Taking the Rap :: essays research papers

The role of knap as a music form and the perception of rappers as a whole has changed oer the past ten years. It was a slow process for rap as a whole to be accepted as music and in conclusion be recognized by critics and award ceremonies. The advent of gangster rap brought about a new group of rappers with venomous histories and raunchy everyplace the lead lyrics. Many rappers today, the likes of Eminem, have highly publicized vile histories that overshadow the meaningful messages and damage the careers of otherwise model citizen rappers.Eminem became the next strain in rap in 1999 with extremely violent and shocking lyrics that include descriptions of raping and killing his ex-wife and vicious slurs a get inst homosexuals. I was a fan of the music precisely for the shock factor like many teens of the time but I grew tired of it and moved on to more meaningful work. He followed this decree for two more albums which sold over a million copies secure like his debut. He then backed up this image with drug, weapons, and desecrate charges in the following years. Then Eminem discovered the next big strive in rap when he signed 50 Cent, another convicted criminal who survived 9 bullet wounds. These are just a few cases of the media hyped crimes of a few rappers. All of these deliquent activities were used to stereotype rappers as a whole, patch many other rappers positive activities and attempts for career improvement went unnoticed or were hindered.During the same time Eminem released his controversial albums rap acts like Outkast, Goodie Mob, Mos Def, and The Roots produced albums with positive life morals, uplifting messages, and politically charged lyrics. I was displeased to see some of the albums sell well but gain none of the notoriety of the artists constantly in the news. Only rap fans and a few music critics were aware of these positive notes, while the rest of participation only got the news story of the most recent rappers unlawful blunder . The effects were not fully realized until a medium-large promotional deal between rapper Ludacris and Pepsi came to light.Ludacris signed a multi-commercial ad campaign with Pepsi in 2002 when the company began to look for a hipper image. Ludacris uses profane linguistic process and mature situations in his lyrics but it is humorous and so over the top it is obvious it is a persona that he knew would sell.