{"id":151,"date":"2021-07-23T19:54:14","date_gmt":"2021-07-23T19:54:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/understanding-literacy-in-our-lives\/?post_type=chapter&p=151"},"modified":"2021-07-23T19:55:48","modified_gmt":"2021-07-23T19:55:48","slug":"5-4-1-how-music-is-used-in-african-american-society","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/understanding-literacy-in-our-lives\/chapter\/5-4-1-how-music-is-used-in-african-american-society\/","title":{"rendered":"5.4.1 How Music is Used in African American Society (synthesis)"},"content":{"raw":"

English 102, September 2020<\/h3>\r\nMany of today\u2019s youth have heard of popular rappers like Lil Baby, Lil-Wayne, or Lil Uzi Vert but have never really dived into the\u00a0hip-hop\u00a0background and truly seen how\u00a0African American\u00a0society has really progressed as a whole using this music genre.\u00a0While also putting a magnifying glass on the many experiences that rappers talk about in their songs and how those experienced shaped their personal life and rap career. In this paper I will explain 4 different scholarly articles pertaining my topic, each with a different purpose but each will be used in a melting pot of sort to help me fully explain the topic. The first will be Gee\u2019s \u201cWhat is Literacy\u201d, the second will be\u00a0\u201cUsing Rap Music to Better Understand African American Experiences\u201d, the third will be \u201cWelcome to the\u00a0Terrordome: Race, Power and the Rise of American Rap Music, 1979-1995\u201d, and my last article will be \u201cConnecting Black youth to critical media literacy through hip hop making in the music classroom\u201d.\r\n\r\nGee\u2019s what is literacy is an article pertaining to the many different ways on which literacy is used. He uses vocabulary like discourse which is the slang or social habits of a certain group of people. A primary discourse would be the discourse you were born with such as if English is your first language. A secondary discourse would be the discourse you\u2019ve learned in life or a discourse you weren\u2019t born with. The dominant discourse would be the discourse that is most widely accepted in your area or region, like for the United States the official language is English.\r\n\r\nIn my first article titled \u201cWelcome to the\u00a0Terrordome: Race, Power and the Rise of American Rap Music, 1979-1995\u201d, The article is more on the progression of rap and how rap is used in multiple settings\u00a0and\u00a0how it has changed African American lives, even though it is briefly discussed. The point of this article is to discuss how rap was and is used as a cry out for help among black artists and how they spread their messages and struggles through their music. The authors of this study came to these findings by researching many books, one including\u00a0Black Noise: Rap Music and Black culture in Contemporary\u00a0America<\/em>.\u00a0He Also opens by explaining certain scenes in the movie Black Panther. The author found many findings like how Rap was created by African American youth as a way to express their struggles through poverty and feeling excluded due to\u00a0being\u00a0a minority.\u00a0Also,\u00a0how rap has been everchanging with Black Culture and how it rapidly urbanized and became popular with its audience.\u00a0The meaning of these findings is to say that we must come together as a society and understand the cries out for help and instead of just letting songs go by without any action we must get out and help these people and save them from their struggles and help break this everlasting cycle of poverty and recession in black communities.\r\n\r\nMy second article is titled \u201cUsing Rap Music to Better Understand African American Experiences\u201d. This article is similar to my last in that it is focused around rap music surrounding the wrongful manipulation people of color experience. The point of this study is to help cultural counselors better understand the problems people of color face and why they turn to rap to express themselves.\u00a0\u00a0In the article they describe Hip-Hop as more than a culture and more of a dream or an emotional outlet or a way to build relationships and network their way to a career or profession to get out of the projects. The purpose\u00a0of this study was also to\u00a0improve the cultural understanding of counselors and to help counselors be able to assist clients of color.\u00a0The authors\u00a0discovered these findings by\u00a0using a content analysis design (6) and chose a genre of music called conscious rap, featuring multiple artists and\u00a010 different songs.\u00a0\u00a0According to\u00a0Michael Brooks in \u201cUsing Rap Music to Better Understand African American Experiences\u201d says,\u00a0Content analysis is a research method for studying documents and communication artifacts.(6)\u00a0According to Michael Brooks in \u201cUsing Rap Music to better Understand African American Experiences\u201d says,\u00a0The 10 songs chosen were NWA-F**K The Police, 2Pac-rapped,\u00a0Killer Mike- Don\u2019t Die, Rage Against the Machine-Killing the Name, MainSource- Just a Friendly Game of Baseball, Dead\u00a0Prez-Cop Shot, Gil Scott Heron- No Knock, Ice-T \u2013 Cop Killer, KRS-One-Sound of Da Police, and UGK-Protect and Serve.(7)\u00a0Once the song list was finalized each of the researchers listened in 30 second intervals and wrote down their thoughts\/decoded version of the lyrics. Time was taken to relisten and truly feel what the artist was trying to describe to its listeners.