Professor Sabir's Posse

To: Wanda Sabir
From: Brittany Wilson
Date: February 27th -2007
Re: Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes
Byron Hurt, former star college quarterback, longtime hip-hop fan, and gender violence prevention educator, conceived the documentary as a "loving critique" of a number of disturbing trends in the world of rap music. He pays tribute to hip-hop while challenging the rap music industry to take responsibility for glamorizing destructive, deeply conservative stereotypes of manhood. The documentary features revealing interviews about masculinity and sexism with rappers such as Mos Def, Fat Joe, Chuck D, Jadakiss, and Busta Rhymes, hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons, and cultural commentators such as Michael Eric Dyson and Beverly Guy-Shetfall. Critically acclaimed for its fearless engagement with issues of race, gender violence, and the corporate exploitation of youth culture.
Some of the evidence discussed in the Hurts presentation in the film would be when Hurts went down to Daytona and filmed men at the beach grabbing women all over their body just because they were wearing swimsuits: “Due to their slut like behavior” (words from a male bystander). Hurts also interviewed “up and coming rappers” that wanted to get there fifteen minutes of fame by rapping on his documentary – One man said I that “rap these days is about ass and how well you shake it! So it must be yo ass because it aint yo face I need a tipdrill I need a tipdrill.” Which is very offensive to women, on many different levels. One rapper who called himself “SLUG” made the comment on the words “Bitch and Hoe” he referred to the women in Miami as these two derogator words because they had on a swimsuit and a pair of shorts. He also said that “if she puts it out there then he’s going to grab and touch and take what I wants and that’s just how it is”. All the men that Hurts interviewed were between the ages of 17 to 26. All they could seem to rap about was how many guns they had that were ready to “pop someone” or how “it aint fun if the homies can’t have none”, and finally how they were ready to take someone else’s life away at any given moment. This also proves Hurts right in his findings that 49% of gun violence is from the age of 15 to 24 in African American Males. Hurts defines this has “Black Death” in communities.
I agree with Hurts that the musical lyrics that are being released to the public are very offensive to women and promotes violence in the community and the nation. The lyrics are misogynistic, violent, and promotes a negative stereotype of black manhood. Not all African American males hang out on the street and rap, not all of them sell drugs and kill one another. But the moment a young African American male turns on the television all he sees is music videos that have naked women, men throwing money at them and nice cars. So they try to portray that and become what they think they should be—especially in Bay Area.
http://lyrics.astraweb.com/display/330/ying_yang_twins..me_my_brother..salt_shaker.html
 

Sarah Pruitt
2/28/07
english 201 B M.W. 10-12

Hip Hop Beyond Beats and Rymes


Hurts does this documentary on hip hop to try and get to the bottom of all the stereo types of Hip Hop dealing with unnecessary masculinity, homophobia, and violence. He interviews various artists and random people on the street to try and get down to the point, is the hip hop industry responsible for glorifying the violent, homophobic, masculinity that most males are replicating? Hurts talked to a couple groups of young black males in the video and asked them to freestyle for him. In doing this, he noticed that all the freestyles he heard had similar themes to them: guns, rape, violent acts, and offensive words towards there peers. Hurts asked why everybody was talking about such violence and the only response he really got was because no body really wants to hear about the other stuff. Busta Rymes even admitted in his interview that most of the words in people’s raps and freestyles are not real life scenarios and if they are they are heavily exaggerated. This shows that these hip hop artists are putting out fake personas about being what they think is cool or “gangster.” In turn, today’s youth is trying to live out the things they hear in the songs because that is now there definition of what manly is. I agree with Hurts because in the video he shows some video clips from spring break in Miami. The clips show all different types of guys sexually harassing females that are passing by because of the clothes they have on. They are aggressive towards the females even after they were asked to stop. Hurts illustrates that these manly personas are being carried out to the way that women of the world today are being treated.

