Hip Hop in the Media

For me personally, I find it extremely hard to define what hip hop is because I have never really paid that much attention to the genre in the past. However, I do believe hip hop is a type of culture defined by the styles of music, styles of dress, and the way in which people converse with one another.


The five hip hop artist that I listened to were as follows:
1. Mos Def
2. Wale
3. Atmosphere
4. Andre Hickatina
5. Devin the Dude

The five hip hop music videos I watched were as follows:
1. Kanye West – Street Lights
2. The Cool Kids – Pennies
3. Kidz in the Hall – Love Hangover
4. Consequence – Disperse
5. Kanye West – Good Life

For the radio stations, I just listen to the two top 40 style radio stations, 102.7 and 104, to listen to hip hop music.

As for companies utilizing hip hop in their advertisements, I thought of the Pepsi commercials from a few years back that had rappers like 50 cent in them. Also, I thought about my dad’s company he is the national sales manager for, And1. In the And 1 advertisements my dad has shown me from the company, I have seen them utilize a lot of what I would consider hip hop style influences over the past couple years he has had the account.

I feel as though quite a bit from the hip hop culture has become very mainstreamed in our society today. I definitely think rap is becoming more and more mainstreamed as younger generations of all types are becoming involved with rap and trying to make up their own. I also think that we use a lot of the words that come from this culture such as “bling” or “ghetto” on a fairly average basis. I think one can see the influences through fashion, the way people talk, and just through music itself to see how hip hop is impacting us all the time.

When my parents were younger or about my age at 21 they were living in the seventies and all about bands like Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, Fleetwood Mac, and I can promise you my mother was still all about the Beatles. The two were never and still never really into hip hop music and liked more 60s and 70s rock for my dad and perhaps more of the pop sound for my mom. I grew up listening to these artists and still listen to them all the time and definitely think my dad’s love for the seventies chiller rock bands like Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd were a major influence into the styles of music my brother and I listen to today,

Since I am not very well versed in the whole hip hop culture and society, I would say I definitely have more of an outsider’s point of view when it comes to how hip hop is viewed as a whole in mainstream society. I think that what we all hear about hip hop is how the music has these terrible lyrics about drugs, sex, pimps, alcohol, violence and never really anything else. I think the same definitely goes for music videos. When we think about hip hop and rap music videos, you naturally assume it will have gorgeous girls in little to no clothing grinding on and dancing with the rapper or singer who is wearing entirely too much “bling” and a ridiculous outfit. However, I do believe these are just stereotypes and people tend to dwell on the bad aspects of the culture rather than the positive. I think ever culture has it bad and good aspects and we all have to be willing to open our eyes and really learn about the culture before any of us can pass judgments on what the culture is or isn’t.