, etc.!”  This was a person who believes rap music is bad due to the content.

“Yes there is rap music that will talk about drugs and violence but then there is so much quality amazing rap artists the write about the world, their lives and humanity. Their songs have true meaning to them that actually touches you and causes you to feel something when you listen to it.” The other side to the argument saying that rap music is just words, people don’t really need to take it literally.


“Rap music has gone from condemning drug use to glorifying it”
Before, drugs were “allowed” to be taken or sold, but now selling drugs is the main theme of most British rap songs. Drug references are also normal in most rap songs.
Giggs interview 2

Skrapz interview





Other Texts:

Snap Capone Music videos 
Other estate's Music Video's 

1,553 words 


Monday 3 November 2014

Proposal 2

Working title:
Does rap music and artist like "Nines" create a negative representation of black youth?


Angle:
What impact does urban music videos have? Does it indoctrinate young black people to chase a hopeless dream and be that negative representation?

Hypothesis:
Music videos have made young black boys believe, being a "gangster" is "cool."


Linked production piece:
Music Video to a nines track.

MIGRAIN

Who is being represented?
Youths in the UK and US are being represented as "Chavs" and "Ghetto." They have been represented like that by news companies, which leaks onto middle classed people who watch the news and read newspapers and gives then an invalid representation of youth in the UK and US. The representation is not true to all types of youth in those two countries, however, it could be seen that way, because all you see in the news is mainly black boys causing trouble in the streets of London, or any other city. However, I don't just think it is the news that gives such a representation of youth like this, it is also movies and music videos that do so. Music videos in the UK and US are seen by many people in the world, which can give a negative stereotype of youth. Examples of this includes:-
Chief Keef
Bobby Shmurda


Media Language and forms
Nines' music videos are connontated as a glorification of real life on the streets,causing kids to want to do so. It is also connotated as an enlightenment to middle classed people, a little look of how it is to struggle.
People who have no idea about the roads, just take Nines' videos as a shorthand, and they think is everything is truth, which makes youth look bad.
There are many gesturges that make the music videos seem like truth, for instance, the handshakes the greetings, also, the costumes plays a big big part in what viewers think, they think, everyone who wears baggy jeans hats, hoodies and gucci shoes are drug dealers. Alot of props are used, such as guns, drugs and money. Also I think women could be seen as props, as they are objectified in some of the videos.
The costumes again play a big part in portraying a particular image of black lifestyle to viewers. Also the lighting is very dull, showing that there is no happiness on the estates, which shows to viewers, people that live on council estates are not happy.

Narrative
The narrative is a multi layered narrative,because there is no real equilibrium and disequilibrium All of the boys n the gang and ion the estate are seen as heroes, the other people that are not seen but rapped about are seen as villains 
The estate is alienated, as it looks like there is nothing else to do but stay on the estate. The themes of the music videos are Drugs, Money and Freedom.

Genre
This type if music belongs to the grime/British rap genre. There is low lighting, fast paced music and narrative, alot of tension. Costume, clothes, the way they talk and speak is generic to this genre. The generic themes of this genre are the themes: Money Drugs, Power and Freedom. The characters are very generic, they talk, dress and look like they are from the ghetto. They don't have their head screwed on book wise, but they are very street wise. This is a typical genre for this type of music video.

Issues and Debates 
The main issues and debates are stereotyping and representation. This is because black people are always stereotyped negatively. this causes the,to fit into the stereotypes and act how the media want them to act to allow the media to be right about what they said. 

Young kids between the ages of 11-18 see this type of music as cool, and something to aspire to. So they want to be like the artists. But society tells them that they are wrong to want to be like these artist, but don't give them someone else to be like, because the majority of black people in the news are on the news for negative reasons. 


Top boy and these other movies aren't reality TV, but the music videos seem to be reality. Alot of rappers make it look like its reality, because they are rapping on their road, on the estate with all their friends which shows to the audience it is real.


There is a big moral panic in and around the UK because due to the knife crime and gun crime saga. As that seemed to die down, the London riots came and put the people of London into another moral panic. An example the moral panics from the London Riots is the daily mail article which causes fear and poor decision making from readers. This can also allow people to jump onto the bandwagon for the hatred of black youth.


SHEP

Social 
Single parent families and families without father figures take this music more literally than others.


Historical
9/11 made people more aware of terrorism

Economical 
Working class poorer people are more likely to listen and take these videos in the wrong manner. The reccession also made the working classed black people become poorer, which causes them to move to crime and music as it is a way to make fast money if you are good at it.

Political 
The government are not fans of this music, but like the show as it is a way of "dry snitching" Also how the riots were shown all over TV as main news headlines caused readers and viewers to take a political stand point due to way the riots were publicised in and around the UK

Audience theories


American nightmare

This can kind of be a another theory related to, even though we are not in the UK. as there are places in poverty, that are shown hostility by government, police and other people. There is fear of all kinds of terrorism due to the 9/11 attack. There are people in the UK that want to have a better life but can't so they resort to selling drugs and committing crimes which is quick money. This is what they rap about.

Medhurst

This shows that films and music videos may use short hands to show different things that can be a quick reminder of what type of video it is. Rappers put a fasade on to make them seem "badder" than they actually are which makes them tap into the stereotype of black youth.

Perkins  

Some of the stereotypes are positive and true, which means media and audiences are able to put the represented people in a category. 

The copycat theory

Children want to be like the people that are famous in the media and that have some sort of power, so music videos that shows the lavish lifestyle of drug dealers, makes them want to be a part of it  


Main Text:
Nines 

other focus' include:
Stormzy
Snap Capone
Skepta 

Documentaries

Educating black boys topdocumentaryfilms.com

University Docs

http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED293951
http://www.safetylit.org/citations/index.php?fuseaction=citations.viewdetails&citationIds%5B%5D=citjournalarticle_414616_38
http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/ort/54/1/6/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1580145/
http://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=en&lr=&id=3k4uqLaRRN8C&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=black+youth&ots=rujIsBxKEW&sig=B0-KBfTfk7f85hqkQUH0OwAS7mI#v=onepage&q=black%20youth&f=false

Links 

Guardian
Grime Report
Telegraph