Keepin' It Real: Definitions in Flux/Realer Than Real

Definitions:

Hegemonic: the social, cultural, ideological, or economic influence exerted by a dominant group

Peculiar: strange, queer, and odd.

Multiethnic: made up of people of various ethnicities

Obfuscating: confusing

Tumultuous: disorderly or noisy, disturbance

Sacrosanct: treated as if holy : immune from criticism or violation

Malleability: capable of being altered or controlled by outside forces or influences

Keepin’ It Real: Definitions in Flux

Hip-hop came about in the 1970s in South Bronx. This caused criminal activity and the black community to be associated directly to hip-hop. Since hip-hop came from South Bronx, which is a mainly black community, whites have been removed from hip-hop culture. This is because most are from middle-class, suburban living. In hip-hop, whites are not considered authentic. Eminem is an exception to this. He is authentic because of his experience. He doesn’t rap about surreal things. He raps about the troubles he has been through. Also, he was one of the first whites to take the chance and enter hip-hop.

Graffiti art and b-boying are only considered authentic to hip-hop in the Latino community. Some African Americans have attained doing graffiti art and b-boying, but it did not originate where hip-hop did.

Major Paper 2--Proposal

To make their music more popular, rappers use women that are barely clothed in their music videos. These women are wearing bikinis most of the time, and doing things that some would not even think about doing in public. I think that these women are completely degrading themselves. They should never agree to be in these videos. By being in these videos, and doing the things that they do, they are telling young men that it is okay to expect this out of other women. My audience for this paper will be these women that are willing to put themselves out there for the music industry. I will give examples of what people think about the women in these videos, and write about what they are doing to hip-hop/rap in general. I will try to persuade these women to no longer give into being barely clothed and dancing all over guys for the world to see. Some of the things that will be addressed are; whether or not they would want their children to see them doing those things on TV, what other things they could be doing with their lives (college, starting a family, etc.), and what guys think of them. I do not believe that these women are gaining respect for being the way they are. They are making themselves look vulnerable and weak. My plan is to make the women who plan to make a living out of being in music videos think twice about their employment.