\u00a0The authors found that these songs were more than just lyrics for people to memorize and recite at concerts, they were words used to help these artists get out of their struggle and help their family members out, they were words used to inspire other youth and let them know that even in the worst situations you can achieve the biggest of\u00a0dreams.\u00a0The authors also found that in the lyrics analyzed expressed feelings of comfort\/support and justification and subtle microaggressions towards\u00a0fighting social inequality and overall oppression of people of color.(8)\u00a0The meaning of the findings\u00a0was that using the messages within rap music can help its listeners see through the artists lens and walk a mile in their shoes and understand what they\u2019re going through.\u00a0This advancement of\u00a0 understanding the lyrics and usage of certain verbiage in songs helped counselors become more culturally competent and helped them institute encouraging activities and helped bring out locked up stories from clients of color and helped them understand their social identity more and made them feel more wanted even in a world of privilege and\u00a0oppression.\u00a0I would say the only study needed after the authors completed this one is maybe to do more current songs and see if anything has changed from 90s rap and their hardships compared to the upcoming rap artists of this generation.\u00a0This\u00a0study relates to my last in that they both realize that something needs to be done and that these artists aren\u2019t just saying these words without any context, they have meaning, and they need to be heard by any and everybody.\r\n\r\nIn my third article titled \u201cConnecting Black youth to critical media literacy through hip hop making in the music classroom\u201d. This article fits with more with my first article than my second one because this article pertains more to the upbringing of youth\u00a0and how rap music helped and will continue to help shape and expand the youths mind.\u00a0The point of this article is to describe\u00a0how the hip-hop genre encouraged participants to increase their effort and maximize their ability in\u00a0two urban schools.\u00a0The authors came to these findings by having the Foundations of Music non-profit organization go to low-income\u00a0communities and teach their curriculum to students in elementary and middle school. Foundation of Music\u2019s program introduces students to both the process of writing lyrics of a rap song and the technology used to produce rap songs in a classroom\u00a0setting.\u00a0During these sessions the students were observed by the author\u00a0as he took converted his notes into a narrative-based observation. He recorded things such as different concepts the kids learned each day, reactions from student-to-student and student-to-teacher, along with informal conversations between the students. After the conclusion of the curriculum the author was able to have a final assessment of the students and help give constructive criticism as to what each student was doing right and what they needed to work on to be more successful. The meaning of these findings was that the having these same group of kids come in and work on a new hobby built a sense of belonging among them that replicated what it felt like to being on a team. A common goal of bettering themselves every day and a sense of having an actual\u00a0goal ahead of them. They also found that teachers in the school weren\u2019t letting kids express they\u2019re musical ideas whether it be raps they had written down or beats they had made at home and in this class they were finally able to receive feedback and have it mastered without being labeled as \u201cdisruptive\u201d. Many kids were able to express their emotions and their\u00a0real-life\u00a0experiences with violence in the neighborhood and let their stories be heard in their communities and elsewhere. Other studies I would like to see place is maybe to compare the findings of different\u00a0communities in different cities like comparing the low-income communities in Atlanta to low income communities in Chicago. This article is relevant to my interests because I\u2019ve always been interested in helping others and letting others experience things that they usually don\u2019t get to experience. Whether it be a big concert that they aren\u2019t able to afford or showing people that you can follow your dreams and prove others wrong.\r\n\r\nIn conclusion I have learned a lot from this essay and am honestly intrigued with how this essay is supposed to be written. At first I had no idea what to use for my topic but I\u2019m glad I chose the one I did because I really do enjoy rap music and the hip-hop genre in its whole so it\u2019s fun to learn more about it and look beyond the lyrics. I have never written anything like this before so there is a bit of a learning\u00a0curve,\u00a0but it has been\u00a0fun,\u00a0and I look forward to revising this essay and fully understanding this topic of a synthesis essay.\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nWorks Cited\r\n\r\nBrooks, Michael. \u201cUsing Rap Music to Better Understand African American Experiences.\u201d\u202fTaylor & Francis<\/em>, 26 Feb. 2020, www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1080\/15401383.2020.1732251.\r\n\r\nD'Amico, Francesca. \u201cWelcome to the\u00a0Terrordome: Race, Power and the Rise of American Rap Music, 1979-1995.\u201d\u202fYorkSpace\u00a0Home<\/em>, 11 May 2020, yorkspace.library.yorku.ca\/xmlui\/handle\/10315\/37409.\r\n\r\nEvans, Jabari. \u201cConnecting Black Youth to Critical Media Literacy through Hip Hop Making in the Music Classroom.\u201d\u202fLatest TOC RSS<\/em>, Intellect, 1 July 2020, www.ingentaconnect.com\/content\/intellect\/jpme\/pre-prints\/content-intellect_jpme_00020.","rendered":"

