info
The Problem With Chicago's Youth Rap Scene
Who do we blame? Should we blame the parents for allowing their 13 year old son to curse, rap about violence, sex, and drugs? Do we blame the media for only presenting the gangster rap image as the only one that matters? Do we blame society as a whole for the ever problematic notion of black hypermasculinity?
What do we do when the community encourages the behavior? When the parents are on set for video shoot? When the media rewards the behavior with record deals and society condones and glorifies it all?
Will it ever get better? We already know that people like Gucci Mane and Lil Wayne say various raunchy and misogynistic things, but what about now that the trend is starting to become more and more prevalent at much younger ages? This means something. This doesn’t just mean young kids like to rap. This means that young kids are use to violence so much so that they choose to glorify the lifestyle. It means that although the media will stereotype black families as single-parent with the mother being that parent, these kids have little to no respect for women, seeing them only as objects to be obtained, used and thrown away to the next awaiting male.
This means there is no progress. Education falls by the wayside. Everything in life is gauged in a fatalistic sense of “live in the moment”. Fast money, material objects, pleasure…why desire a college education? 4 years to reach your goal? PSsHHT! Why not be a baller and make it to the NBA (Derrick Rose made it) or a rapper (Chief Keef made it).
Of course progress is a slow process, but in a city where the homicide rate has jumped 40% for the year, and a school system that continues to fail it’s students, I think we may be at a standstill, rather than creeping slowly along. What do we do? If you can’t reach the community, you can’t reach the youth, and you can’t reach the parents… who is left to piece back together our broken city?
