What is Hip-Hop?

What do you think of when you hear the name "Hip-hop"? Do you think of loud and annoying music pouring out of the souped-up Bose sound system in the latest and largest SUV? Do think of incomprehensible lyrics slapped haphazardly over a canvas of scantily-clad, oversexed women and stacks of money, drugs, and a variety of firearms? Is it possible that you think of backwards baseball caps, obscenely oversized jerseys, and gravity defying baggy jeans? If you are thinking about these things, then you are not thinking about "Hip-hop". You are thinking about images that relate to a particular brand of popular music called "Rap". Today rap is different from what it used to be just decades ago, where meaningful music is slowly diminishing as time proceeds. Rap has transformed into a culture that promotes money, violence, drugs, and sex. The violence and despair of the ghetto was brought to the forefront in the 1990's by groups like N.W.A.,

50 Cent at the 2009 American Music Awards Red Carp...

8 further pictures can be found here

Concert Snoop Dogg, Bucuresti, Arenele Romane. Sup...

Easy E, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, and Ice Cube. Lyrics about the drug trade, violence, gang-banging, and the degradation of women started to flow freely. As the records sold, artists continued to proper into making money, and the legacy of this new rap era was on its rise. As the money flowed in, the menaingless tracks poured out into the public, where the mindset's of people were manipulated into thinking life was all about "bling bling". Today top producers craft irresistible beats while one faceless rapper after another takes their turn debasing women, bragging about the material things they possess, and daring anyone to take it. This ignorant attitude towards the world that most modern rapers have is what leads to violence on the streets today. Society today is being swept away by the tracks being...