Hip-Hop and the Media

Hip-Hop to me is rap music with really cool, fun beats to go along with the chorus. Usually when I think of Hip-Hop I think of music that I would put on so I could dance. Hip-Hop music is almost like an African American music movement that changed music history.

Here is a list of five Hip-Hop artists I have never heard before now:
1) Madcon
2) Akrobatik
3) Pete Rock
4) Notes to Self
5) The Take Over




Here are five Hip-Hop videos I have never seen before now:
1) Madcon- "Beggin" video. The focus of this video is that the two main singers are playing video games and when they start to doze off to sleep, they begin dreaming of actually being a part of the video game. Certain scenes include them trying to break out of jail, the two guards are both women which they end up handcuffing. The video has a 70s feel to it because the singers and backup dancers are wearing platform shoes and bell bottom pants.
2) Shwayze- "Buzzin" video. Basically this video consists of Shwayze and a guitarist performing on the beach with a bunch of girls in swimming suits dancing around them. That is really about all that happens in the video, oh and the guys throughout the whole thing are just looking at the girls.
3) Jamie Foxx featuring T-Pain- "Blame It" video. In the video it's Jamie Foxx and friends hanging out in a club and all they are doing is drinking, dancing and hanging out with really pretty girls all night long.
4) Mr. C- "Cha-Cha Slide" video- Throughout the whole video it is Mr. C and random groupings of people of different races and ethnicities doing the Cha- Cha Slide together in all different places throughout the country.
5) The Roots- "The Seed" video- The video consists of the band playing in a room the whole time while also flipping to footage of a little girl running throughout a huge house. Eventually at the end of the video the little girl finds the room where The Roots are playing and watches them finish the song.

Two radio stations that broadcast Hip-Hop music:
1) 92.1 FM, The Beat, in Tulsa, OK
2) 101.5 FM, KTBT, in Collinsville, OK

Three examples of music my parents listened to:
1) The Beatles- rock and roll
2) James Taylor-alternative rock
3) Frank Sinatra- classical, vocal music

Corporations the have used Hip-Hop to promote and advertise their products would be Boost Mobile and Pepsi (which is not a fast food corporation). Both of these corporations have used Hip-Hip artists and music to promote their products and have actually been pretty successful in selling their products because youth and many others are attracted to the Hip-Hop culture.



Another great example like bling being used in the media today would be the term "diss." For instance, if you said something rude to someone, then you would say that you "dissed" them. The word actually came from disrespect and rappers were the first to come up with this term. Another term that is widely used is "shorty" which is basically a woman that a guy likes. Rappers always say "shorty" in their song lyrics. I have actually heard people call a girl "shorty" before, whether they were being serious or not.

Reflection:
What I found interesting about listening to Hip-Hop artists that I've never heard before was that I actually enjoyed some of the music more than I do mainstream rap. The group Madcon was probably my favorite because they had a cool sound to their music. It was almost like a mixture of rap and blues.

As for the music videos, I watched a mixture of mainstream rap videos that I had never seen before and then I added some random ones. What I found with almost all of them was that they had girls in their video. I understand that might be what attracts people (guys) to watch the video, but as a woman I don't find that particularly entertaining. The only one that didn't have girls was The Roots, which had a little girl throughout the video.

After I looked at videos I tried to find Hip-Hop radio stations. I honestly couldn't find very many that were dedicated to just rap music. I'm from Tulsa and we do have a station here that is Hip-Hop music, 92.1. For the most part, not enough stations dedicate their airtime to strictly rap music. Most of the stations I found were country.

I asked my parents what kind of music they listen to, and sadly enough, I really like their music more than I do a lot of the music out there today. The Beatles and James Taylor are classic artists in the music industry and there music, to me, is timeless.

I know that words like "bling" that started with rap music are very common in the media today. When I started thinking of other words I couldn't really think of many, but I do know that there are many more.

When I looked for Hip-Hop promoting corporation's advertising, I found that this kind of music is really only promoted in the fast food industry, soda industry and cell phone industry. I think that these companies use rap music to promote their products is due to the fact that many young people like fast food, pop and cell phones and many young people can relate to rap music.

As I listened to Hip-Hop music that I had never heard before, I realized that the sound of rap music is changing. I like it a lot more because I feel like it is less of the gangster rap and more musically talented music. Now, there are good beats to the music and not all of the lyrics deal with hot girls and parts of their body. I don't find rappers that sing about that very talented. That's just my opinion though. New Hip-Hop music is definitely becoming one of my favorite genres of music.

