Tupac who was the most influential rapper/hip hop artist of all time had a conscious mind and heart when it came to the social issues of poverty and violence within the Black American community. Tupac was great as a rapper/emcee who created awareness of the Black American issues, but he was even greater as a poet who influence people to explore their creative writing abilities.
I for one are the many who is influence by Tupac's creative writing, because he draws a story by using words that effects your emotion and mind. Just by reading one of his poems, I can feel his emotions whether it be sorrow, anger, or even love and emotions are essential to poetry. If you don't put emotions within the poem, then the poem will sound robotic or boring.
One of his poems name "Jada" is about Jada Pinkett-Smith (Famous actress and wife of Will Smith). Below is the poem if you like to read it and think of what the poem is about.
u r the omega of my heart
the foundation of my conception of love
when i think of what a black woman should be
its u that i first think of
u will never fully understand
how deeply my heart feels 4 u
i worry that we'll grow apart
and i'll end up losing u
u bring me 2 climax without sex
and u do it all with regal grace
u r my heart in human form
a friend i could never replace
The poem is about the platonic relationship he develop with Jada Pinkett-Smith during his time of
incarceration. The poem express his love as a friend for Jada and how she exemplifies the true meaning of a "real black woman."
His words are one of a kind and they can never be replace or ever be forgotten. Even though he is not here with us today, his words are keeping him alive in our minds and hearts. If you want to read more of his poetry you can visit this website http://www.alleyezonme.com/poetry/index.phtml. Also, if you want to listen to his music you can Youtube search Tupac music or even buy his existing albums.
Hip Hop music these days are not what it use to be, because of the digitization of musical tracks that make the genre fake or less creative. Also the genre is changing due to the new up incoming artist that use auto-tune to enhance their vocals to make the track or song more attractive and listenable. Nowadays, teenagers and early 20 year olds' listen to the degraded hip hop genre due to peer or media influence. When your friends listen to hip hop tracks that consist of auto-tuning you will automatically listen to it, because people are influence by each other. I have to admit, I am a person that listen to lyrical contents within a track and I argue with my friends about how I am not going to listen to hip hop that have integrated auto-tuning, but I was to quick to admit i won't. Eventually, I have given in to my friends' obsession of the new auto-tune hip hop and gave it a shot by listening to it. I am not going to hate on the track, because the track definitely is catchy, but I will hate on myself if I see myself listening to it all the time. Besides being influence by peers, the media plays a big part on what hip hop tracks we listen too. Our media will only play the hip hop tracks that are catchy and poppy, which defeats the purpose of calling it hip hop, because in actuality its infused hip-hop/pop.
Hip hop in general shouldn't sound poppy like you will hear from a pop track, the art form of hip hop music is to exert creative lyrical writing and relevant beats. Although, in order for the music corporations to make money they need to extract the most important part of the hip hop music and infuse digital vocalization into the track. That to me is just wrong, the music industry shouldn't change the way artists put together their music.
Just take it for example, My favorite artist right now is Lupe Fiasco who has immense talent in making legitimate hip hop tracks and he doesn't deviate his style to fit to the music industries' generic infuse hip hop/pop. Although Lupe Fiasco keeps it real with legitimate hip hop, the other portion of mainstream hip hop world has infuse itself with poppy beats to make money and appeal to the general public. To further understand this change in hip hop, Keith Kawaii has written an article that gets expertise's opinion on the changes of hip hop.
An article by Keith Kawaii reiterates onSasha Frere Jones'and Simon Reynolds' (an iconic rap/hip hop artist in the 80's) rant about how hip hop has lost its "Blackness" in the current hip hop arena. Simon Reynolds being an iconic rap/hip hop artist himself states that "hip-hop has simply dropped the innovation baton, losing it's taste making position in the broader culture."--http://www.tinymixtapes.com/features/hip-hop-really-dead
This reinforces my opinion on how hip hop has not been the same and how it mutates the original style to fit to the broader culture like pop fusion. But the question is still up in the air, "Is hip hop really dead?"
