Lately I've been thinking about hip hop music and how artists have lost in many ways a sense of meaning in their music. No longer does hip hop offer powerful messages of change and hope as late rapper Tupac Shakur once said,"It's time for our people to make some changes...let's change the way we eat, let's change the way we live.." Only recently have we heard the word 'change'as part of Obama's political campaign speech motto. But are we really going to change? Hip hop has changed from its heyday of pro-black, pro-change, message music to now Ringtone, strip hop music.
Radio djs play songs that fill the strip and dance clubs, thus I call it 'strip hop.' Hip hop artists are writing songs that can be played in dance and strip clubs and broadcasted on your cellphones. Girls are hypnotized by celebrities, and guys emulate these stars who have found a dream with big labels, big corporations who seek only talents that will fill their greedy pockets. Artists are caught in a web of deceit as they struggle to create more of the same and different-when their creative juices run dry. Strip hop manages to degrade the best of the best who seek to entertain and perhaps enlighten us with their lyrics, styles, and controversial lifestyles.
Every hip hop artist are drawn out on the factory line as living products and packaged like a new brand of Frito-Lays chips, ripped open they are by the hungry, tasted for their exquisite chemical value, and discarded like a half-eaten burger on a rainy day. It is the profane masquerading itself as sacred...where consumers believe they are getting worthy products when in fact they are simply getting more of the same. The corporate entities NEED bodies and minds of the talented and gifted and pay large sums of money for their gifts. We, the consumers, act like babies ready for suckling and rest after being sexually teased by the acoustic effects of strip hop. Strip hop disguises itself as romantic love ballads sernenading the mysterious girl on the dance floor as Akon sings, " You got me so hypnotized, the way your body moves around..." He is explicitly telling a story as most artists nowadays about their sexual adventures which is hardly close to any enlightened idea of love. Strip hop is not about love. It is about sexualizing the female where she is both glorified for what she can do in the bedroom rather than what she is.
It is the New Black Patriarchy in the black male community while other ethnic male communities follow. Hispanic, Mexican, Irish, jewish, and Asian boys idolize these psuedo-masculine artists who secretly engage in homosexual acts while parading themselves as heterosexuals. Women love these poster boys of urban success, yet confused they are as they both praise their boys for their successes while condemning them for their cheating ways as they dance to these songs on the dance floors. Kids look up to these artists of strip hop as models of success. Rags to riches stories lie at the heart of strip hop. The artist who was once poor is now surrounded by wealth and discovers how money can be used to manipulate women for short-term sexual gratification. It is the dichotomous nature of 'love.' These boys are not men and define manhood in limited terms(i.e sexual conquest of groupies, material possessions, and business ownerships). Strip hop leaves its listerners sexually aroused yet spiritually empty. A void consumes the souls who listen to strip hop believing they are hearing something different when in fact it the same sounds remixed. The mind and heart are manipulated as you listen to strip hop imagining yourself chasing, pining, and whining for the affections and attention of the Stripper. She is alluring and possess sexual magic that draws many observers.
Hip hop artists are well known for attending strip clubs. It is like rich white guys going to play golf on the weekends. Artists find their music playing in the clubs and receiving many accolades, gifts, rewards for their fame and fortune. Strippers talk about whose in the club and who pays how much. Rappers seek attention for their confused egos as women psychologically trick these men into giving over their monies for sexual arousal. It is a disease of the ego and strip hop has spread like a virus across the world.
