Customer center

We are a boutique essay service, not a mass production custom writing factory. Let us create a perfect paper for you today!

Example research essay topic: Gangsta Rappers Ice Cube - 2,192 words

NOTE: Free essay sample provided on this page should be used for references or sample purposes only. The sample essay is available to anyone, so any direct quoting without mentioning the source will be considered plagiarism by schools, colleges and universities that use plagiarism detection software. To get a completely brand-new, plagiarism-free essay, please use our essay writing service.
One click instant price quote

NWA was a gangsta rap crew who told stories of the hustler lifestyle where life aint nothin but bitches and money. As such, they relied heavily on being as offensive as possible. The cover of their 1988 album, Straight Outta Compton, features a power-emphasising low-angle shot of the band members looking down into the camera, which places the audience in the position of the defeated enemy. A gun is pointing straight at us. Each man is wearing street clothes, and one has a chunky gold necklace showing. The picture is shot in natural lighting, and the eyes of three of the men are obscured by shadows.

Judging by their stern facial expressions, they probably wont be showing mercy. This is the image theyre aiming for: hard, ruthless, cold. Over the course of the narrative the three front men - Ice Cube, MC Ren and Eazy-E - accuse the LAPD of racism and violence and go so far as to threaten any rogue officers with death. Their overtly violent stance separates them from the rap mainstream, and the righteous anger of the song - the marked refusal to let the enemy smite the other cheek - is loaded with subversive potential.

It begins with a courtroom scene pastiche in which the DJ, Dr. Dre, re-positions himself as the judge and the three vocalists as witnesses. In his booming voice Judge Dre asks Ice Cube if he swears to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help your black ass? Ice Cube replies: Youre Goddamn right! The exaggerated informality of the NWA courtroom shows how they also bring a sense of humour with them. Tricia Rose says oppressed people use language, dance, and music to mock those in power, express rage, and produce fantasies of subversion. 1 This can be a powerful tool for raising awareness of problems that face African Americans, and engendering the spirit of resistance in others.

Nwa's mocking role-plays give way to rage over the verses, where they lay down the charges against the police. One of the less strongly worded and blatantly valid accusations comes from Ice Cube: Searching my car/Looking for the product/Thinking every nigga is sellin narcotics. This refers to profile arrests - Roses name for the policy of stopping and searching young black males, particularly if they are driving an expensive car, on the shaky and unashamedly racist basis that theyre more likely to possess drugs than anyone else. With a firm grounding in reality, Ice Cubes words provide a rallying point for young black men suffering from the same police treatment. In reaction to profile harassment NWA display the will, characteristic of gangsta rap, to meet a violent world with alluring, shocking fast talk and, if necessary, with hard fists and bullets. 2 Eazy-E makes a representative comment about playin with the trigger of an Uzi or an AK. Not surprisingly, critics of gangsta rap often focus on the issue of violence.

Studies have apparently found that exposure to rap music "tends to lead to a higher degree of acceptance of the use of violence. " Time magazine reported in June 1989 that most Americans blame lyrics glorifying sex and violence for increasing teen violence, and two-thirds want more regulation of those lyrics. 3 Furthermore, their celebrity status also serves to glamorize their violent behaviour. 4 This was certainly the case with Snoop Doggy Dogg, who was involved in a drive-by shooting in the early nineties (giving himself up to the police only after presenting En Vogue with a video gong at the MTV awards) and, according to the Q magazine of February 1994, as the seriousness of the criminal charges against him became known, so the pre-sales of Dogg's as yet entirely unheard record began to soar. 5 Before it was even released it had sold two million copies. After hearing of the drive-by shooting, people would have no doubt that the violence in Doggs music will be to some extent based on truth. Therefore, the record sales surely must indicate widespread attraction to violence within the youthful record-buying public - if only on a voyeuristic, non-participatory level at first - and its easy to see why people may worry about the role of rap in the perpetuation of violence in American society. However, the issue is more complex than that. Errol E. Henderson summarises the argument put forth by gangsta rapper Ice-T in his song Squeeze the Trigger: rap music did not cause violence any more than soccer matches, hockey games, or nuclear peace rallies-all the sites of some form of violence.