English 102, September 2020<\/h3>\n

Many of today\u2019s youth have heard of popular rappers like Lil Baby, Lil-Wayne, or Lil Uzi Vert but have never really dived into the\u00a0hip-hop\u00a0background and truly seen how\u00a0African American\u00a0society has really progressed as a whole using this music genre.\u00a0While also putting a magnifying glass on the many experiences that rappers talk about in their songs and how those experienced shaped their personal life and rap career. In this paper I will explain 4 different scholarly articles pertaining my topic, each with a different purpose but each will be used in a melting pot of sort to help me fully explain the topic. The first will be Gee\u2019s \u201cWhat is Literacy\u201d, the second will be\u00a0\u201cUsing Rap Music to Better Understand African American Experiences\u201d, the third will be \u201cWelcome to the\u00a0Terrordome: Race, Power and the Rise of American Rap Music, 1979-1995\u201d, and my last article will be \u201cConnecting Black youth to critical media literacy through hip hop making in the music classroom\u201d.<\/p>\n

Gee\u2019s what is literacy is an article pertaining to the many different ways on which literacy is used. He uses vocabulary like discourse which is the slang or social habits of a certain group of people. A primary discourse would be the discourse you were born with such as if English is your first language. A secondary discourse would be the discourse you\u2019ve learned in life or a discourse you weren\u2019t born with. The dominant discourse would be the discourse that is most widely accepted in your area or region, like for the United States the official language is English.<\/p>\n

In my first article titled \u201cWelcome to the\u00a0Terrordome: Race, Power and the Rise of American Rap Music, 1979-1995\u201d, The article is more on the progression of rap and how rap is used in multiple settings\u00a0and\u00a0how it has changed African American lives, even though it is briefly discussed. The point of this article is to discuss how rap was and is used as a cry out for help among black artists and how they spread their messages and struggles through their music. The authors of this study came to these findings by researching many books, one including\u00a0Black Noise: Rap Music and Black culture in Contemporary\u00a0America<\/em>.\u00a0He Also opens by explaining certain scenes in the movie Black Panther. The author found many findings like how Rap was created by African American youth as a way to express their struggles through poverty and feeling excluded due to\u00a0being\u00a0a minority.\u00a0Also,\u00a0how rap has been everchanging with Black Culture and how it rapidly urbanized and became popular with its audience.\u00a0The meaning of these findings is to say that we must come together as a society and understand the cries out for help and instead of just letting songs go by without any action we must get out and help these people and save them from their struggles and help break this everlasting cycle of poverty and recession in black communities.<\/p>\n

