Blog#4

The movie Beats and Rhymes by Byron Hurt empathizes the representation of manhood in Hip-Hop culture. According to Hurt most rappers sings about how they are strong, have plenty females, how they could dominate everybody, and how they are rich. They don’t realize that by projecting this image they are empathizing stereotype among minorities. Within the lines, the rapper are trying to identify themselves. Hurt made an interesting point about one of the famous rapper, Snoop dog who will have insulting messages about women and have inappropriate videos ,however, that is just an image Snoop Dog is projecting because in reality he has a lovely wife and daughters and sons. Rappers make all those insulting songs, all those inappropriate videos because that what the media is demanding. According to Hurt, the media and the label record are the one deliberately projecting this image and modifying the meaning of hip hop. Media refuse to take rapper that want that portrait the positive messages and positive image. Therefore, in order to succeed rappers have to support this the commercial projection even though this will lead to dramatic change in the real life. This perpetuate the mind of minorities such as black, and Latino to define the wrong idea of man through hip hop.
Most of the hip hop songs are about violence, how they going to kill somebody, how they going to shoot everybody that comes across them, and how they going to enjoy killing them. Hurt raised this issue of violence and explained that violence have been among minorities since the beginning and that why most rappers refers to it. To support his arguments , Hurt showed us how the movies are all about guns and killing without empathy and this influence our everyday life. Now most men believe violence is necessary and in order to survive and protect their family, they need to be capable of killing and get ready to affront the real world.
Another issue that Hurt raised in his video is how the rappers are homophobia and write insulting songs about homosexual.
Comparing this video to the McBride’s narrative, McBride passage was evaluating Hip Hop in the positive way by demonstrating how hip hop was born and how it was the cries of young people who was suffering. McBride empathizes Hip Hop on a global scale by giving example on how people all over the world rap, it has a different shape but still project the same message. However, the McBride’s passage and the Hurt’s video has one fact in common because they both realize how hip-hop had lost its message and value and it now more a commercial propaganda.
After seeing the both side of hip hop I prefer the message it had when it first came out. That message was more relevant and anybody could identify themselves through the lyrics. Now I can’t stand watching hip hop video and sometimes I find myself dancing over insulting messages about women without realizing. I usually like hip hop because of the beat but once I take a step back and listen to the lyric attentively I regret the fact that I danced over that song.