Hip-Hop is.................

Five hip-songs that I have never listened to or heard of until this assignment:

1. Straight Outta Compton- NWA
2. Just Get Up and Dance- Afrika Bambaataa
3. Suckas Need Body Guards- Gang Starr
4. EPMD- You Gots To Chill
5. UTFO- Leader of the Pack


Five Hip-Hop videos I have not scene before this assignment:

1. Master P- I Miss My Homies; Focus of the video is about the death of close friends and coping with the grief of death.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggNymSJ52Fw

2. Eminem- We Made You; The focus is a parody of many celebrities.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=15L7I2ExAJY

3. Dr. Dre feat. Snoop Dogg- Lil Ghetto Boy; Focus of this video is about a black man in prison and how he is surviving in the slammer and what is he going to do when he gets out and tries to start his life fresh.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULYE3xmR2kg&feature=PlayList&p=BDBCC4EF7F6E7FE6&index=0

4. Ice Cube- Today Was a Good Day; Focus is about having a day in the hood that nothing goes wrong.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4RY-eJgHHs

5. Big Tymers- Get Your Roll On; Focus is about partying and looking fly by having the best cars, watches, clothes and women.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cknX36Gurj0

Two hip-Hop radio stations:

1. K104 (104.5)- Dallas, TX
2. 97.9 The Beat- Dallas, TX

Two corporations that have utilized Hip-Hop:

1. NBA (National Basketball Association)
2. Rock The Vote

I think that Hip-Hop has done a lot to and for society. I think the recent hip-hop/gangster rap has put out a bad image for all African Americans. In many of these songs they degrade women, talk of drug and alcohol abuse and put out a gangster persona. I think that this has developed into a media chaos, where it puts all African Americans into this light. I think that this is a disservice because not all African Americans are gangsters and they sure do not believe or live their lives along the words of these artists. I think that society needs to get out of their head that just because the majority of hip-hop/rap artists are African American that all African American men and women act like these songs portray. On the other hand I think that the hip-hop community is a uniting force through the African American community. It is the music of the times. There was once blues and funk, and today we have rap and hip-hop. I think the more and more the genre matures and grows it has begun to change. I think that artists such as Kanye are moving away from the traditional gangster image that has been the face of the hip-hop/rap genre for the past decade. Although the messages in some of these gangster rap songs can paint a true picture some of the lyrics and remarks used in the songs are just down right degrading to both men and women. The vocabulary that ahs derived from this genre of music is huge. Although I grew up in a very white community, we all listened to rap. I think we listened to it more than any genre of music so I believe it is safe to say that the listeners of hip-hop and rap have no color. We still use terms such as "homie", "Dawg", "Whip" (car), and "Dougie".

As for my mom, she listened to all of the 1960's rockers. Some of her favorites were The Doors, and The Beatles. She also listened to Marvin Gaye. As for my dad he doesn't really listen to much music from that time today. He is more contemporary when it comes to music, although he is a big Johnny Cash fan.

Parents Examples:

1. Johnny Cash: Country
2. The Doors: Rock N' Roll
3. Marvin Gaye: Soul

To conclude on my earlier comments, I think that hip-hop and rap are headed in the right direction. I think that there are an important part of the culture in America and will continue to be.

Advertising: Does race and Gender Matter??

After studying advertising through certain media outlets, I feel that it is clear that there is a lack of racial diversity in certain publications, although I believe that the television has been doing a better job in 2009 of having a more diverse cast in advertisement. I am not sure exactly why this trend occurs but I do not think it is as they do not want to have minorities in their advertisements rather that they create advertisements to market to a certain group of people. One of the magazines I looked at was Men’s Health. Now, they do not have the most racially diverse ads, but there are minorities present in the magazine. If I was an advertiser and was going to be putting my money into a magazine, I would want to hit home to the readers. I would do this by looking at the subscribers of the magazine. If the majority of them are white then you are going to try and market that percentage of ads towards them. I guess it is like saying that you are going to put ads of all white people on networks such as BET or TeleMundo, or in magazines directed to and main readership is of a minority. Another magazine that I looked at was Elle. IN this magazine I saw one of the most interesting ads. It was for Johnson & Johnson and it appeared on two consecutive pages. The first was a white mother and the picture of her white baby. Then on the next page it was a black mother and a picture of her black baby. Now this how that the company is trying to market equal and the ads both sent the same message about taking good care of your baby, but what I thought was interesting was the white mother was advertised with the original baby wash which came in a pink bottle, so the ad was pink. But the black mother was used for the baby wash with cocoa butter and was a yellow colored ad. Now, I am not sure but I think that the coloration screams racial profiling. Why did they not do it the other way? It seems as if they were trying to say that the cocoa butter wash is for black people which I feel is totally false and think that they should have advertised both products on each ad and had a universal color for the ad Another magazine that I looked at was Lucky Throughout this magazine I saw a majority of white people in the ads. Of course there was you’re occasional minority but there was really no equal comparison. One ad in this magazine was for a company called Curvation which makes bras and underwear for women. And in the ad was a black woman who was over weight but was trying to portray that the underwear and bras can cover up being over weight. I think that they should have included other women, because I can tell you that there are both men and women of every color who are over weight. But I guess throughout the whole thing what the passage said was right and there still exists the presence of racial issues within advertising. Women of color are portrayed as exotic and seductive while on the other hand 80% of the ads that I saw in the publications I looked at were of white people alone. Although I feel that this is not fair and does do a disservice to society, I feel like I am going to have to side with the advertiser’s themselves and not the political correctness of equal representation in ads. I have a business mind set, and have been working since I was 15. The important thing is to sell. If you want to sell market to whom you want to buy your product. In no way does having a white model mean that a Hispanic cant wear this or same for using a black model saying that white people cannot where this. So if Ralph Lauren knows that 90% of the subscribers to Men’s Health or Elle are white, why would they not want to market to the people reading. I know for me it doesn’t matter what color the model, if I like it then I am going to buy it, but I think that as a company you have to do what is best for your company and if that means only using white model’s to make sales then you do it, not because you are racist or insensitive but because you are in a competitive market and you want to make sales, so whatever makes sales is the approach you should take.