The larger and important point was that youth live in a violent society, and at its best, the music that captured this ethos would evoke violent images. Therefore it is foolish to assume, as many policy makers did, that rap music was causing violence as opposed to reflecting the violence within many urban communities. 6 This is the standard pro-gangsta argument, which Eazy-E affirms: Were telling the real story of what its like living in places like Compton. Were giving the fans reality. Were like reporters.

This explains the participatory, non-judgemental style of narrative that Brian Cross calls the gangsta norm, and which is the major issue of contention. 7 NWA largely conform to this format, but some of the lyrics on Straight Outta Compton are actually to some extent self-critical. In Gangsta, Gangsta, Ice Cube acknowledges the impeach ability of his gangs ethical code: Do I look like a mutha fuckin role model? In this respect, the group dont pretend to be morally correct in any way and mirror the gleeful nihilism of punk bands before them like the Sex Pistols. Eazy-E summarises the situation in Fuck Tha Police: my identity by itself causes violence.

Assuming that by identity he refers to his black skin, and considering racist police conduct, in essence he is always saying, I am violent because you forced me to be. This can be seen as a direct challenge to critics: get rid of poverty and racism at root, and you get rid of gangsta rappers hassling you. The biggest irony of the debate about violence in rap is the fact that when you hold a song like Fuck Tha Police up to the American constitution litmus test, it becomes clear that, as Americans, NWA are merely asserting the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures. (4 th Amendment) They do so with guns, which is necessary in the respect that the enemy (police and rival gangs) are armed, but is also fundamentally okay because the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. (2 nd Amendment) Of course, this argument is stretched at times because the gangstas seem to take so much pleasure in messing with guns - and it therefore becomes more than a simple matter of necessity, and enters the realm of vulgar displays of imagined patriarchal power (as I shall discuss later). But it is interesting to look at the extent to which gangsta rap values resemble mainstream American values. For instance, NWA and their counterparts often celebrate the capitalists dream of personal wealth and expensive clothes and jewellery. In Fuck Tha Police Ice Cube mentions his little bit of gold and a pager and me and Lorenzo rollin in the Benzo (presumably a reference to a Mercedes Benz).

This kind of attitude is also exemplified by the likes of Tupac, Ice-T and Notorious B. I. G. , and shows how pervasive white middle class values are even among those who set themselves up in opposition to them. Another problem with this attitude, that Chuck D from Public Enemy warns, is the gulf between the average person in the street and the rap superstar: we have to watch out, because our masses are waiting by bus stops and going to the laundromat... These cats have to be careful of rubbing their spoils in the faces of the masses.

Which is a good point because it is not politically liberating to be obsessed with money. Gangsta raps mistreatment of women is another habit inherited from white America (though obviously sexism pre-dates modern America), which also threatens to undermine the subversive potential of the music. According to bell hooks, black males, utterly disenfranchised in almost every arena of life in the United States, often find that the assertion of sexist domination is their only expressive access to the patriarchal power they are told all men should possess as their gendered birthright. 8 This may explain the constant reference to women as bitches in Straight Outta Compton. Despite the attempt in I Aint Tha One to focus particularly on money-grabbing women, Ice Cube blows his cover when he says: You know I spell girl with a B. Clearly this attitude is counterproductive.

It should be noted that Ice Cube has since renounced the domination of women: If I wanted to give orders, Id get me a German shepherd or somethin. 9 However, he maintains, as bell hooks paraphrases, that some females carry themselves in a manner that determines how they will be treated. In reaction to this kind of attitude the female gangsta rapper Lil Kim has taken the bitch image to the extreme. Her lyrical contribution to the song Would They Die For You from Mases album Harlem World is representative: Im the same bitch all yall wanna try ya luck with/Lil Kim spread like syphilis/You think Im pussy? /I dare you to stick your dick in this. She emphasises her sexual desirability - thus carrying herself in a way that might determine how she will be treated.