http://www.urbanlyrics.com/lyrics/macdre/makeyoumine.html
 

Jonell Ramos
English 201
Prof. Wanda Sabir
1:00 -3:00

Beyond Beats and Rhymes

Mr. Byron Hurt’s film enables the viewers to have insight in the Hip-Hop world and the perspective of the Rap artist that inspires most of today’s urban culture. He interviews artist, artist producers and even record label presidents such as Russell Simons.
Mr. Hurt stated that the music videos and lyrics today, are either too violent, objectifies women, and promote the view that “black man” should acts in accordance to the videos, and speak with a intense masculine manner into which brings fear in the heart of their opposer and or rival.
Although, Mr. Hurt has a very strong argument and numbers of facts as proof, I still don’t completely disagree with today’s artist’s view. Whether it’s Nelly’s “Tip drill” video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhfsKi-cKxM that objectifies women. These artists are just trying to make a living and as most people in today society know, “Sex” sells. This is why most of today’s advertisement is filled with sexy-hot women in tiny piece of clothing or clothing that help viewer’s focus on certain body-part.
Whether, Mr. Hurt is right or wrong is beyond the point. He can steer viewers to his views. But, a society as a whole will need a lot more time to discover these things for themselves, whether or not they want to make changes, like Mr. Hurt. I myself, enjoys watching the music videos today, not saying that I immolate it but, for entertainment.
 

Ramon
english 102 M,W 1-3

I do not agree with the promise that Byron Hunt is presenting. Why is everyone tyring to bring something down, when they worked so hard for it. It took a lot of time and effort to build an industry thats worth more than a Bilone dollars for a black community. They say that hip hop promote sex, drugs,rape, guns, etc.is it because hip hop out sold country music back it 1994 and been on top ever since? Are because it sells to all culter's people of all colors? They said based on teh three major thing sisters and Bitches, Bitch Niggaz and Manhood in a Bottle, " I say in my opinion you can't put the whole hip hop on jsut teh basic anymore times have changed.

The first thing I'm goign to talk about is sisters or Bitch's. When a rapper uses the word bitch, their not talking about every woman there are all types of names that said, but every women is not a bitch or a hoe. The women they are talking about is groups are girl or women that put their self out there, and will do anythign to be on the TV screen. To end the sterotype on these women it has to start with them as to stand up for their soft and take a stand.

The second is Bitch Niggas these are man that will not stand up to another man. There are a lot of name that people can call these people like wimp, punk, fag, queer etc. These are men taht will tell on someone if they did something bad are if they thought they did. Man that want to be women are different but can appear as teh same, but when a hip hop star says it, means they worse they say males shouldn't be jealous that's female trait why would you hate the next man because you wont be a girl or women, basically stop crying.

The last but definitly not least thing is called manhood in a Bottle, which means you can try and got on, and when you think you're on really. There's a whole another world once you're inn. You can be a star on television everyday but what does it mean, you're better than the next man but another man owns you're air time.

In conclusion in a hypothatial sense the words of hip hop have changed dramatically. Therefore things maybe confusing to some people, which could have other people aruging over the meaning of hip hop. Like the words sisters are bitches, bitch niggaz and manhood in a bottle.
 

