Hip hop/rap music is often associated with thugs and those "on the wrong side of the law". The whole genre is thought to be filled with angry artists who have a bad temper and it’s stereotyped that it encourages negative attitudes in those who listen to it (dis tracks, rants etc.) Meanwhile, the disco music that filled the 70’s with fun and dance, is seen to be much more innocent. If hip hop/rap is simply an evolution of disco – a spin off of the adored genre – why are the reputations of the two so different?
The answer seems pretty obvious, whoever picks this topic would have to talk about how black people are represented in the media and how they are constructed to be received. The media made it so that rap would be a taboo, did they do that because it was mostly black people in the genre or really because of the content. As for content it would be super important to show that not all hiphop/rap music was bad, doing a historical analyses as to how the genre came to be would also be crucial. – tmtonji6 years ago
Superhero comics are inherently archetypal, so what conclusions can we draw from superhero references in Hip Hop? MF DOOM styles himself as a supervillain, borrowing his persona from the Fantastic Four’s Archnemesis, Viktor Von Doom. He creates narratives for DOOM by splicing together soundbites from classic children’s shows, especially superhero cartoons. Several members of the Wu-Tang Clan borrow from superheros instead. Ghostface Killah (who has long associated himself with Iron Man/Tony Stark) recently released "36 Seasons" a hip-hopera about a vigilante anti-hero who battles crooked cops in New York. Wu-Tang member Inspectah Deck teamed up with 7L & Esoteric to form the supergroup CZARFACE, performing music about a hero of the same name. CZARFACE uses narrative sequences reminiscent of DOOM, but with original material instead of repurposed voice-overs. All three groups discuss similar topics, so why would DOOM choose to embody a villain and Ghostface and CZARFACE embody the hero (especially when the latter two also discuss themselves in terms of being villains as well?
