Linguistics in Hiphop

A hip-hop pioneer and savvy business mogul by the name of Russell Simmons believed that Hip-hop “speaks for the people who live in the worst economic straits since the Great Depression” (Life and Def: Sex, Drugs, Money, + God 26). A scholar by the name of Cornell West also believed hip-hop speaks for those that live in the ghetto, that it is a protest (Reese, 1998). Hip-hop is an expression. The hardened attitude that the boy who sits behind you in film class has, the slang you here kids yell at the park, this is hip-hop.

Critics on rap music or hip-hop are fixated on the issues of violence and sex and harsh language, painting this negative picture of a beautiful art form. The media loves to headline stories of rival record labels beefing, riots that take place during concerts or shows at clubs, legal cases and arrests of artist, shoot-outs, and drug charges. No matter how much hip-hop attempts to elevate, it remains shackled to clichй (Bigger than Hip-hop, 4). Rap and violence continues to be linked in the media. Depending on your perspective, it is a violent, misogynist, profane genre, a commercially successful, mainstream musical style, a form of underground cultural expression, the word on the streets from a ghetto perspective, a grassroots-level political and social movement, or some or all of the above (Bigger than Hip-hop, 1).

Admittedly, rap has its violence, its raw language, and its misogynistic lyrics. However, it is an art form that accurately reports “the nuances, pathology and most importantly, resilience of Americas next best secret…..the black ghetto”