Well, according to Reynolds, he explains that hip hop is dead, but he also states that the death of hip hop isn't a bad thing, because it needs to die in order for something new to emerge. "According to Reynold, yes, though he says the death of a genre isn't necessarily a bad thing, just a necessary step in order for new styles to emerge." In a sense, hip hop is not dead, but undergoing the stage of reincarnation. Hip hop can never die, because its always changing and constantly adapting to the social changes in the music industry.
In order to get a good sense of hip hop changing, the following two music videos gives you an audio example of the transition from lyrical orientated hip hop to pop/R&B/ hip hop infusion.
The follow video is one of Lupe Fiasco's original track on his album "Food and Liquor" which has encase his true creativity and talents of poetic writing.
This track from Lupe Fiasco has 90,000 views worldwide. Which is a very small portion of the world who uses Youtube. Now, let's take a look at another hip hop artist who has been up incoming in the music industry. His artist name is Waka Flocka Flame. Waka Flocka Flame is part of the reason why hip hop is changing. The follow video is called "No Hands" which has a catchy chorus and a tone that is fit more for the nightlife.
You can tell by just listening to the track that there is substantial difference in lyrical content and in-depth meaning between these two hip hop songs. This shows us that hip hop is on a path to reinvent itself to adapt to the zeitgeist. Zeitgeist is the general cultural, intellectual,ethical, spiritual, and/or political climate within a nation or even specific groups, along with the general ambiance, morals, sociocultural direction, and mood associated with an era.--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitgeist
Let me know what you think by writing a comment below.
Thank you
We all know when it comes to our brain, we have two sides that make us humans posses the ability to think logically (left side) and creatively (right side). The left side of our brain posses the characteristics of being logical and fact-orientated, so there won't be any imagination or creativity involve. Although the left side of the brain works in such a conventional way, its cranial counterpart is perceive as the exact opposite. Our right side of our brain posses the characteristics of feeling and imagination, so basically the side of our brain that allows us to think up of creative thoughts and symbols. Perfect example of using the right side of our brain is our times as an adolescent. Think of the times when you were a kid and you would create imaginary friends and create art in preschool. These were the times where we used our right side the most and it explains how as adults only a few of us still use the right side of the brain. As an adult, we look at life differently, because we need to develop a mind that revolves around reality and social norms such as making money after college. Our left side dominates when we grow older, because our environment develops our minds to be ready for the future work environment.
An article by Dan Eden explains more about how our educational system deviates our thought process away from the right side and more towards the left. "Experiments show that most children rank highly creative (right brain) before entering school. Because our educational systems place a higher value on left brain skills such as mathematics, logic and language than it does on drawing or using our imagination, only ten percent of these same children will rank highly creative by age 7. By the time we are adults, high creativity remains in only 2 percent of the population"
This explains why as an adults it is harder for us to think creatively, because our school system pushes us towards the left side of the brain rather than the right side. In order to maximize the creativity of the right brain, Dan Eden has a method in which you can shut off the left part of your brain and concentrate solely on your right to increase creativity.
"Methods have been devised to "shut off" the left brain, allowing the right side to have its say. Creative writing courses often use this method to combat "writer's block." The logical left side is easily bored by lack of input and tends to "doze off" during such activities as meditation (repeating a mantra or word over and over) or in sensory deprivation environments. The right brain is then able to "sneak" into our consciousness, filling our minds with emotional and visual vignettes and freely associated images. All too quickly, though, the left brain will assert itself and dispense with these irrational images, asserting its Spock-like logical dominance and the right brain will have to be content to find expression in dreams."
Personally, I try to meditate or shut off the left side of my brain by taking a shower. This relaxes my mind and allows me to escape the real world and develop images and words that form together to make my poems.
Hopefully after reading this you can try to relax your mind and begin to explore your creative side. If it is a success, let me know by leaving a comment below.
