During times of national social struggle, music is used as a vehicle to voice various concerns relating to the issues. This medium allows people who are experiencing the conflict to relate to the lyrics as well as people who are not directly involved with the experience. Hip hop as a genre was created as a form of musical expression by people in American slums in the 1970’s. The people who lived in these areas are financially unstable and therefore are more likely to experience poverty. The identities that experienced poverty are disproportionately people of color. As hip hop developed, it reflected the struggles of minorities, but was also consumed by white and/or middle-class people who did not relate to the experiences being described.
Poverty has always been a major social struggle in America. Prior to the 2000’s poverty in America was on a steep decline by 24 percent in 1990, as well as a decrease among all ethnic groups, especially African Americans by eleven percent in 2000. In 2000 the poverty rate was the lowest, but ever since 2000 the poverty rate has increased. Mainly because the effects that 9/11 had on America, and the changing trends of America’s economy such as recession. Poverty in the early 2000’s was usually seen within the urban communities rather than suburb communities. In these poor, damaged urban neighborhoods they faced challenges such as higher crime rates, failing schools, fewer job opportunities, and worse health outcomes. In these urban communities, Hip-Hop music originated in the late 1970’s in the streets of New York. It all started with DJ Kool Herc, a Jamaican born DJ who settled in the West Bronx of New York. DJ Kool Herc laid the foundation for Hip-Hop music by throwing the first Hip-Hop party in the Bronx. His unique way of DJing by isolating the instrumental part of the song and then switching to a break in another song, lead to the beginning of the Hip-Hop culture in Bronx. As Hip-Hop music began to spread throughout the urban communities, it developed as form of expression with no limits. Hip-Hop was created to be an original rhyme to which could be about issues pertaining to his/her life, issues seen throughout the nation, or just something simple as a day in their life.
As the Hip-Hop culture developed throughout the late 1900’s to the early 2000’s, artists felt more comfortable developing their own sounds and personal styles to their music. Artists such as Immortal Technique, Jay-Z, Nas, and Tupac all began to become known in the Hip-Hop culture. Each one brought their own style, sound, rhythm, and beat to the culture. While all these artists were very much different, they were all somewhat similar as well. They all use their music to speak freely about their political beliefs, social views, and experiences. Artists used their lyrics as a way to express these issues that they are trying to bring awareness too. Because Hip-Hop artists use their music to speak freely about various topics, it engages teenagers to become more concerned and more aware about what is being expressed in the songs. More importantly, when teenagers/listeners come from the same background and share the same struggles that are mentioned throughout the songs, they can relate more to the music. For example, Tupac Shakur born in Harlem, New York in 1971 grew up in the streets experiencing poverty at first hand. As he got into the music industry, Tupac started promoting a political message of resistance within his music. Tupac released many songs promoting different issues such as poverty, police brutality, race, etc. Speaking on the terms of poverty, his song “Changes” is a perfect example on how he uses his lyrics to bring awareness to the struggles he has had to overcome and that many other minorities in America did as well. Within this song, one of Tupac’s lyrics states “Give crack to the kids, who the hell cares?/One less hungry month on welfare.” The crack epidemic was the worse within the Black community but was ignored because of the perception that Black Americans were burdening the tax system because they relied on welfare payments from the government. The use of this lyric is to shows In another verse of the song, Tupac proceeds to say “You gotta operate the easy way/ ‘I made a G today’ but you made it in a sleazy way/ Sellin crack to the kids/ ‘I gotta get paid’-well hey but that's the way it is.” The lyrics is about Tupac talking to a dealer and trying to bring it to the dealers attention that they are profiting out of kids who are addicted to these drugs. Tupac does not agree to what the dealers are doing, but he understands that living the way they do, you needed to be able to get money one way or another. His use of this line is to show how living in poverty can call for desperate times such as selling drugs to kids in order to receive a profit to make a living due to the poverty they were experiencing.
