IndexIntroductionOriginsYouth in hip hopGraffiti expressionism as an element of hip hopNegative connotations of hip hop cultureConclusionIntroductionThe most impactful musical image of Donald Glover (Childish Gambino) to this day it's more than just what your typical rap music would entail. "This Is America" ​​is a music video that depicts and symbolizes guns, violence, and racial issues in America that especially affect the black community. This is a perfect example of how hip hop culture is used and was used to make a statement or convey a message. The song and music video are well portrayed by Glover to show the reality of what it is like to be black living in America. Glover expresses his emotions through dance movements, words, rhythms and the people in the video. Hip hop from its earliest days has been dominated and controlled by the black community. The black community's agenda was to use hip hop music and culture to express their opinions on social issues affecting their neighborhoods and communities. In this essay we will explore the various ways in which hip hop music has been used to express political and social opinions experienced in our society. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Origins Hip hop was inspired by many factors to become the art form it is today. The founding father of hip hop is Clive Campbell better known by his stage name DJ Kool Herc. He founded the musical genre in the recreation room of their apartment on his sister's birthday. This was about six years before the term hip hop was coined. The musical genre was formed as a result of a multicultural exchange between young African Americans and young immigrants from the Caribbean. At the time, hip hop was the voice of disenfranchised youth who came from marginalized communities and low-income housing projects. Hip hop culture represented the political, social and economic realities of their lives. To many people, hip hop sounds like a conceptual drag (economy of thought). Many critics have described hip hop as materialistic, misogynistic, homophobic, racist, vulgar and violent. At first glance, this may be true. However, when you look at hip hop in a deeper context, it speaks deeply to Black urban poverty, government neglect, social injustices towards marginalized communities, and the hold street culture has on many young people . According to Tricia Rose's book 'the hip hop wars', she states that hip hop offers a bottom-up view of what it might mean to live under near-war conditions in communities facing a myriad of daunting circumstances. Occasionally, a rapper's lyrics offer compelling stories of loss, despair, desperation, pain, anger, exploitation, confinement. These are conditions which however are denied in the wider society. Society at large pays attention only to the extraordinarily desperate conditions in which poor black youth attempt to survive. Hip hop activism is said to have started to become a significant factor when Congresswoman Maxine Waters, representing the 35th district in South Central Los Angeles, California chose hip hop as her crusade. This created a generation of young people who were avoiding being scapegoated due to generational divisions over language and media representation. Marc Bamuthi, artist and activist, commented: "a broad hip hop resistance force has been activated by movements against apartheid, police brutality andthe systematic abandonment of social services spurred by Reaganomics." According to Hall, the social justice origins of hip hop culture led to the formation of organizations such as the Hip-hop Political Action Network, which began in 2001, and the Hip-Hop Congress , started in 2000. The non-profit organization is also in business on action as they use the power of hip hope to educate and organize. Some of these organizations include H2ED, started in 2003 and based in New York City, l The University of Hip-Hop, started in 2000 and based in Chicago, and the International Association of Hip Hop Education, started in 2006 and based in Washington D.C. These and other organizations have initiated the connection between hip hop, education and activism in schools, correctional facilities, and out-of-school spaces. Youth in Hip Hop According to Emdin (2010), hip hop culture has a way of knowing its own beliefs, customs, practices, and schematic understandings that are unique to those who are immersed in that culture. It also represents a place for Black boys who are historically normally separated from mainstream school culture through racially stereotypical practices. When young black kids are treated racially, they align themselves with hip hop music, spending a lot of time learning about the lives of hip hop artists and chronicling it on social media. Educators can use hip hop culture to provide teaching strategies that can also be used in the classroom. Hip hop has permeated social constructs of race, class, ethnicity, and gender. Emdin (2010) theorizes that the term hip hop constitutes more than just a musical genre. He argues that hip hop is a culture that allows young people around the world to connect through their common experiences. It is through these shared experiences that young people develop their identities and resist the oppressive nature of the American public