Sunday, April 20, 2014

Tricia Rose

Professor Rose is an internationally respected scholar ofpost civil rights era black U.S. culture, popular music, social issues, genderand sexuality. She is most known for her involvement in black music culture and how it shapes and molds expectations of gender and racial perceptions. She talks a lot about gender and sexuality, popular culture, mass media and racial issues.

As I am reading the Q&A with Tricia Rose I was very interested in what she had to say about hip-hop being "dead". I liked how she said it wasn't dead but rather an underground society that has a force of its own. It was mentioned in class the other week that a huge part of what the media does revolved around making money. She talks about how hip-hop used to be for fun and play and performed at block parties with families present. The old hip-hop didn't talk about sluts or sexualizing women or drugs or killing people. The old hip-hop had to be family friendly and talked about life. The new hip-hop is all about making money and sex sells. I took a news writing class and the motto was "if it bleeds, it leads". Sex, blood and drugs makes money.

In her video she mentioned how we come from so many backgrounds and different cultures that we are constantly morphing into popular culture and to try to create a simple minded idea of culture is too hard.


I also got from this  a sense of emphasis on media. Everything is accessible. Rose gives the example that in Jamaica there are almost 200 versions of the same song "I'm Sorry". It is not because they want to all sing the same song but every version is different and it is something to call your own and put your name on it.

I'm no expert but I personally think that hip-hop has changed and evolved with the different generations. New people come along and experiment with different ideas and new and interesting things come of it. Similar things happen with other music cultures. 


5 comments:

  1. I also mentioned in my blog post about when Tricia Rose talking about how hip hop isn't dead but rather an underground society that has a force of its own. I also feel like it's all about the money.. if it's selling.. why would the artist change his/her music? It's pretty sad when you think about it.

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  2. I agree that this shift takes place in other music genres. It is an evolving form of art. Hopefully, the shift will move into a true and authentic direction where artists can be true to who they are and be a role model for our youth.

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  3. I also agree that shifts occur within music genres. What is interesting about this shift is the direction it goes. In the near future, it will be interesting to see this change.

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  4. i like what you said about "if it bleeds it leads" that is so true and it is the same thing for everything. even if we hate something, we give attention to it by talking about it. there can be hip-hop without negativity and violence, but then it would get no play time and no attention...even from the people who hate this commercial hip hop.

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  5. I agree with you when you say that music has changed over time and I think that it will continue to change. Not everyone will agree with the choices that an artist may make, but maybe they're just trying to be different from everyone else in the music industry. It would be interesting to see if it starts to go back to the way it used to be, before hip hop was about sex, drugs and money.

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