Dr. Lance Williams, assistant director of the Jacob H. Caruthers Center for Inner City Studies (CCICS), presented students and faculty with a multimedia presentation that examined the universal impact of rap on the adolescent population. The highlights of the production consisted of what hip-hop was, its current state, and who it influences.
Hip-hop has been around since the early 70’s. Some of hip-hop’s original pioneers consisted of socially conscious artists like; Kool Herc and the Herculoids, MC Lyte, Kurtis Blow, Grandmaster Flash, The Sugar Hill Gang, Queen Latifah, Run DMC, and Jack the Rapper. Hip-hop at that time was lyrically informative, heartfelt, and positive according to Williams.
Hip-hop artists presented the audience with political, social economical and virtuous messages. Hip-hop was fun loving and people were able to recite the lines of a tune without feeling embarrassed or confused.
Radical Hip-hop has become “thoughtless rap.” According to Williams, “Hip-hop and rap are two entire different entities,” and hip-hop is the culture from which rap emerged.
Since the days of constructive vibrations, rap has branched out and grown internationally as a part of popular youth pleasure, and a modern “money making” business, said Williams. He also said that present day rap consists of trash talk and tabloid imagery. The lyrics are generally about “getting brain”(sex), “pushing weight” (drugs), “busting caps” (killing people) and “bling bling” (material possessions).
To Williams, the distasteful imagery of the rap industry consists of guys dressed in clothes three sizes too big and females clothed in garments three sizes too small. In music videos women are seen as objects while the men are seen as pimps and gangsters. According to Williams, most rappers are “false flaggers,” those who lie about their gang affiliation and hardcore life styles.
As Williams put it, “The youth amusement has become a form of Roman Entertainment, ‘Bread and Circuses,’ an obsession for cheap and meaningless entertainment that led the Romans into oblivion.”
Williams continued that the constant acceptance of entertainment that debases and dehumanizes turns leaders into conformists, which eventually hampers the rise of nations socially and economically. “What’s heartbreaking is the younger generation, those responsible for the future are the ones who suffer. How can a future exist tomorrow when the substance of today has no form?”