But she retains the right to dress and act as she pleases without being reduced to the label of pussy, and dares any would-be rapist / male dominator to come ahead and try - the implication being that theyd be sorry for it afterwards. Lil Kim's image as a strong woman in gangsta rap is helpful because it provides a rallying point for young black women who find themselves mistreated. The problem with Lil Kim, however, is that she is still marketed as an object of sexual desire, just as white female pop stars like Britney Spears are. She is still objectified. Also, her adoption of the word bitch is questionable. On the one hand, she threatens to erode its misogynistic power.

Likewise, the constant use of the word nigger by general gangstas hacks away at the hateful power it once had. Even hardcore opponent of white supremacist, capitalist patriarchy bell hooks can be found saying nigger from time to time. But Yvonne Bone rightly says that recent atrocities committed against African Americans (for example, James Byrd being dragged to death behind a pickup truck in Texas) show that the original concept of a nigger as a sub-human still exists in America. (And of course the concept of a bitch as a woman to be conquered and tamed still exists. ) She argues that we should understand the weight of words. Words like nigger, buck, coon, mammy and bitch were used to dehumanize us and therefore helped to rationalize the brutality levelled against us for centuries. 10 Therefore, as America is far from full of liberal attitudes, the use of such words can only be starkly regressive - providing further fuel for racism. Malcolm X said there are limits to what singing can achieve.

This is part of whats wrong with you. You do too much singing. Today, its time to stop singing and start swinging. 11 By swinging Malcolm X meant fighting for the cause and actually overcoming rather than singing We Shall Overcome. Public Enemy are one of those rare groups capable of swinging while singing. They refrain from using words like nigger and bitch, they rarely swear, and like to keep their anger precise and controlled. Image-wise, the band members do not display any of the riches of gangsta rappers, though they do wear defiant facial expressions and can often be found in military garb.

The cover of their second album, It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, has the front men Chuck D and Flavor Flat standing in a jail cell, facing the camera defiantly. Flavor, the secondary rapper and jester figure of the band, wears cartoonish plastic sunglasses and his trademark clock for a necklace - a clock which perhaps symbolizes Public Enemy's intention to really let people know what time it is. The Public Enemy logo of a black man in the sight of a gun sits just above them. Excerpts from live shows, in which Chuck D and Flavor Flat order the crowd to scream while sinister sirens wail in the background, punctuate the songs. Flavor starts a call-and-response chant of bring that beat back! , emphasising the two-way nature of the music - the importance of audience participation. The crowd sounds like a mob being roused to some kind of a revolutionary fervour.

Flavor is confrontational in these extracts, as he is elsewhere: I dont think they can handle this, Chuck. The cro...


Free research essays on topics related to: african americans, facial expressions, ice cube, gangsta rappers, bell hooks

Research essay sample on Gangsta Rappers Ice Cube

Writing service prices per page

  • $18.85 - in 14 days
  • $19.95 - in 3 days
  • $23.95 - within 48 hours
  • $26.95 - within 24 hours
  • $29.95 - within 12 hours
  • $34.95 - within 6 hours
  • $39.95 - within 3 hours
  • Calculate total price

Our guarantee

  • 100% money back guarantee
  • plagiarism-free authentic works
  • completely confidential service
  • timely revisions until completely satisfied
  • 24/7 customer support
  • payments protected by PayPal

Secure payment

With EssayChief you get

  • Strict plagiarism detection regulations
  • 300+ words per page
  • Times New Roman font 12 pts, double-spaced
  • FREE abstract, outline, bibliography
  • Money back guarantee for missed deadline
  • Round-the-clock customer support
  • Complete anonymity of all our clients
  • Custom essays
  • Writing service

EssayChief can handle your

  • essays, term papers
  • book and movie reports
  • Power Point presentations
  • annotated bibliographies
  • theses, dissertations
  • exam preparations
  • editing and proofreading of your texts
  • academic ghostwriting of any kind

Free essay samples

Browse essays by topic:

Stay with EssayChief! We offer 10% discount to all our return customers. Once you place your order you will receive an email with the password. You can use this password for unlimited period and you can share it with your friends!

Academic ghostwriting

About us

© 2002-2024 EssayChief.com