HOW HIP HOP INFLUENCED AMERICAN CULTURE

The Bronx is called the birth­place of one of the most pop­u­lar music genres, hip-hop. It appeared some­where in the 1970s and attrac­ted people with advanced emcee­ing skills. In fact, the lat­ter has become its key fea­ture that helps this genre stand out from the rest. Many research­ers note that the evol­u­tion of hip-hop cul­ture was one of the most impress­ive and valu­able social changes in Amer­ic­ans’ social life in the late 1990s. Con­sid­er­ing its dir­ect con­nec­tion with the Amer­ic­an black com­munity, one can claim that hip-hop has become a response to social and eco­nom­ic issues through­out his­tory. Black people and vari­ous dis­ad­vant­aged groups decided to speak out about their dis­con­tent, claims, and demands through music. They wanted to show that their rights and freedoms were not on equal par with oth­ers, and this protest con­trib­uted to restruc­tur­ing social atti­tudes and cap­ab­il­it­ies. If you want to go deep down this mul­ti­fa­ceted ques­tion, you may need more spare time. While stu­dents can turn to the super­b­grade writ­ing ser­vice to make room in their sched­ules, adults should meet this chal­lenge them­selves. We will con­sider only some key aspects that influ­enced Amer­ic­an cul­ture and soci­ety.

It pro­moted social aware­ness

You might have noticed that many people are used to liv­ing in a bubble that has noth­ing to do with real life. No mat­ter what hap­pens in the world, they enjoy their little com­fort and do their best to pre­tend that they don’t notice all the neg­at­ive things around them. The devel­op­ment of hip-hop cul­ture has become a trig­ger that made people wake up and get out of their bubble. Thus, dis­ad­vant­aged social strata star­ted talk­ing about racial bias, dis­crim­in­a­tion, poverty, rebel­lion, viol­ence, cap­it­al accu­mu­la­tion, etc. Music has become a won­der­ful tool for increas­ing social aware­ness among Amer­ic­an soci­ety.

Many people faced real­ity and looked at soci­ety from a new per­spect­ive. They star­ted reflect­ing on their lives and rules accep­ted in the state. Accord­ing to the sur­vey, every third Black per­son suf­fers psy­cho­lo­gic­al pres­sure and viol­a­tion of their rights. Thus, the expan­sion and pop­ular­ity of hip-hop cul­ture could be com­pared to social revolu­tion. Nowadays, many hip-hop per­formers draw atten­tion to acute social issues that people are not used to talk­ing about. It is not com­mon to speak about depres­sion, ask for help or admit that many young people can­not do without Proes­says stu­dent’s paper writ­ing ser­vice since their work­load is over­whelm­ing. In oth­er words, hip hop has become a way to talk about import­ant things freely and change people’s out­look.

It became a con­tinu­ation of the Civil Rights Move­ment

If you go deep down Amer­ic­an his­tory, you will see that it has nev­er been easy. Even though the Civil Rights Move­ment brought huge changes, many issues have remained unsolved. Black people did­n’t know what else they can do to defend their rights and freedoms and how to pro­tect them­selves from biases on the part of white people who usu­ally take high pos­i­tions in soci­ety. Besides, it remained unclear how one can determ­ine hid­den forms of racism and prove the fact of dis­crim­in­a­tion. It is when hip-hop came to the res­cue and turned into a power­ful tool for achiev­ing a bal­ance between indi­vidu­al­ity and pro­mo­tion of rights. Hip-hop per­formers became lead­ers and a kind of beha­vi­or pat­tern for many dis­ad­vant­aged young people. Even though their influ­ence has weakened for the last dec­ade, many young people con­tin­ue to fol­low their examples.

It redefined cul­tur­al norms

The appear­ance of hip-hop affected many life spheres and changed cul­tur­al norms. People star­ted devel­op­ing new mod­els of learn­ing, inter­ac­tion with oth­ers, and beha­vi­or. It is one of the reas­ons why the 1990s stood out with the high increase in the occur­rence of street gangs. Many young people got edu­cated right in the streets instead of going to school and get­ting pro­fes­sion­al course­work help by Midter­mguru. Such a huge social shift res­ul­ted in the increased influ­ence of mass media and pop cul­ture on the devel­op­ment and form­a­tion of kids’ per­son­al­it­ies. Street edu­ca­tion was closely con­nec­ted with hip-hop music, and the lat­ter became an integ­ral part of young people’s life­style. It redefined ways of social inter­ac­tion and tra­di­tion­al cul­tur­al norms.

It provided a dif­fer­ent per­spect­ive

Even though most hip-hop artists are fam­ous for their anti-social beha­vi­or and bad habits like drug abuse, they remain a tool for enhan­cing social aware­ness and pub­lic expres­sion. Nowadays, hip-hop cul­ture is less pop­u­lar com­pared to the late 1990s, but it still occu­pies a place on the list of the most favor­ite music genres among young people. Con­sid­er­ing the fact that the lat­ter does­n’t fol­low polit­ics and oth­er acute social issues, mod­ern hip-hop artists carry out human rights edu­ca­tion and draw atten­tion to things that hap­pen in the coun­try and world in gen­er­al. For example, they cre­ated songs about the Black Lives Mat­ter move­ment and sup­por­ted people to the required extent. The latest gen­er­a­tions find out about ser­i­ous polit­ic­al or social issues rather from songs and social net­works than news­pa­pers or TV.

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Rishma Dhaliwal

Rishma Dhaliwal

Edit­or / PR Con­sult­ant at No Bounds
Rishma Dhali­w­al has extens­ive exper­i­ence study­ing and work­ing in the music and media industry. Hav­ing writ­ten a thes­is on how Hip Hop acts as a social move­ment, she has spent years research­ing and con­nect­ing with artists who use the art form as a tool for bring­ing a voice to the voice­less. Cur­rently work­ing in TV, Rishma brings her PR and media know­ledge to I am Hip Hop and oth­er pro­jects by No Bounds.

About Rishma Dhaliwal

Rishma Dhaliwal
Rishma Dhaliwal has extensive experience studying and working in the music and media industry. Having written a thesis on how Hip Hop acts as a social movement, she has spent years researching and connecting with artists who use the art form as a tool for bringing a voice to the voiceless. Currently working in TV, Rishma brings her PR and media knowledge to I am Hip Hop and other projects by No Bounds.