1 April 2011

6 Reasons Why Rap Music is Bad for Nigerians

I used to like rap back when it was poptastic and artists like Mase, JaRule and Nelly were making hits. But now (maybe because I'm older?) I think the popular forms of the genre is detrimental to Black people's achievement because it encourages a culture that:

1) Turns ignoramuses into millionaires that buy $50 million cars, huge necklaces worth more than houses and a full set of diamond teeth
2) Encourages middle-aged men to dress like teenagers who wear caps, hoodies, jeans and trainers to corporate events
3) Reduces beautiful women into willing sex-objects (video vixens) valued for nothing more than their fat behinds
4) Funds and fuels violence by making violent rappers rich
5) Glorifies and promotes promiscuity, greed, revenge, hate and other shameful vices
6) Turns would-be doctors and lawyers into education-less layabouts with delusions of grandeur who spit boastful, violence-ridden lyrics that get them nowhere, until they wake up one day aged 40 and discover that they have wasted their youth chasing pipe dreams of becoming the next Jay Z.

Yes, rap music has given Black people a voice, can be a force for good and a source of enlightenment and has provided an avenue for many to attain wealth and influence. But for every 50 Cent there are a thousand more who never make it and lead unproductive lives because they wasted their best years chasing a fruitless dream and end up bitter because of it.

I'm putting aside the entertainment value of rap music and looking into its societal effects.

Thank God Nigerian parents still demand that their kids to go to university and become accountants and engineers and that many young Nigerians chase professions. Although some born and bred in the West are lost to the Music Monster, a lot more excel in jobs that will actually feed their families long term.

It could be argued that the music genre itself cannot be held responsible for leading countless people astray. And the fact that many youths prefer to get rich through the relatively simplistic art of rhyming rather than the discipline of education and apprenticeship has more to do with our skewed culture than rap itself.

I don't know.

All I know is that I'll be a typical Nigerian mother who will discourage my child if they tell me they want to rap. I want to stop them from becoming a stereotype because the industry is over-subscribed with countless black boys and girls hoping for music superstardom. I'll tell them that they must earn a degree otherwise I will cut them out of my will, and if they continue to have a passion for music, I'll encourage them to learn a musical instrument which would actually earn them money in the future when their lyrical flow doesn't.

5 comments:

  1. wanted to be a music manager, during university days, my mom had to cry to discourage me , said music industry is for drug user's... i think the kid should decide - the career thing and the parents make sure he.she makes it.

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  2. Well, there's an old African proverb: What an elder can see lying down a child cannot see standing up...

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  3. You know the history of Hip Hop and Rap? How it developed in the burned out buildings of the Bronx, NY and developed into an antidote for the mindless gang violence which reigned during the 70s? Early Hip Hop innovations were developed by Kool Herc, the son of Jamaican immigrants. Herc brought the Jamaican sound system and toasting to NY. To suit local tastes Herc started to spin 1970s Funk instead of Reggae. A young gang leader by the name of Afrika Bambaata was inspired to become a DJ. By calling a meeting with other gang leaders, Bambaata brought the gang violence to an end, supplanting it with competitive breaking, rapping and tagging. Hip Hop/Rap was a force for good born out of difficult circumstances.

    But after a golden age of 10 years or so, Hip Hop morphed into Californian Gansta Rap exemplified by Ice T, Ice Cube and NWA. As Rap became more and more outrageous it started to appear on the cultural horizon of white America. Consequently, the major record labels realised that money could be made out of black Rap music and began to buy up the smaller labels.

    I can recommend a couple of good documentaries about the Rap/Hip Hop/Gangsta phenomenon. The first is Byron Hurt's 'Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes', which explores the hyper-masculine world of Gangsta Rap. The story of how to bottle black American masculinity and market a parody to white America... The second documentary, 'The Hip Hop Years' recounts the history of Rap from its origins in the Bronx.

    The Rap that young Nigerians aspire to is a caricature of black America, sold to white America and the world by major record labels. As one talking head on 'Beyond Beats and Rhymes' observes: - "if the KKK were smart enough, they would have created Gangsta Rap because it's such a caricature of black masculinity."

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  4. I'm aware of some of hip hop's illustrious history, but unfortunately what we're left with today is less inspiring. And we can't blame 'white executives' for pimping out the genre for their own wealth because no body forces rappers to do what they do, plus 'conscious rappers' like Talib Kweli are never as popular as 'unconscious' ones like Lil Wayne. Go figure.

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  5. Fulani-Nigerian,
    Why just Nigerians only? Most black people have the same aspirations as Nigerians.

    I'd not blame rap music, more like I'd blame the bad decision making of black people in general. From what I've observed, Nigerians like things fast, easy and immediate. The fact is very rarely do things ever work out that way. This can be noted from the fact that Nigerians depend solely on something they have no control over, ie oil & gas production, and generally speaking have been to complacent and lazy to develop any other meaningful sources of revenue.

    What you could say about rap, can equally applied to sports - like football, etc, or even writing fiction, poetry etc. I wouldn't exclude them, but if I knew someone who wanted to pursue a career in one of those fields, they must have a plan B. One has to be prepared and adaptable to survive and thrive.

    I agree that we must re-orientate ourselves to value education and research, which we don't. From my view point successful blacks are seen (by the wider world) as "good entertainers" (nothing more). The best we can hope for is for a handful of individuals to squeeze themselves into a land where education is respected (acquire citizenship) and continue their love for knowledge there.

    I think more of a balance needs to be struck, chasing "glamour and fast cars" is all well and good, but we need to be able to feed ourselves (which we still can't do) and create societies that can stand in the face of adversity, which nearly no African nation can do (possibly South Africa may be the exception). We can see how Ebola is devastating West Africa.

    Governments and civil society have a responsibility to build reputed centres of learning for various aspects of science and knowledge, and the income should be guaranteed regardless of what government comes to power, this will help build a foundation of knowledge for the future. I'm not talking about universities, but centres of innovation, that are directly applicable to the immediate and future needs.

    Oh, I do like rap music, I like Ghost Face Killer, Guru, Gangstarr, Talib Kweli etc. There's some real good stuff to be found in that genre of music.

    Thank you

    auchomage

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