Black Noise by Tricia Rose

Rose discusses in her article how Hip Hop is not dead but, it needs reconstruction. She states that the commercial market is taking over the industry and sexuality and racial stereotypes is what sells right now. Therefore artists like Jay Z and 50 cents is what fits into those categories and they are selling a lot of records. The underground rappers who rap about being positive and bettering yourself does not fit it the corporate standards, so they are not selling or heard on the radio as much as mainstream artists. Rose is not trying to talk bad about the main stream rappers in her article, but she is just trying to state that they need to take responsibility for there music. Even though they are not trying to force you to listen to it but it is all you hear on the radios and on TV. Rose states that Hip Hop is not what it use to be, when children and parents could listen to the same music. When music was about education, history and trying to make yourself a better person. Rose discusses how Hip Hop is seen as violent, she totally disagrees with this statement. She thinks that in the 1960 black America was violent, but it was a way of fighting for rights not just something to do to make noise. I think that this article has many strong points. At one point in time I also thought that Hip Hop was dead, but then I decided to re evaluate the situation. I stopped listening to Hip Hop and decided to switch to R&B, but that did'nt help. I then decided to change the Rap artists that I listened to, but that didnt help. After reading this article I know why "Same thing with Jay-Z. Even he has acknowledged that he's "dumbed his music down" so that he can sell records." Jay Z at one point in time was one of my favorite rappers, but the content of music started to change. I feel that artist should not lower there standards of music to sell more music. Hip Hop is black america's way of telling our story, it is like a verbal history book. When artist water down there lyrics it changes the way youth look at themselves. Hip Hop as a community needs to come together and repair what corporate America has done to it.