My second article is titled \u201cUsing Rap Music to Better Understand African American Experiences\u201d. This article is similar to my last in that it is focused around rap music surrounding the wrongful manipulation people of color experience. The point of this study is to help cultural counselors better understand the problems people of color face and why they turn to rap to express themselves.\u00a0\u00a0In the article they describe Hip-Hop as more than a culture and more of a dream or an emotional outlet or a way to build relationships and network their way to a career or profession to get out of the projects. The purpose\u00a0of this study was also to\u00a0improve the cultural understanding of counselors and to help counselors be able to assist clients of color.\u00a0The authors\u00a0discovered these findings by\u00a0using a content analysis design (6) and chose a genre of music called conscious rap, featuring multiple artists and\u00a010 different songs.\u00a0\u00a0According to\u00a0Michael Brooks in \u201cUsing Rap Music to Better Understand African American Experiences\u201d says,\u00a0Content analysis is a research method for studying documents and communication artifacts.(6)\u00a0According to Michael Brooks in \u201cUsing Rap Music to better Understand African American Experiences\u201d says,\u00a0The 10 songs chosen were NWA-F**K The Police, 2Pac-rapped,\u00a0Killer Mike- Don\u2019t Die, Rage Against the Machine-Killing the Name, MainSource- Just a Friendly Game of Baseball, Dead\u00a0Prez-Cop Shot, Gil Scott Heron- No Knock, Ice-T \u2013 Cop Killer, KRS-One-Sound of Da Police, and UGK-Protect and Serve.(7)\u00a0Once the song list was finalized each of the researchers listened in 30 second intervals and wrote down their thoughts\/decoded version of the lyrics. Time was taken to relisten and truly feel what the artist was trying to describe to its listeners.\u00a0The authors found that these songs were more than just lyrics for people to memorize and recite at concerts, they were words used to help these artists get out of their struggle and help their family members out, they were words used to inspire other youth and let them know that even in the worst situations you can achieve the biggest of\u00a0dreams.\u00a0The authors also found that in the lyrics analyzed expressed feelings of comfort\/support and justification and subtle microaggressions towards\u00a0fighting social inequality and overall oppression of people of color.(8)\u00a0The meaning of the findings\u00a0was that using the messages within rap music can help its listeners see through the artists lens and walk a mile in their shoes and understand what they\u2019re going through.\u00a0This advancement of\u00a0 understanding the lyrics and usage of certain verbiage in songs helped counselors become more culturally competent and helped them institute encouraging activities and helped bring out locked up stories from clients of color and helped them understand their social identity more and made them feel more wanted even in a world of privilege and\u00a0oppression.\u00a0I would say the only study needed after the authors completed this one is maybe to do more current songs and see if anything has changed from 90s rap and their hardships compared to the upcoming rap artists of this generation.\u00a0This\u00a0study relates to my last in that they both realize that something needs to be done and that these artists aren\u2019t just saying these words without any context, they have meaning, and they need to be heard by any and everybody.<\/p>\n

