Hip-Hop Blog.

1) You're asking me what my own definition of hip-hop is? Well personally I've never listened to it much, and I'm very white so I'll give it my best shot. I believe hip-hop to be an upbeat musical style that appears to be a combination of rap and pop tunes with a single or multiple artists. That good?

5 Artists I listened to:

Talib Kweli
Manges-King (German)
Dead Prez
Chamillionaire
Pitbull (French)

5 Music videos I watched:

1) Talib Kweli "Get By"
-We see Talib Kweli standing on a high rooftop overlooking a large city, probably showing off Talib's neighborhood or to re-affirm that he is, in fact, from the "neighborhood" even though I'm pretty sure people would already assume that because he was black, what with the stereotypes we already cast on them. The focus of the video appears to be several scene od street vendors, homeless, and numerous types of workers. Talib is singing abouy getting by in this loveless world, trying to make a decent living in a place like this, when all we really need is love here, and he cites the work of John Lennon to prove his point.

2) Manges "King" German Hip-Hop
-The artists begin the song standing within a structure that looks like a parking garage. There's grafitti on the walls. I have no idea what they're saying, it's in German. It just shows him rapping outside several locations in his own neighborhood, but at the beginning and end of the video it shows him writing a letter. He may be writing to his parents in some far away place, saying he is doing just fine now that he's away from home and come into his own in this neighborhood, or he could be writing to a far-off girlfriend.

3) Dead Prez "Hip Hop"
-Well they start out the video in an ingenius way to get everyone's attention, by showing a close-up of an African-American girl's butt as she walks away, then a title that states "now that we have your attention" appears, and the video begins. This one appears to have more depth than the previous two. Messages about how the political system in Africa doesn't work flash across the screen and it shows many angry people holding up picket signs, protesting in some dark corner of the country. They broadcast how every day is struggle and life is what we make it.

4) Chamillionaire "Hip Hop Police"
-An interesting video to say the least. The scene starts out with cops pulling up next to Chamillionaire, criticizing his latest album and asking him what the next one's gonna be like. When Cha responds with "It's gonna be bigger" the cop mistakes him for saying the n word and all hell breaks loose, basically. The song is about the fact that there are Hip Hop police out there, ready to criticize your independent work and possibly try to suppress you so you have to keep a sharp eye out.

5) PiBull "Booba" (French Hip-Hop)
-There is nothing but instrumentation in the beginning of the video, the introduction, showing off several scenes of this guy's own neighborhood possibly. It shows him alternating between walking the streets in street clothes in somewhere in France and standing in a nice suit in other parts, probably indicating this song could be about his rise to respect. I can't tell, it's in French. It shows several scenes of possibly criminal activity, men in black suits handing off suitcases and the like, maybe indicating that he had to do a few things that he wasn't proud of to get where he currently is.

For the radio stations I listened to 92.1 the Beat and the Beat-713.

I know Jay-Z, a hip-hop artist, has been used in commercials promoting the HP personal computers. You know, those commercials where they have the person standin up but you don't see their head and they're showing you everything they can do on this computer with the movements of their hands? Yeah, that commercial.

I have seen commercials where the Gap has used hip-hop muscis to promote the sales of their khahis by having glamorous people dance around to the music in them.

The Dodge Nitro has employed hip-hop music in its commercials, showing a Dodge Nitro trying to squeeze in between two care in a parking garage, but then blasting hip hop music, the vibrations of which cause the other car to move aside in place so they can roll right in.

Hip Hop is essentially viewed as the cool thing to listen to. If you listen to it, you're cool. Or pimpin', or krunk, or tight, or whatever it is the kids say these days. I stick with cool. Anyways, it's been broadcast as THE thing to listen to in this day and age, the new trend. If a product or corporation can utilize this genre to sell their merchandise, it's just expected to sell much better as compared to an ad that does not employ hip hop music. You can also find the medium in fashion, which is one of the impacts of hip hop. People will dress the way these artists do, walking around their own neighborhoods and are immediately assumed to be "hardcore" or "up to no good". Other ways mainstream culture has been affected may be the way we look at relationships. These videso probably show off the physical characteristics of women more than their personalities (i.e. face, chest, and butt). Tis may be promoting women to be more subservient to the hip-hopper's vast accumulation of wealth that he has attained through his means of gaining respect.

It has also changed the way we operate our cars. People may request an adjusted low-suspension in their vehicles to get that low-rider feel. It has obviously also changed our conversation in this day and age, adding and continually inventing phrases and words I still have never heard before in my life.

My parents never listened to this or rap in their lives. They're products of the 60s and 70s, I grew up with the Styx, the Beatles, John Denver, the 'Stones, ZZ Top, Steve Miller, and Aerosmith. Mostly rock, country, and metal.

Hip hop has basically become a mjor development and influence in our everyday culture. For better or worse, it is on the rise and will continue to affect our culture,in my opinion. The more media is garners, the more it shall spread. It's a fact of life. I have nothing against it, but I know some of the more conservative mindset may try to resist it. However, I believe it had gained too much recognition as one of the key lights everyone wants to cast their lives in for it to be hindered at this point, at least until something else comes along that is somehow cooler than it is.

Discrimination in Ads Blog Reflection.

1) Ad for Golf Institute of Canada in "Golf Magazine".
2) Ad read in "Men's Health".
3) Ad in "Good Housekeeping".
4) Ad in "New York Magazine".
5) Ad in "People Magazine".
6) Ad in "Black Enterprise" magazine.
7) Ad in NCAA basketball.
8) Ad in Internet advertising.
9) Ad on Reality TV.
10) Ad in the Oklahoman.


2) Ad in "Men's Health" is actually a spread copy taking up both pages in the particualr segment of the magazine. On one side we see a black Boston Celtics player and the left we see an out-of-shape, hairy white man who just got out of the pool. The writing compares their drastically different stories, but does not overshdow the fact that they are both athletes and are passionate about their respective sports. This doesn't break down the tradtional "blacks are more athletic" stereotype well, but at least it's acknowledging that they are both at least called athletes.

1) Ad in "Golf Magazine" shows beautiful greens and scenic environments from which to play gold upon, and a group of white men standing, their backs toward us, looking off into the the majesty of the course of the Golf Management Institute of Canada. The thing that's wrong with this advertisement is that all of these men look white and well into their middle ages, cutting out the sense that young people as well as people of other races can be out playing gold and excelling at it, but there is no other racial representation in the ad.

3) This advertisement surprisingly broke down the traditional streotype that women cannot play active sports, that they are confined to the kitchen and are physically incapable of performing such tasks. But wee on the ad a small young girl playing with a croquet mallet. The mallet is almost two feet taller than her and yet she is playing with it. Granted, it's not the revolutionary non-conventional effect that, say, an ad that showed a woman playing football would but it's definitely a start.

4) Ad in "New York" magazine shows an ad for ShopVogue.tv. We see all the features that the Web site has to offer and everything that we will be able to do should we log on. But the smiling faces/models that they use to advertise this with are all white, skinny, beautiful women. Almost as if, byt placing these faces up there and by ordering their products, customers can then look like these wondrous women. Which is not only folly, but just plain ignorant.

5) Ad in "People" magazine was an ad for clothesoffourback.com and showed that items were being offered up for auction, the proceeds going towards children's charities. The two most famous items are a collared-down shirt worn by Clay Aitken and the blouse of Jordin Sparks. It's easy to see the advertising parallels in this. After all, if you're gonna have one "Idol" in this ad, you have to include other "Idol" competitors of different races to increase your scale of marketability.