Contradictions between charitable efforts and violent behavior in hip-hop

Hypocrisies in Contemporary Hip-Hop Culture

Prevalent Themes in Hip-Hop Culture and Art

Certain images have been hallmarks of Hip-Hop culture even before its inception, dating back to the earlier rap genre of the 1980s and early 1990s (Price, 2006). Specifically, the accumulation of wealth, the ostentatious display of high-profile vehicles, clothing, and jewelry have been (and continue to be) featured prominently in the themes expressed in the art form. The extreme sexualization and exploitation of women and the depiction of their roles as subordinate figures or even as acquisitions associated with the success of male artists are other elements of Hip-Hop art and culture (Price, 2006).

To the extent education is referenced at all in Hip-Hop art, it is almost always portrayed negatively as a source of unwelcome authority and negative messages about the potential of performers before their eventual success (Alim, Ibrahim, & Pennycook, 2008). Likewise, antagonism toward state authority is a perpetual theme depicted in lyrics denigrating police and blaming the problems in urban communities on racial prejudice, police bias, and persecution. Frequently, those media include overt suggestions that police are the enemy and that those who cooperate with police investigations into violent crime in the community are "snitches" (Alim, Ibrahim, & Pennycook, 2008).

Jealousy is another predominant theme in Hip-Hop culture, represented by lyrics and visual images of envy for the trappings of wealth and success associated with achieving a high status in the community. Sometimes, Hip-Hop art merges with real urban violence, such as when rival artists instigate long-running feuds with other artists through their lyrics and public statements and then escalate to physical assaults and even attempted murder over disputes that originated as "art."

Positive Images Portrayed in Hip-Hop Culture

The negative messages often contained in Hip-Hop art contradict some of the public statements and the publicized efforts of successful artists to contribute to their communities. Several prominent female Hip-Hop artists have established charitable foundations to empower women, particularly in the African-American and Latino urban communities from where they came. Several high-profile male Hip-Hop artists, including some of the most successful music producers and promoters in the nation have also either established, continually supported, or contributed to charitable social organizations and education funds as well (Watkins, 2006).

The False Basis and Hypocrisies of Various Hip-Hop Themes

At their root, many of the predominant themes in Hip-Hop are outright falsehoods that represent deliberately manipulated public images that contradict reality. Most fundamentally, virtually everything associated with Hip-Hop culture as it pertains to males relates to the portrayal of masculinity and a high degree of self-esteem, a positive self-image, and to being a powerful person on every level. This is portrayed in numerous specific ways, including the lyrics of songs, the adoption of certain physical mannerisms, manner of dress, and to inferences of social and physical dominance of men, particularly toward women (Price, 2006).

In many respects, these images completely contradict reality. For example, Hip-Hop artists have frequently appeared on prominent cable television programs profiling their success through guided tours of multi-million-dollar mansions and expansive estates complete with several brand new Lamborghinis, Ferraris, Rolls Royce, and Bentleys in their driveways. Aside from the social irresponsibility of promoting ostentatious displays of luxury to impressionable youth, in many cases, the portrayals are themselves largely phony (Price, 2006).

That is simply because much more often than not, the luxurious estates and automobiles are merely leased or rented and depict a false image of the actual wealth of the artists (Watkins, 2006). In other cases, the artists may own some of the property displayed, but those acquisitions actually represent the bulk of any equity actually owned by the artists because outward display of wealth is even more important to them than actually accumulating bona fide wealth from more appropriate financial investments and planning (Watkins, 2006).

Whereas a substantial amount of effort apparently goes into portraying male Hip-Hop artists as powerful figures in charge of their own destiny and unconcerned with the opinions of others, the fundamental basis of ostentatious displays of wealth and of promoting one's self as a conqueror of female hearts is psychological insecurity instead. In that regard, some of the very same social "rebels" who originally built their so-called "street creds" by professing to reject mainstream American social and cultural values now own mansions on large estates in New York's most exclusive Hampton communities where they hold extravagant annual parties featuring prominent members of the very same mainstream American social culture that share absolutely no values at all with them, let alone with the millions of ordinary African-American consumers who are responsible for their wealth. Some of those successful Hip-Hop artists have contributed more to charitable concerns than others, but in virtually all cases, substantially less than could be considered appropriate in light of their tremendous wealth and the comparative poverty of their fans.

Finally, one of the most glaring hypocrisies in the Hip-Hop community relates to the discrepancy between the imagery and statements about "masculinity" and the apparent prevalence of homosexuality on the so-called "down low" engaged in by some of the most masculine representatives of "thug life" on the streets (Alim, Ibrahim, & Pennycook, 2008; Price, 2006). In principle, there is nothing necessarily wrong about sexual experimentation of this nature; it is simply the degree to which it contradicts the images that the individuals involved work so hard to portray publicly that is the basis of further hypocrisy throughout Hip-Hop culture.