gangsta rap made me do it instruct metal

The dominant funky beat in Rap can be traced to African roots, to jungle rhythms which were taken up by rock and disco and then re-appropriated by the Rap DJs. ‘Hip hop began explicitly as dance music to be appreciated through movement, not mere listening… where one could admire the dexterity of the DJ and the personality and improvisational skills of the rapper’ (Shusterman, 615). When Rap emerged it was meant for small audiences at live performances and house parties. It first originated in the Bronx and then Harlem and then Brooklyn (Shusterman, 615). Rap music was born in the mid-1970s in New York (Sullivan, 605). If rap is reaching out to white audiences as well then how come there is not as much violence in white neighborhoods and how come white children’s lives are not at risk as the black children? Before we can analyze the impacts of rap music it is important to understand what is rap music? What is Rap Music? In 1998, when 81 million rap music CDs, tapes, and albums were sold, 70% of them were purchased by Whites (Au, Wayne). Its influence now touches all parts of popular culture. These high sales are a testament to the fact that rap music is not just the stuff of urban youth of color anymore. In the year 2000 rap music passed country music to be the third largest music genre sold and in 2002 it accounted for $1.6 billion in sales. Rap music is not listened to by black people only. Is rap music the reason for all the violence, drug use, promiscuous behavior and many other negative traits in the African American community? Why? Why are African American children’s lives at such a deadly risk and why is there so much violence in African American communities.

Black males are suspended more, expelled more, arrested more, fight more and die more violent deaths than any other race’ (Jackson). Because of these deadly living conditions, at very early ages, ‘Black children are becoming calloused toward life. Black children are facing violence in their schools and their communities and their lives are at a higher risk than a soldier in combat. In a startling comparison, however, during an eight-year period between 19, 190 mostly Black Chicago Public School children died in gun-related incidents’ (Jackson). Statistics from Military Genealogy Trails show that during the five-year period between September 2001 and July 2006, six soldiers from Chicago were killed in Iraq combat. Many black children are dying in cities throughout the United States ‘at about 24 deaths a year, Chicago children are being killed 24 times the rate that Chicago soldiers are being killed in Iraq.

There are more African American children dying in Chicago than Chicago soldiers dying in Iraq.

Gangsta rap made me do it instruct metal