ARE YOU READING HIP HOP?

OK, here is a piece of spoken word peotry that I just came across.....my girl Bridget Gray she speaks directly to Hip Hop about the way that women are being used as sexual objects. Having young Black men idolising an unrealistic dream of being a ‘Gangster’ represent by artists.

If you take Hip Hop back to its roots, it was about celebrating Black culture and empowering Black people NOT degrading the creators of life. Music videos are getting more and more sexual.... you can even argue they are daytime porn! Hip Hop in its TRUE roots was about encouraging young black men to be free and take control of their life’s NOT be a slave to the materialised western culture.

I often sit there wondering about the women in these video's how THEY feel.... Is life so hard that you have to give away you self respect on a plate?…..Is life so hard that you that one minute clip of you ass shaking makes you feel good? As the media is modelled into our western lifestyles, there is no escaping this portrayal of women for the younger generation...that know every move to strip tease music video. Where is the hope?

When I see Snoop, Dre and Nas with a 10 bedroom house and two cars worth of ‘bling bling’ swinging around their necks talking about guns, being a gangster whilst they are sitting up in they high security properties, in the upper class part of Miami…so far away from the ghettos that they rap about…..so far away from the young boys are killing each other and in and out of the prison system….just wanting to gain that little bit of respect just to be like them.


Like Bridget says…if you take away the beats and only listen to the lyrics…would you still be dancing?