Voice of the Voiceless

                                                                                                      In the mid 1980's, Hip-hop flourished to a limitless height that changed the nature of the music industry and caused the most controversy any other music genre has produced. What started out as a party tactic to hype up the crowed, has became the most popular form of social expression. Hip hop as a whole has been bashed on by cultural theorists who views hip hop as a negligence to society. Many people then and now still views rap/hip hop as an abomination to their cultural ethics, however, hip hop is still the voice of a community whose ideologies and contribution has been ignored by mainstream politics.
    Hip hop can be best described as the voice of the voiceless. For many years, the black society experienced many different ways of abuse and oppression. When hip hop started incorporating politics, artists such as N.W.A and schollyD has released lyrics that attacked the same oppressors that categorized them as criminals. Krohm stated in his article "Contemporary urban music: controversial Messages in hip-hop and rap lyrics" that the emergence of rap was also the emergence of a social uprising. He pointed out police brutality, expressing the struggles, pride, and violence of a community limited to certain potential in the shadows of a larger world. In one of ice cube's verse in N.W.A's "fuck the police" he pointed the exact conflicts that occur behind mass media depicting young black men as "ruthless criminals". His verse goes..
                      "Fuck the police coming straight from the underground.
                       A young nigger got it bad 'cause I'm brown...
                       They have the authority to kill a minority.
                       Fuck that shit cause I ain't the one,
                       For a punk motherfucker with a badge and a gun to be beating on.
                       Searching my car, looking for the product.
                        inking every nigger is selling narcotas"
   This single came out more can two decades ago and was never acknowledged as social issue until recent years where individuals like Trayvon Martin and Michael brown were gunned down by an authority figure, then the acknowledgement of these lyrics started to be relate to others ethnic groups besides the black minority. Those exact lyrics are an example of a voice in those who are voiceless, and NO I did not steal cm punk's phrase from WWE. And by voice, it is situated to those who are generalized and underestimated by society as a negligence.      
  Even though the way rap was expressed emphasized on the concept of violence and encouraged younger audience that having a lavish lifestyle is the way to go, it is not what the voice is the neglected community is trying to bring fort. Rap was popular among those in the urban communities because it related to them more than those who happen to live a decent lifestyle in the suburban communities. Being exposed to drugs, violence and brutality and hearing about it on the radio in the form of music is gonna be popular among many because it is human nature to rebel against society.
                                                           
Krohm, Franklin B. and Suago, Frances L. (1995)."Contemporary urban music: controversial Messages in hip-hop and rap lyrics." ETC.: A Review of General Semantics 52 139-155.
N.W.A. Fuck Tha Police.(1988). Straight Outta Compton. Priority Records.