4. DEFINITION
• Rap music with lyrics explicitly portraying the violence
and drug use of urban gang life and typically
expressing hostility toward whites, woman and civil
authority.
5. RAP CULTURE
• Gangsta Rap makes a constant claim that the words rapped portray the truth about
African American struggles and life in general. The false racist assumptions are sung to
enable the listener to believe the assumptions are true.
• The link below is a thought on how some portray the culture today.
• http://youtu.be/jyN9KgVFKow
• MTV’s approach to Gangster Rap in 1998
• http://youtu.be/uazsQER5_GA
6. DOES GANGSTA RAP PROMOTE OR CONFIRM
RACISM IN THE ATTITUDES OF WHITES?
• Ironic enough most of the Rap consumers are white, this enables them to
say what people themselves cannot say but may yearn to from time to time.
• Many non-African American purchase the top charted artist CD’s and
repeat the song over and over in their head not understanding the
meaning.
• As stated in the textbook Rehtoric in Popular Culture, “ A claim that violence,
racialism, brutality, and so forth are they only African American reality is but
one of many false hoods perpetuated by the genre.”
7. WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS OF GANGSTA RAP
FOR A AFRICAN AMERICA?
• Gangsta Rap glorifies violence, encourages misogyny, promotes drug use, and
deceive authority figures.
• Michael Dyson author of “Holler if you hear me: searching for Tupac Shakur
states “for better or worse, gangsta rap is a banner under which many youths
can find an identity that might have otherwise eluded them.”
• Many Rappers (NWA, Tupac, and Eminem) highlight the violence against
women and authority.
• Slick Rick’s 1988 song states “treat her like a prostitute.” This song
portrays women as only being good for sex which in turn bring many
youths to that conclusion
• NWA’s 1988 song “%uck the police” portrays police in the light of being
crooked and troublesome to African Americans.
8.
9.
10. FALSE CLAIMS
• African American Culture is Violent
• Understand the violent culture is portrayed by visuals and songs which in turn enable
African Americans to feel the stereotype is real.
• African American Culture is Overly Sexual
• Gangsta Rap perpetuates this commonsense ideology of racism by articulating they
are obsessed with Sex
• African American Culture is Crassly Materialistic
• ,African American Culture imposes the thought that they are more likely to steal to fit
into society today. This again is brought forth by the Rap artist to boast the purchase
of Escalades, Rolls Royce, etc. However this is not the case many African
Americans today have good jobs with the ability to be a respectable member of
society.
11.
12. CONCLUSION
• Visual Rhetoric is a way to communicate with images and the gangsta rap genre does that
with violent images and derogatory language. The visual rhetoric of gangsta rap speaks to
the social meanings of music; the guns, brutality and negative images of African
Americans.
13.
14. WORKS CITED
• Rhetoric in Popular Culture, Third Edition, Barry Brummett
• N.W.A. Fuck The Police. Straight Outta Compton. Priority Records, 1988.
• “That’s the Joint: The Hip Hop Studies Reader”;ed. Murray Forman & Mark Anthony
Neal;2004
• “Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture to Contemporary America”; Tricia Rose; 1994
• Gangsta Rap MTV, New York, May 11th 1994
Editor's Notes
her milieu and among one’s crew or posse.”88 The central role of other visual elementssuch as graffiti, attire, “bling,” dance, and sexuality also highlight the genre’s intimaterelationship to the visual.89In his hugely influential work on subculture, Dick Hebdige argued that style
