PaulMakesMusic
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Eminem v's David Blunkett
Jan 08, 2003, 04:31
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Just wondering what people thought of the current controversy surrounding gangsta rap and the burgeoning British gun culture.
Personally, Gangsta rap just gets right up my nose, but does it encourage people to buy into the lifestyle? The home secretary would have us believe so.
I'd like to think so, too, but like I said, Gangsta rap gets on my nerves.
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elderford
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Re: Eminem v's David Blunkett
Jan 08, 2003, 10:21
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someone said on BBC R4 that if music was that influential, political parties would hire the best songwriters to write songs about how great it would be to vote for them at the next general election, and all the young and impressionable first-time voters would under the irresistable influence of election-pop would vote them in.
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Joanna
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Re: Eminem v's David Blunkett
Jan 08, 2003, 10:54
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on the other hand, advertising guys are always defending adverts by saying that they have no influence on the consumer. In which case, why do they bother...
So it must influence someone somewhere but of course not me. Some other person :)
As regards rap I like it except the misogynistic and violent stuff. Surprisingly that leaves a lot I can like. But if I tried to adopt the life style I'd look v silly. Music is usually an expression of the culture around it, rather than the other way around.
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ratcni01
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Re: Eminem v's David Blunkett
Jan 08, 2003, 11:23
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I like Eminem 'cos he's got some style. He is tho' a mysogenist bastard. I like him 'cos he wears his dysfunctionality on his sleeve.
However having lived in Hackney and now moved to Nottingham (well sort of .. to St Anns in Nottingham the Hackney of Nottingham) I just think how much influence these style leaders have on young people, they certainly did when I was young I was heavily influenced by my peers and members of bands etc I liked. Guns and drugs are not helpful in poor inner city communities, like someone (Ice T) said there are no black communities just communities of poor people. Young men and women of all types from poor inner city areas feel that hopelessness when confronted with the expectations of "normal society" (for which often read white society) and joined with this the frustration of feeling that there is nothing worthy of them as well - no wonder they gravitate to this contemporary and culturally relevant form of rebellion. I did the same as a punk/hippy, the drugs I threw into my body as a youngster were psychedelic (soul-expanding) but give my situation not always helpful.
I wanna stay as city person I love the buzz of it and it's where I can find work on the kinda computers I work on at the moment and where my training for change of jobs is. But sending my kids to an city school where like their primary there were five shootings in two weeks in the cafe next door to the school in Hackney and Zoey used to come back from school scared .. and now in Nottingham the same story several shootings near the pub down the road from the school .. Zoey (my daughter) when I was gonna pop down the pub for some matches said don't go down there you'll get shot .. with genuine fear in her face, she's only 8, it was very sad.
I dunno really but I think that the musicians in these bands have responsibility some way or other for encouraging/making normal a life which involves guns, it doesn't need to. I (we I think) disapprove of other people using violence so trying to make guns cool and the kind of cynical, hard exterior that these guys (usually) put up as a great way to be, when really it ain't. I ain't much on cynicism or hard exteriors (or interiors for that matter), but that doesn't exlude dealing with hard situations
Erp ... feels risky this posting .. erp dunno
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anthonyqkiernan
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Re: Eminem v's David Blunkett
Jan 08, 2003, 12:18
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Allart hold a mirror up to society, not vice versa.
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cancer boy
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Election songs
Jan 08, 2003, 12:31
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For some reason I'm hearing M People's godawful "Things are gonna get better" now...
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Zastrozzi
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Re: Eminem v's David Blunkett
Jan 08, 2003, 12:35
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Agreed - we're back to 'Bowling for Columbine' again, aren't we? Marylin Manson didn't cause the Columbine massacre; no more did Eminem (/Tupac/etc/etc) cause the Birmingham shootings
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ratcni01
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Re: Eminem v's David Blunkett
Jan 08, 2003, 12:45
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Agreed they didn't directly cause these evnts, but they do give the message that guns are OK, they ain't - no matter who's hands their in. Violence isn't good, glorous or a pattern of behavior to say is cool or great, and telling people it's ok to pursue guns and the mostly consumerist lifestyle these people seem to live (see endorsements of extreem commercial products by a some of these people) (he/she who has most when they die wins) when there are plenty of other more +ve but equally rebellious and imaginative things to put in music.
But hey I do like some of the sounds, naturally I guess, since I am a part of the society that they have synthesised and in turn produced their own take on.
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MonkeyBoy
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Re: Election songs
Jan 08, 2003, 12:55
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Deerrrr: REAMmmm, acshelly. Slightly embarassed to remember that.
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Zastrozzi
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Re: Eminem v's David Blunkett
Jan 08, 2003, 12:55
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Yesterday's Grauniad leader column discussed this very point:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/gun/Story/0,2763,870434,00.html
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