Rap Musicians

Popular entertainment has often come under attack by the establishment for one reason or another. For example, when Elvis first twitched his pelvis on national television, the cameras were told to only film from the waist up (Hull 17). Songs such as "Louie Louie" and "Wake up, Little Susie" were also considered controversial when they first came out (17). Then, in 1966, a number of Christian groups believed that Beatles music was "corrupting the youth" and lobbied to have it banned from radio play (Hull 51). More recently, Rap and Hip-hop music, which grew out of a grassroots need to express the experience of a disenfranchised portion of the population, have also come under attack by certain groups who consider the lyrics to be inappropriate, corrupting, or otherwise politically incorrect. This paper will argue that it is the right of Rap musicians, just as it is the right everyone who lives in the United States, to be able to express themselves and their experiences freely, without fear of reprisal or censorship.

One of the most compelling reasons that Rap music should be free from censorship is that it is a First Amendment right to be able to express one's self freely. Specifically: "Congress shall make no law . . . prohibiting . . .or abridging the freedom of speech" (www.nara.gov/exhall/charters/billrights). This amendment is not restricted to any specific class of people, nor does it limit free speech to that which is "sensitive" or "politically correct". I

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sement parties in cities like New York, Los Angeles, Oakland, Chicago, and Miami (Hull 18). Rap was born in areas where there were large minority populations that were "hard hit by economic decline, unemployment, crime, and drugs" (Hull 18). As the disc-jockeys at these parties "sampled" from one dance mix to another, intermixing it with their patter and rhymes, a voice was found for this part of American society that had felt ostracized to a large extent. As Hull asserts, "Rap's rhyming talk, which spoke of life in the inner city, began to express strong racial and political awareness" (19). Additionally, although some rap lyrics have been attacked as "racist, misogynist, anti-Semitic, sexually explicit, and violent" (19), there are scholars who maintain that rappers are the urban storytellers of the ghetto. They are simply "expressing real-life experiences and exposing the conditions of life in the ghetto" (19). That being the case, this is even more of a reason to let rappers "speak" - because there is need for this reality to be heard by the general public - so that it will no longer be allowed to ignore these sweeping social problems. This presents a third reason that rappers should be allowed the Constitutional right f

Category: Arts - R