Jay-Z is another artist who spoke up about social issues within his music. Poverty was a major social issue that he talked about not only because he thought it was important, but because he experienced it first hand like Tupac did. Jay-Z grew up in the projects of Harlem in New York. He grew up with his three older siblings and was raised by a single mother because their father abandoned them when he was young. Due to where he grew up, it was difficult for him to stay out of trouble. Regardless of Jay-Z showing potential in school, he dropped out of high school and began to sell crack to make money. Soon after he started to get involved in music and began making a good reputation for himself by winning various freestyle competitions. As he began to get more experience with writing and producing his own music, he began to tell his story throughout in his lyrics. He made a song called “Say Hello” which was about how he overcome life in the “ghetto” to achieve massive success, which he later lived up to. In this song, Jay-Z rapped, “Let me tell you what I ain’t/ We ain’t thugs for the sake of just being thugs/ Nobody do that where we grew at/ The poverty line we not above that/ So out comes the mask and gloves ‘cause we ain’t feeling the love.” In using these lyrics, Jay-Z wanted to make clear that he and others who have gone through similar experiences are not committing various crimes due to wanting to live up to the image of being a thug. The message he is trying to convey with the use of these lyrics is that desperate times call for desperate measures. In some cases such as Jay-Z’s, this means that robbing and stealing are the only way to come close to escaping poverty from where they came from. Another important set of lyrics within the song “Say Hello” is “ I ain’t playing, life’s short so I aim/ I ain’t waiting for life start betraying ‘em/ It’s twice as hard to get a job that’s paying ‘em/ So I ain’t paying attention to what you’re saying.” Jay-Z here is rapping about the Black and White labor gap that exists in America today. In the recession of 2007-2009 there was a huge increase in the discrepancy between White employment and African American employment. Jay-Z spins this into a justification for his drug dealing, which was a theme constant within his music. Aside from using his music to bring awareness to issues like poverty that are constant in the American society today, he also has used his success and wealth is obtained with his music career to bring awareness to poverty as well. As time went on and Jay-Z become more known and started building a legacy for himself. He started making a lot of money due to this fame he built for himself. As money being an extreme resource to promote various issues to the American society, Jay-Z does just that. He uses his resources to fund projects and inform the public platform to advocate for change. For example, in 2014 Jay-Z served as the star performer at the annual charity event organized by the Global Poverty Project. In 2017, he took on the Water for Life project and made a video of that captures his journey with travelling to areas that are affected by the ongoing water crisis and don’t have any money or resources to do anything about it. On his journey, he toured several different countries meeting with young kids who didn’t have access to safe water. He travelled with these kids to see where they had to walk every day to get water for their families and schools. After seeing what these countries were going through, he partnered with MTV and the UN to create a video diary for us to see first hand what these countries are doing through on a daily basis in order to have a life necessity, water. With the use of lyrics, fame, and wealth, Jay-Z has not quite single handling helped America escape poverty, but he has collaborated with my other important people to bring awareness and knowledge about poverty to America.
Also born in Brooklyn, New York , Nasir Bin Olu Dara Jones known as Nas was also a rapper that promoted awareness to issues like poverty along side of Tupac and Jay-Z. Nas is an American rapper and entrepreneur, but his African DNA shows he has roots from countries like Nigeria, Benin, Togo, and Gana. Keeping in mind is African background is important when listening to him, as well as when really listening to the lyrics of his songs. Nas dropped out of school after the eighth grade where he began playing the trumpet and working on his rhymes. Within Nas’s music he would speak of the pain seen within the urban youth and the poor who were often without a voice. An ongoing message in Nas’s music tends to be him showing his frustration with politicians and how Black America is treated. On his album Illmatic, the song “N.Y. State of Mind” describes how live was in the projects of New York. In the projects of New York living conditions were awful, so Nas proceeds to say in this song “Each block is like a maze/ Full of black rats trapped/ Plus the Island is packed.” Nas is explaining how living in the projects dehumanizes their inhabitants. Society doesn’t seem to value their lives that is why they are packed so closely together like rats. The projects were like a “maze,” very hard to find your way out because of the issues within these communities such as poverty. They had no money to go and get away from the projects, so they were stuck in the “maze.” The metaphor seen within the lyrics is that the projects were a social experiment, and the citizens in the project experiment were the “lab rats.” Nas also speaks on the darkness within the projects, both literally and metaphorically by saying “I’m livin’ where the nights is jet-black/ The fiends fight to get crack.” Nas explains that the streets are dark for two reasons. One, because poor neighborhoods in New York City always have poor infrastructure; therefore, making the streets so dark and unreliable. Two, because he was living in a dark in poverty where drugs and violence exists. Nas also released “Queens in the City” which is started off by explaining the struggles in Queens New York where he once lived. The struggle of men searching and paper chasing constantly for money to survive while presidential candidates are “Planning wars with other nations/ Over steak with Masons” instead of focusing on issues in their own country. Being in the Hip-Hop genre it brings awareness to reality which many have experienced but don’t speak about freely generally, but it is shown in the lyrics of their music.