Over the past twenty to thirty years the genre of rap and Hip-Hop has found itself in a lot of popularity. This genre of music tends to have a poor reputation within the mainstream media as it is often positioned to "brainwash" the youth. Rap and Hip-Hop are designed and targeted at young people. So when certain aspects of the media like the news and certain newspapers (both of which are targeting an older white audience) attempt to cover this genre of music they often position it in a negative way not taking in the cultural and contextual knowledge needed to cover this giant topic.
Rap and Hip-Hop developed this negative representation due to many artists articulating themselves in a violent way and rapping about parties and girls, so the media often toke this and assumed all rap is about violence and materialistic objects. These media platforms often don't comment on how rappers often comment on politics or express their emotions and the struggles they have been through in their lives. Politics is spoken a lot in the world of rap and hip-hop and many artist may spring to mind. Artists like Kendrick Lamar may come to mind who in his album 'Damn' commented massively on politics especially, in the song titled 'XXX' he stated “Donald Trump’s in office/ We lost Barack and promised to never doubt him again/ But is America honest, or do we bask in sin?”. The song is a story of Johnny, a child who was shot and killed on the streets. Johnny’s father seeks faith, but Kendrick urges revenge, which could be interpreted as taking action against injustice. However, the rappers I will be focusing on is the rap group N.W.A. The group surfaced in 1988 with their debut album Straight Outta Compton. The group consisted of five members and are often marked as the start of the gangster rap sub genre. The group delved into police brutality, racism and the injustices around the city. The rap group released a song called 'F*ck tha police'. This song struck controversy in not only the real world but also the media. With the popularity of this song the FBI decided to step in and claimed the song provoked violence against the law enforcement. Due to this they were ordered to not perform the song at their live shows (this was excellently adapted in the film Straight Outta Compton released in 2015). Although this doesn't contribute to how the media represent this topic there was a huge example of how the song was used in the mainstream media. Only a year after of the groups ban an Australian radio station played the song. The song only lasted on the station for six months until it was taken off air, this clearly shows the medias opinion on the genre as they do not want the artists to express themselves and what they see wrong with the world. Although i was not alive for the time the group had together it shows the impact the group have on culture as I'm certain that the group still heavily influence the youth of today.
However, overtime the media has improved I it's representation of rap artists. With nowadays rappers being cover stars of magazines and often used on the radio. The genre of rap has in all increasingly been endorsed by all parts of the world with the genre of rap even having its own award at the Grammys. An artist who I am going to be talking about is the two time Grammy award winner Tyler the Creator. Last year Tyler won the award for 2021's best rap album, at the beginning of Tyler's career he was faced with a lot of criticism due to many reasons. Tyler blossomed in his group Odd Future which achieved some success, but when Tyler went solo that is where he found most of his success. Tyler's early album releases faced controversy due to them being chaotic and included a lot of swearing. Furthermore, Tyler's use of the n word. Further down Tyler's career his music developed and he was not stuck to doing one thing with him now finding success in many things like singing, song writing, producing and even fashion. Tyler developed his own fashion line that has been producing clothes since 2011. However, in recent years Tyler took his fashion journey more seriously as it has kind of overridden his music career as it seems to be his main focus now. Tyler featured in XXL's fall magazine in 2021 flaunting his fashion sense. The magazine promotes Tyler in a positive light and describes him as "wild and wonderful". This magazine clearly shows the change in how the media represent rappers nowadays as it clearly promotes his music and inspires others to be like him. This contrasting with how N.W.A were treated by the media shows how times have changed and the genre has been accepted.
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