Race and Gender in Advertising

Here are my findings from advertising in the media that deals with race and gender.
I chose these sources because these are what I look at on a weekly basis in comparison to others which I would never really look at unless I was bored.
US Weekly Magazine- celebrity gossip and entertainment magazine-
An advertisement for Three Olives Vodka that shows two woman making their O-faces. This is sexualizing women and there are no men in these advertisements.

Marie Claire Magazine- women's magazine-
An advertisement for GAP which is called "27 Colors" and it has a diverse group of women from all different races fashioning the same kind of t-shirt in many different colors.

Cosmopolitan Magazine- women's fashion and entertainment magazine-
An advertisement for CoverGirl which features Rihanna and she appears to be lighter skinned than she normally is probably due to photoshop.

US Weekly Magazine- celebrity gossip and entertainment magazine-
An advertisement for Nic's Sticks Paint and Go Nail Lacquer that features three girls from high school musical in order of race starting with a white girl, hispanic girl and then a black girl.

Cosmopolitan Magazine- women's fashion and entertainment magazine-
An advertisement for Calvin Klein which shows three people a female and male African African and then a Asian woman. The Asian lady is off to the side while the African American couple is gazing into one another's eyes basically completely ignoring the other person in the ad. They are portraying an same race relationship instead of an interracial relationship when it could have been just as easy to make it a relationship between the Asian woman and African American man. Although CK probably didn't do this on purpose, it still makes me feel like they are too scared to show an interracial relationship.

2009 commercial for Carl's Jr. with Padma Lakshmi-
2009 Commercial
This commercial shows Padma, which is of a foreign tropical ethnicity, licking her fingers and licking the burger very sexually while also lifting her dress higher to make sure she doesn't get sauce on her clothes. So they are showing her in a very over sexual way eating a burger and afterwards they say the line "more than just a piece of meat" and you really don't know if they are referring to her or the burger. I, myself, thought this was a very degrading commercial.

PC commercial for Windows with the four year old Asian girl-
2009 Commercial
In this commercial it shows a four year old little Asian girl editing pictures on a computer program, which used to be so much more difficult in the past but now it is so much easier. What is interesting about this commercial is that it is an Asian girl and they have been known to be stereotyped as nerdy and this commercial kind of makes it the little girl to appear that way. Obviously, she is just a child and it is supposed to be cute, but if it was an older Asian female or male the stereotypical Asian nerd might be more obvious.

Dolce and Gabbana Commercial featuring Adam Karst of Cannon Karst Products-
2009 Commercial
In this commercial is shows Adam watching a Hispanic woman dancing on a stage. She is just dancing around is a sexual way while he is just sitting back and fantasizing about her. At the end of commercial, all that the show is just a pair of shoes that the girl was wearing laying there as if they are trying hint to the audience that something sexual might have happened between the Hispanic woman and the Caucasian male.

PETA commercial 2009-
This commercial shows three Caucasian women in barely anything licking vegetables with captions below them saying that if you become a vegetarian you will have better sex. This ad was eventually banned. Once again, like many other commercials and advertisements, I believe that this commercial demeans women and makes them look like the only thing they are good at is representing a sex symbol for men.

Mastercard 'Priceless' Commercial called "Meet the Family"-
2008/09 Commercial
This commercials shows an interracial couple, a white male and Asian female, discussing what will happen when their two opposite families realize that they are getting married and what their reactions will be. Many people had an issue with this commercial because mainstream media in this day and age are still portraying Asians and Asian women as "exotic" and un-American. I thought this commercial was great because the couple, although they need their families might have an issue with them getting married, they didn't care because they were in love and really didn't care what other people thought in the end.

People always say that sex sells, but I don't think that this is still the right way to go about advertising. Too many people are only worried about money and how they can get more money, especially through advertising, and this is just really makes me sick to my stomach. Money seems to make the world go round and I wish I could do something to change that, but sadly enough, I don't think anyone will ever be able to. It was really hard to find ads that had women or men of other races besides Caucasian. When I thought about it, I realized that many ads that have people of other races in them, they are usually the role of the best friend or sidekick of the main Caucasian role. There are also unlimited amount of commercials that show women as the stay at home mom that caters to her children and husband and that is all she really does with her life. Men in commercials usually play the single, bachelor role or the "bring home the bacon" to the family role. Obviously, these are not politically correct in every case, but that is all that is ever advertised. In general, I'm not a big fan of advertising because it is so revolved around just making money.