In my third article titled \u201cConnecting Black youth to critical media literacy through hip hop making in the music classroom\u201d. This article fits with more with my first article than my second one because this article pertains more to the upbringing of youth\u00a0and how rap music helped and will continue to help shape and expand the youths mind.\u00a0The point of this article is to describe\u00a0how the hip-hop genre encouraged participants to increase their effort and maximize their ability in\u00a0two urban schools.\u00a0The authors came to these findings by having the Foundations of Music non-profit organization go to low-income\u00a0communities and teach their curriculum to students in elementary and middle school. Foundation of Music\u2019s program introduces students to both the process of writing lyrics of a rap song and the technology used to produce rap songs in a classroom\u00a0setting.\u00a0During these sessions the students were observed by the author\u00a0as he took converted his notes into a narrative-based observation. He recorded things such as different concepts the kids learned each day, reactions from student-to-student and student-to-teacher, along with informal conversations between the students. After the conclusion of the curriculum the author was able to have a final assessment of the students and help give constructive criticism as to what each student was doing right and what they needed to work on to be more successful. The meaning of these findings was that the having these same group of kids come in and work on a new hobby built a sense of belonging among them that replicated what it felt like to being on a team. A common goal of bettering themselves every day and a sense of having an actual\u00a0goal ahead of them. They also found that teachers in the school weren\u2019t letting kids express they\u2019re musical ideas whether it be raps they had written down or beats they had made at home and in this class they were finally able to receive feedback and have it mastered without being labeled as \u201cdisruptive\u201d. Many kids were able to express their emotions and their\u00a0real-life\u00a0experiences with violence in the neighborhood and let their stories be heard in their communities and elsewhere. Other studies I would like to see place is maybe to compare the findings of different\u00a0communities in different cities like comparing the low-income communities in Atlanta to low income communities in Chicago. This article is relevant to my interests because I\u2019ve always been interested in helping others and letting others experience things that they usually don\u2019t get to experience. Whether it be a big concert that they aren\u2019t able to afford or showing people that you can follow your dreams and prove others wrong.<\/p>\n

In conclusion I have learned a lot from this essay and am honestly intrigued with how this essay is supposed to be written. At first I had no idea what to use for my topic but I\u2019m glad I chose the one I did because I really do enjoy rap music and the hip-hop genre in its whole so it\u2019s fun to learn more about it and look beyond the lyrics. I have never written anything like this before so there is a bit of a learning\u00a0curve,\u00a0but it has been\u00a0fun,\u00a0and I look forward to revising this essay and fully understanding this topic of a synthesis essay.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Works Cited<\/p>\n

Brooks, Michael. \u201cUsing Rap Music to Better Understand African American Experiences.\u201d\u202fTaylor & Francis<\/em>, 26 Feb. 2020, www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1080\/15401383.2020.1732251.<\/p>\n

D’Amico, Francesca. \u201cWelcome to the\u00a0Terrordome: Race, Power and the Rise of American Rap Music, 1979-1995.\u201d\u202fYorkSpace\u00a0Home<\/em>, 11 May 2020, yorkspace.library.yorku.ca\/xmlui\/handle\/10315\/37409.<\/p>\n

Evans, Jabari. \u201cConnecting Black Youth to Critical Media Literacy through Hip Hop Making in the Music Classroom.\u201d\u202fLatest TOC RSS<\/em>, Intellect, 1 July 2020, www.ingentaconnect.com\/content\/intellect\/jpme\/pre-prints\/content-intellect_jpme_00020.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":253,"menu_order":10,"template":"","meta":{"pb_show_title":"on","pb_short_title":"","pb_subtitle":"","pb_authors":["aaustin"],"pb_section_license":""},"chapter-type":[],"contributor":[64],"license":[],"class_list":["post-151","chapter","type-chapter","status-publish","hentry","contributor-aaustin"],"part":118,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/understanding-literacy-in-our-lives\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/understanding-literacy-in-our-lives\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/understanding-literacy-in-our-lives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/chapter"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/understanding-literacy-in-our-lives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/253"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/understanding-literacy-in-our-lives\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":153,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/understanding-literacy-in-our-lives\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/151\/revisions\/153"}],"part":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/understanding-literacy-in-our-lives\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/parts\/118"}],"metadata":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/understanding-literacy-in-our-lives\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapters\/151\/metadata\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/understanding-literacy-in-our-lives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"chapter-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/understanding-literacy-in-our-lives\/wp-json\/pressbooks\/v2\/chapter-type?post=151"},{"taxonomy":"contributor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/understanding-literacy-in-our-lives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/contributor?post=151"},{"taxonomy":"license","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/understanding-literacy-in-our-lives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/license?post=151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}