In Kevin Young’s Final Chorus: Planet Rock, The End
of the Record, Young looks at how hip hop artists use hip hop music as a
way to bring issues they face to light, be able to express themselves, and to
find their identity as well as a sense of belonging within the African American
community. The opening quote, “for African Americans, life is not an open book
but a talking one … something homemade yet public; fragile and formidable;
personal yet meant to be heard” (Young, 311) exemplifies this and shows all the
complex pieces of hip hop and how African American artists can use it to fit it
to their personal story. We can also see these ideas in Beyonce’s work on
Lemonade. Lemonade shows Beyonce’s story and identity as not only black, but as
a woman, as being from the south, being a mother, and being a wife, among other
things. She embraces every part of her identity and does it in a very honest
way while also not being afraid to show vulnerability and emotion. Throughout
the album, she is not afraid to insert political messages and statements, like
the scene where she stands atop a sinking police car, and presents both the
good and bad rather than censoring her content. In this way, she makes it clear
that African Americans are still victims of racism and oppression in America,
and that this is not something that should be ignored. As Daphne Brooks writes
in her article How #BlackLivesMatter started a musical revolution, with
Beyonce’s unapologetic presentation of her identity as a black women in today’s
America, she contributes to “a new age
of injustice, one with a heightened awareness of state violence and a national
reckoning with the state-sanctioned disposability of black lives” (Brooks).
With the rise of protest music, Brooks notes how artists are standing up to inequality
and with the #BlackLivesMatter movement, are able to build up “the most
high-profile grassroots black liberation movement in more than two decades to
emerge on the national scene” (Brooks).
The first song I chose is Junky by Brockhampton. In
addition to addressing issues of being black in America, the song also addresses
being both queer and black, as well as the problems of drug addiction and
sexual assault.
The second song I chose is Where Is the Love by The
Black Eyed Peas. This song deals with topics like police brutality, racism, and
terrorism occurring in America. It talks about how though there are issues
outside out country that are important, we ignore the issues of racism and
violence in our country and convince ourselves that these issues don’t occur
where we live.
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