How much responsibility do musicians have
Options
Comments
-
I laugh at you humans who in one breath blame the media for the ills of society but in another breath defend the media of your choice.
Humans are ? stupid. Lol -
Music has an influence, but parents can have the biggest influence overall regardless of what rappers say. I grew up listening to hip-hop yet my father made sure I knew a song was a song and just because a rapper says some ? doesn't mean it's true. The same way at 9 years old I could watch the movie Dead Presidents and know that it was just entertainment, I listened to rap music and knew "It's just entertainment"....n
-
be inspired by the baby sitter or cartoons -
Movies have an effect on how adults think and behave sometimes.. so why would we expect it to have none on younger and more easily influenced humans?
-
They only have one responsibility IMO, and that's to make good music.
-
I remember I went from Cali to Tulsa when I was young and all them ? asked about was Easy E, Ice Cube, Crips and Bloods and I watch these ? imitate what the music told them cali was like.
-
Well first thing first: anyone who thinks they are their child's only influence in life is fooling themselves and telling a damn lie. Every kid has a hero that lives outside the home. Whether its Michael Jordan or 2Pac, is irrelevant, the fact is every child has a hero and/or role model.
I also see a ton of people taking things from the wrong angle: everyone knows hip-hop aint real. I think you'd be hard pressed to find any kid above 11 yrs of age that still believes what rappers say is 100% authentic.
With that said kids don't imitate hip-hop, hip-hop imitates kids. You will have certain things taken from the TV to the streets (like slang and fashion for instance) but for the most part all the stories rappers tell is based off street ? that happens everyday, they just capture it and put it in rhyme form. Goodfellas & Casino were based on real stories with some liberties taken for entertainment purposes, that's the same ? rap does.
Hip-hop blurs the lines between reality and fiction so much that its difficult to say what's made up and what isn't. So there really is no purpose in saying its all fake either. How do you explain to an immature brain that Nas' "Made You Look" isn't real but "Daughters" is? There's thousands of examples of rap blurring those lines between reality and fiction.
Now on topic:
Its difficult to say whether musicians have a responsibility. I think that even some musicians think they have some type of social responsibility and many perform and record like they do. its hard to say they don't but they dance on a very precarious line and ultimately their allegiance is to themselves and their families. So I would say so.
I blogged on this subject recently by the way:
http://shobizcentral.wordpress.com/2012/03/16/choices-and-responsibilities/ -
they have a responsibility to make good ass music.
all that other ? , is failures overcompensating for failing their community. -
Do musician, namely hip-hop artist have a responsibility? Maybe yes. Maybe no. Should they deny their influence wether negative or positive? No they shouldn't.
Here's the thing with rappers. They like to say they are not role models and what not but then turn around in interviews and in songs claim to be the representative of their city, the spokes man if you will. They claim to do it for them, be their voice. T.I. Said not to long ago that nobody knows what it feels like to have to carry a whole city on your back like he HAS to. See these ? flip flop on what they are responsible for or they like to be responsible when they feel it's convenient for them. Some of these ? are quick to tell everyone all that they have done for their city but once someone brings up the fact that they could be having a negative influence on the very same people they claim to rep then it's "I'm not a role model".
In hip-hop it's "Don't talk about it if you don't live it"
And it seems every artist got this hard knock life story (that maybe changing though). Every artist been to jail, been shot, sold drugs etc etc so know they can rap to tell the world about the real.
When It was discovered the Rick Ross once had a job as a CO and they question him about it. The thing he kept saying was "but I did get Rich off ? " that was all he seem to be worried about, cause that's what the fans admire. Not a ? that had a job and worked hard to get into music. Nooooo. A ? dealer turn rapper like every other ? dealer turned rapper.
So if ? dealers eventually turn into rappers as we have seen many times over, what does that say to the youth?
