Critique on chapter 2 of The Hip Hop Wars

The Hip Hop Wars - Chapter 2

In chapter two of Hip Hop Wars, Tricia Rose reflects on how rap in Hip Hop has negatively portrayed its community over the years. When Hip Hop first began rap was motivational, inspiring and a way to vent about the tragedies the black community was facing and had to endure. This era has taken rap as a way to demean women, minorities, themselves and the black community. The excessive cursing is always associating ways to belittle their culture and everything it represents. Rappers talk about their community which is often referred to as the “ghetto” in a good way. Early in their careers they talk about the struggles trying to let others know about their circumstances faced in their community but that all fades away once they become a little famous. Now they switch their messages from struggles to selling drugs, treating women like dogs and being disrespectful to everyone. Rappers try to feed their listeners false reality that selling drugs is a way out of the “ghetto” and that the more women or money you have the happier you will be. As a person who comes from a black community where I have seen and experienced struggle I have to disagree with this generation’s rappers. Hip Hop is a culture that many outside of the culture see a negative, demeaning and trashy. Rap has made the outside world judge the black community based on the lies rappers are feeding the public. Rap is about self-expression or at least it was when it first began but now rap is about who has the most money, women, and cars. The black community is suffering because its role models forgot how to be role models.