#48world

MIX OF VIBES TO START THE SUMMER OFF, FIRST HALF BY THE AMAZING DJ PC, SECOND HALF BY YOUR BOY NYCKY. WE GOT ground.jordan, J CHINNASZ, SLY, BEN TELFORD & GK-22

It's 2018, Donald Trump is president, Nasa is organizing its first trip to Mars & Hip-Hop music is at its peak in the mainstream world. Week after week Hip-hop artist are dominating the Billboard charts with controversial, yet crowd-pleasing music. But there's one question we should ask when looking at the bigger picture. Is Hip-hop becoming the new pop beneficial to society? And if so, is the world ready for a genre that glorifies so much negativity in order to take the top spot?

Contemporary music or Hip-hop doesn't necessarily employ an excessive amount of profane language or subject matter. But instead reflects the right amount of said language and subject matter used by modern society. To be more specific, society itself has evolved and has embraced a more excessively profane, sexual liberating, and a darker standpoint that modern music reflects.

I heard a really impactful quote today when I was listening to Vince Staples lyrics in the song “Might be Wrong”. The quote was “Stand your ground? Black people don’t have a ground to stand on so they stand on their Words”. That quote is immense fully impactful due to the fact that music and art generally tend to reflect society in an amazing way. For example, Hip-Hop is surrounded by negative impressions due to its mature subject matter, but it’s reflecting the artist’s environment. Most rappers are minorities who grew up or who are currently living in oppressed environments. Therefore, they rap about their version of reality and situations they can relate to. Being from the South side of Ottawa my upbringing might not have been anything close to Vince Staples experiences in Long Beach, Los Angeles. But I can say that the messages through his lyrics relate to me deeply, and is a current reflection of the Southside rap scene in Ottawa.

Most songs seen on the top of the music charts feature mature, darker, and more dangerous subject matter. The songs themselves are not just the cause of social vices but are also symptoms in the larger illness brought forth from the "free-market" capitalistic society we live in. The rich get richer, the middle class is eroding, and the lower class is an ever-growing segment of our population.

A lot of times in today’s society people aren’t looking out for each other. In addition, our governments have lost faith and abandoned aiding their citizens in favor of filling their pockets and those of their shareholders. This causes a ripple effect in impoverished communities where one man’s success is envied by the other to the point of hateful acts being committed. Which is why most artist who succeed or start making earnings will solely look out for themselves. Why would you help your fellow man if he hates you, and why believe in the government if it never believed in you, to begin with? That's why you see these musicians make music that encourages such heaping amounts of vulgarity and promiscuousness because they are detailing the life that they can finally live now.

In modern Hip-Hop music, this lifestyle is very evident. Many of these rappers grow up very poor and live a treacherous lifestyle. It is their reality because their goal is to put food on the table and feed their families, or just to simply survive another day. In a time when upcoming rappers start to make money, they can live the fantasy that was denied of them because of their financial situation or skin tone. And consumers take a part in this too. We love these songs because they too are a possible fantasy that we can immerse ourselves into, and use to escape the demons of everyday life. That's what this music is and has always been, an outlet that musicians use to express their feelings, a moment of reprieve from the daily grind for the masses, and a reflection of the ills of modern society.