education system. The controversial nature of hip hop expresses the language and attitude of many young people in schools today. Educational researchers are using the controversial nature of hip hop culture to capture the voices and themes of an ethnically diverse population of inner-city youth. According to Brown (2010), hip hop culture has been considered with a similar reference to urban music, although in recent years it has been increasingly used as a reference to understand young people. He also states that youth immersion in hip hop culture has become a rite of passage. Urban youth's firm grasp of hip hop culture should signal to education professionals that today's students are not only connected ethnically but also through experience. Emdin writes that “the cosmopolitan nature of hip hop includes people from backgrounds other than black Americans and makes it clear that in hip hop, kin are not just those related by blood but those linked by experience. This is especially true if the shared experience is of oppression at the hands of the same political and socio-economic institutions and policies that exclude a particular group of people from full participation in activities within a particular social field.” Black boys develop close associations and identities based on themes presented in hip hop culture. This is relevant because hip hop culture allows Black kids to resist the hegemonic culture they confront in public schools. When rap music was in its infancy, it reflected the voice of urban youth. It also remained under the control of the black community. the music contained serious socially conscious messages. The greatest artists would master the ability to articulate social and political messages while maintaining rhythmic integrity. The ability tomanipulating words would amaze audiences and encourage inner-city youth living in New York to build their own vocabulary. This led to every young person carrying a pocket thesaurus in their backpack eager to outwit their friends with their verbal skills. In the 1990s, the emergence of artists such as poor and righteous teachers whose lyrics contained political rhetoric and exposed the economic hardships experienced in central city neighborhoods. The rap music of the early hip hop era of the 1970s and 1980s would be primarily about race and resistance. Several artists reportedly protested government procedures and policies that led to a concentration of poverty in the Bronx, especially in the African American and Hispanic communities. Graffiti Expressionism as an Element of Hip Hop Conquergood (1997) argued that gang graffiti is against literacy and has supported this with numerous examples of the cavernous meaning and complexity involved in gang graffiti. Graffiti writing allows you to express, read and recognize the inner thoughts, fears and desires of marginalized groups. There is a sophisticated literacy in graffiti. Gangs use it to convey meaning in images and words. Sometimes gang members use double dip word meanings because they use well-known advertising products to indicate gang terminology. For example, Corona beer represents the crown or royalty of the Latin Kings, a gang based in Chicago. Graffiti messages are used to display messages that often discredit and disrespect opposing gangs by reversing or reversing gang names or their symbols. Graffiti writing allows artists to freely express their inner thoughts and fears just as rap music allows young people to declare their existence within mainstream society. The provocative and confrontational images expressed through graffiti are also expressed through rap lyrics. Hip hop has been a great platform for criticizing the social world. The idea of ​​hip hop is more nuanced than just a musical category. Although many scholars refer to hip hop as a cultural movement, the music is simply an element of that lifestyle. Just as the civil rights movement of the 1960s saw Black advancement in the form of rights and privileges, hip hop is considered the movement that continues to fight for Black equality. It can be argued that hip hop is a culture within the black community that has brought people together and provided them with a voice. Hip hop artists are respected and accepted based on their ability to be real and “keep it real” (Boyd, 2002). The notion of reality is largely an appeal to the authenticity and ethics of rhetoric. The concept of reality is one of credibility, the need to be one with the oppressed communities depicted in the music. As Ogbar (2007) clarifies, “At its most fundamental level, “realness” in hip-hop involves an intimate familiarity with the urban and working-class landscapes that gave rise to hip-hop in the 1970s. Implicit in this spatial notion is a class consciousness that is inextricably connected to race. This implies (rather narrowly) that black communities are synonymous with poor communities.” it can be argued that hip hop songs of minimal authenticity can still focus on social justice, the likelihood of an artist's message reaching a targeted audience decreases if they are not perceived as authentic. Negative connotations of hip hop culture's messages of vulgarity, misogyny, and violence are completely problematic for the genre. However, it is important to consider the.