When my classmate mentioned her paradigm shift essay’s focus on the increased vulgarity in popular music, I immediately connected this phenomenon as a result of the transition of hip-hop into the mainstream. This transition first occurred when Kanye West dropped My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy in 2010. The album’s production brought forth lavish, colorful, and grandiose beats. The soundscape really changed the way artists sampled music to create beats. All in all, this new approach to production created an accessible sound to casual music listeners. Artists like Drake, Macklemore, and Asap Rocky followed Kanye’s album with projects using similar production techniques, and they all remained at the top of the charts in the early 2010s. Today, the Top 40 is dominated by hip-hop artists.
As we know, there are many subgenres of hip-hop, mostly as a result of the regions of the U.S. being hotspots for different sounds of hip-hop (southern trap, west coast g-funk, east coast conscious/jazz) Over the past two years, trap has arguably been the trendiest style of hip-hop. Trap typically features a lot of vulgar lyrical content because the music presents a very obscene tone. Trap’s trendiness makes it easier for less skilled musicians to find success in the mainstream. These artists typically focus their lyrics around more straightforward topics, such as relationships and drugs, which are open to imagery that many people find offensive. I think that the vulgarity we see in popular music today still extends beyond the styles of trap, because hip-hop serves as a rebellious form of expression for young people. To clarify this point through a connection, I’ll consider how rock-n-roll was seen as extremely rebellious and unchristian-like during the 50’s. The music was discouraged by parents, radio speakers, and political leaders for its “demonic” influences on children. Yet rock-n-roll gained one of the largest movements as an art-form in the history of our country. It's popularity persisted into the mainstream well into the 60s. The same goes for the punk music of the 70s - it was very rebellious for its time and that's why it gained a movement. We can take the rebellious attitude of hip-hop today and connect it to the history of rock-n-roll. Parents and political leaders don't understand hip-hop in the same way the parents of the 50's didn’t understand rock-n-roll. Parents today think that hip-hop is horribly offensive through its vulgar lyrics, but this quality of hip-hop is an important factor of its rebelliousness, which contributes to the overall movement of hip-hop into the mainstream. While the crudeness of the styles of trap contribute to the increased vulgarity in popular music, the rebellious nature of hip-hop provides a pocket for heated political commentary. Political messages within rap music can understandably come off as heated and offensive, as rappers tend to address issues pertinent to the culture of hip-hop, such as police brutality and minority oppression. With hip-hop’s ability to bring attention to politics through lyrics, many rappers are politically conscious, as their albums contain a lot of political and sociocultural themes. YG's songs "Police Get Away with Murder," "FDT," and "Blacks and Browns" are great examples of politically conscious tracks filtered through a rebellious attitude (F*** Donald Trump is pretty crude if you’d ask me). Of course, Kendrick's To Pimp a Butterfly is a landmark album discussing many themes surrounding the oppression and culture of the black community. And we can see how these artists are filtered into the mainstream because both Kendrick and YG have seen top 40 success, and influenced other hip-hop artists in the top 40. Adult figures will continually bash hip-hop’s unabashed, vulgar lyrical content. Ironically, the very reason this vulgarity persists is because these figures protest against the art form. As far as I can see, hip-hop will continue to dominate in the mainstream, as it successfully channels rebellious attitudes through its musical styles.
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