King is writing about hip-hop lyrics, as you all know, and I wanted to add another point to the argument. King is writing his paper as a response to a couple of articles by Bill O'Reilly, who argues that the violent content of hip-hop lyrics is affecting children by weakening their moral fiber and possibly contributing to violent behavior.
This post was inspired by my recent purchase of "Millenium Hip-Hop Party," one of those random compilation CDs you can find at Cheapo Discs for six bucks. The disc contains hip-hop songs from the late 80s and early 90s (high school for me!), and I thought of King's topic as I listened to songs like "It Takes Two" by MC Rob Base and DJ EZ Rock, and "Funky Cold Medina" by Tone Loc. At first, it struck me how different the late 80s/early 90s content was from what we hear now. For example, compare the lyrics to "Funky Cold Medina" to "What's Your Fantasy?" by Ludacris (an artist singled out by Bill O'Reilly). The Ludacris song is much more explicit.
But then I remembered: Hey, it's not like we didn't have explicit content back then. Heck, we had 2 Live Crew, NWA, DJ Qwik, and plenty of other choices. The difference as I see it is that the radio doesn't censor nearly as much as it did when I was in my early teens. I remember when the radio stations substituted "love" for "sex" in the songs "I Wanna Sex You Up" by Color Me Badd and "I Want Your Sex" by George Michael. It seems to me that the explicit content is more in the mainstream now than it was in my formative years.
But here's the really important point I want to make: It irritates me to no end when people like O'Reilly talk about hip-hop as though it's one thing with only two topics in the lyrics -- sex and violence (oh, and maybe drugs) -- when there's so much more to it. What about the critiques of American culture found in "I Can" by Nas and "Why" by Jadakiss? What about beautiful love songs like "The Light" by Common?
As you can tell, I love hip-hop, and I have plenty to say about it, but I'll stop and let King do the rest of the talking.
This is sort of a reply to Alia's entry. I also agree with Alia in that I also believe that writing these research papers is beneficial to us. It's always great to be able to pick your own topic, one you're interested in, and then find out everything you can on it. I for one chose the death of coral reefs. I went to an imax movie on coral reefs 2 summers ago at the science musuem and I thought it was going to be the most boring movie ever! But it actually turned out to be one of the most interesting imax movies I've seen yet. I've always been interested in marine biology, but never for a second considered researching the coral reef aspect. But here I am and I'm enjoying learning about the whole complex ecosystems of coral reefs and am increasingly concerned about their conservation. Anyone else interested in this topic? Or anything interesting to add? I'd love to hear anyone's comments.
What do you guys think about evolution? Do you think that it should be taught in schools? Were you forced to learn about it? Did your teacher make sure that you knew it was only a theory? Please take some time to answer these questions for me, this is a very important topic, I will appreciate any and all comments.
Ok guys I'm sorry to be asking this same question again but plz forgive, forget and reply to this blog !!!! Ok the question is: What does everyone know about polygamy ? Does anyone have any background knowledge on the issue? What has everyone heard about polygamy and different religions? Again, sorry to be asking this question about the prospectus topic, and I appreciate any feedback. Thanks!!
Ok I am going to use the blog as a poll like thingy to get a sense of people's opinions on my prospectus topic. What does everyone here know about the Islamic Empire in Spain ??? Has anyone done any research on this topic before (like for a history class or something?) ...I really appreciate any feedback you guys give me so blog away in reply to this post !!!!!!