Benita Pun
English 201 B
MW 1-3 pm

Hip Hop: A Controversy Issue


Byron Hurt produced a documentary called Hip Hop: Beyond Beats of Rhymes. The film is about hip hop that has been overdone with gangsters, bitches, and hoes. Also, he confronts the issue of masculinity, sexism, violence and homophobia in the film even thought he is a life-long hip-hop fan. He interviewed many people such as Talib Kweli, Chuck D, Russell Simmons, Busta Rhymes, Fat Joe, Jadakiss and some people that were in the Daytona Spring Break. The first thing that Byron Hurt discussed was the fact that men in the media industry tries to expose their definition of manhood. Another thing that he wanted to argue about was that during their music videos, they often portray women as an “eye candy”. I agree with Byron Hurt because it’s all over America; it has turned into a controversy issue that is probably the reason why so many people are dying on the streets.
Hip Hop music didn’t started out about gangsters, bitches, hoes, or trying to be a man. It actually starts out in the Bronx of New York in the late 1900s where they started to turn funk and disco into rap music. Up until the early 1990s, a form of hip hop called gangsta rap arose that redefine the meaning of rap music. In the film, Hurt argues that the reason why black men are rapping about women being bitches and hoes, throwing money at them and at the camera and showing toughness in the music videos and or other places like magazine covers is to only project their manhood. Rappers often create that kind of image because they don’t want to be call weak, soft, a pussy, a chump, or a faggot so they do the opposite as a result a misunderstand of hip hop.
Hurt also argues that the hip hop culture portrays women as an “eye candy” or as sex toys in the video that lends up to unwanted touching. One of the rapper’s definitions of manhood is to have a lot of girls. They think that by having a lot of girls by their side is a way of saying that they’re a player or a pimp. But when Hurt interview girls at the Daytona Spring Break, they said that there were touching and it was unwanted. These girls were dress in bikinis and they think that the rappers weren’t talk about them; but they are.
In the film, Hurt argues that the rappers want to portray a different kind of hip hop because hip hop is not about manhood, killing people, and pimping hoes. Rappers think that by doing this, they will be look up to and become a man. But in reality, they are just showing us a fake personality and hiding their true self. He also argues that the rappers repeatedly portray women as an “eye candy” or a sex toy. However, a lot of them don’t want to those girls whom he refers to as bitches and hoes. Those that aren’t any of those girls are referred to as sisters.


Reference:
http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/hiphop
 

Chin P Sun
English 201b

Beyond Beats of Rhyme
Beyond Beats of Rhyme, dirt by Byron Hurt. In his video his argument is that there are many problems with hip hop music business, because the lyrics of hip hop music is so violent, most black young male created many crimes. He also shows evidences to support his idea. Evidences like very violent lyrics, the way hip hop stars act and the way how hip hop music video is been record. He also interview some very famous hip hop stars and also show statistics about the rating of crimes.

We often see hip hop stars are very tough, a lot of profanities in their music, have something to do with drugs, they got some sexy women wearing a bikini in their video, nice cars, money and a lot of jewelries and often carry with guns. All these is giving a image to young black male that to become a hip hop star or to be cool you need a lot of money, mess with drugs and betrayed women. Since young male are acting so tough to each other, they became so violent they often got into a fight or gun shot. Guns, we seen a lot of guns in hip hop music video, after people watch those video they begin to think that is ok to carry a gun all the time and shoot people with it, and it is also ok for black young male to die early. Statistic shows that 49% gun victims are black young male.

In hip hop music business men often show as extremely powerful that no women can resists. Women are just a sex object and people call them bitches and that is very disrespectful for women. The statistic show that almost 60% of black young female are been rapped and all of them are under 18. People blame on the victim because of the way they are wearing, but in other European countries women can wear whatever they want on the street or nude on the beach and still nobody would touch them.

In conclusion it seems like we can blame all these problems on the hip hop stars, but they just doing their job and what they been told to do, so the real crime creator would be the music company. The music company doesn’t care how many people are getting hurt in the society and no intension of taking responsibility. all they care about is making money. They made these music videos so violent and very disrespectful so they could sell them for a million copies.
 

Tipton Audra
English 201 A
Feb 28th 2007
Sex Sales Discrimination
Beyond Beats and rhymes director Bryon Hurt: Argued a strong point that is a constant problem amongst the Black community. Byron touched on many different topics such as ignorant disrespectful young boys, sexual objectification, discrimination, respect for women and men, masculinity, homophobia, and Rap from back in the day to the present time, where it has become negative filled with violence.
Many Rappers today dehumanized women in their videos they are either half-naked or being sexually objectified. Nelly has this Video called “Tip drill”, where he has multiple women with G-stings bikinis, bottoms with no tops or tops with no bottoms. On one particular part of Nelly’s video, he swipes a card down a woman’s backside; in the background, they have ignorant young boys throwing fake money on women. In addition, pouring wine on them, shaking your goods clearly indicating that women are nothing more than an objects, helping me make money by shaking your goods. I have never understood the concept of naked girls in the video. A sex sale, the question is why sex has to seal. The sad part about it is that its black women and black men, particularly the young generation. Back in the 60’s ,70’s , 80’s you never seen Marvin gay or Luther Van dross have naked girls in their video exploiting them , or talking about how they dislike the other R&B Artist and how they wanted to kill them. Today all they rap about is suck this lick this, make my money hoe etc. it’s not cool to rap about positive things anymore. That is what these young boys are showing to young people. Another interesting piece Byron touched on was how boys look at women, “Spring Bling” is a very nice time where the sun is out and its hot, most people try to have on fewer cloths as possible, mostly girl. There were a group of black girls walking pass and he stated, “Sistas don’t dress like that, but bitches do”. They want that type of attention. Yes some girls might want attention, however they do not have on a sign that sexual harass me because I have on a bikini top with daisy dukes. I noticed in the film every time a woman, girl would walk pass a group of boys they would be sexual assaulted. The women were just walking pass. It pissed me off, it is a shame that a woman cannot come out of her house in her birthday suit, and not be assaulted. Living in a patriarchy society lets us know that men can harass any woman they want.
The main part of the film that got me was how men look at one another, If your too famine then you are considered a “girly man”. Which brings up a good argument? What is the correct definition of a man? Is it the men who beat on women, neglecting their responsibility, or the men who goes to work every day take care of their home and responsibilities? They dare not have men uplifting other men for being a good role model, that’s too homosexual. Young boys today are shaped by the biased media, giving them false power and disabling their minds to what respect and being a man really is.
Lastly but certainly not the least issue, when Byron tried to get the rappers to discuss discrimination, homophobia and there power (positive Rap) there was very little to say or nothing to say at all. Nobody wanted to comment on those questions. Why? Because they know the truth! That as long as women dress or act a certain way, they have the right to be sexually exploited and objectified.
 

A.Stephens
English 201B

Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes

The imagery of hip hop is that of toughness according to the video. The ability to negotiate violence is a key element of hip hop videos and plays a hand in making sure a violent act takes place. A lot of today’s videos are more of a portrayal of drugs, wealth, “bling bling” and derogatory portrayals. Snoop Dogg’s song “Still a G Thang” is a good example of this. In the song he says, “A nigga who don’t give a fuck. Ya see niggas like me all we see is money, power moves, and a bitch a week”. When compared to the era of M.C. Hammer, L.L. Cool J and Public Enemy whose rap was more politically correct – “Can’t Touch This” and “Fight the Power” for example, it is very different.

In the film, Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, Byron Hunt, the film’s director said, “Society limits the range in which men can express their emotions”. I would have to agree with this. From an early age, we are taught to be strong and suck it up. If we don’t have positive male role models to teach us how to be strong without being violent, we are forced to figure it out on our own and sometimes it may not be in the best way.

Not all rap is negative. Some of it has positive messages and the music and beat attracts young people. The media plays a big role in making us believe that success is measured by the clothes and jewelry you wear, the cars you drive, the number of women on your arm, and the bankroll in your pocket. In the end, rap/hip hop is all about what makes money.

http://www.elyrics.net/go/s/Snoop%20Dogg%20Lyrics/Still%20A%20G%20Thang%20Lyrics/
 

Peter Dominguez
English 201B
1-3 MW

Hip Hop Beyond Beats & Rhyme



In this video Byron Hunt describes several issues that there is in hip- hop. In college Byron listened to hip-hop to get syked up before his football games, but he describes that the hip-hop language and style has changed since then. He goes into how in hip-hop these days’ people only hear a rapper talking about violence, drugs and material things. He believes that hip-hop is now trapped in a box of ignorance because there is no positive issues being discussed in the lyrics these day’s.
Violence has a big part in rap/hip-hop even in their videos they show people getting shot and dieing. Movies also show the trafficing of drugs and violence. Money, power and respect these are things that people in the hip-hop world are thought to want and to get them sometimes you have to fight. At times some people kill for it. This is not only an issue that black and whites deal with; I think every race in America is going thru it.
I think in order to decrease the violence in the U.S some of the cd’s and videos should be banned or at least have a limit on what they can do or say on there videos. Not only is the youth seeing this but also they want to mimic what the rappers are doing. I know the freedom of speech comes into affect on an issue like this so what can be done to minimize the spread of negative rap/ hip-hop?
 

interesting read. I would love to follow you on twitter. By the way, did anyone know that some chinese hacker had hacked twitter yesterday again.