The 1980’s was the beginning of an area that would change the music industry for the long run. “Hip hop’s “golden age” (or “golden era”) is a name given to a period in mainstream hip hop, usually cited as being a period varying in time frames during the 1980s and 1990s said to be characterized by its diversity, quality, innovation and influence.”(“The Golden Age of Hip Hop,”N.D)This era started as party music and began to make its way onto the radio. Artists began with rap battles where these rappers would settle beef that they had. These artists talked about social issues and rapped about these problems that were currently going on in this era. This music could not be defined at the time because everybody was different and nobody was really the same style.
Some of the top artists of this time were LL Cool J, Beastie Boys, Run-DMC and many others. These groups revolutionized the way that this type of music was portrayed. This expressed the way that this community was feeling at the time and gave others insight into their lives. Some different things that these groups talked about was poverty and violence in the areas that they lived. These artists had different styles that led to a variety of different songs with different beats. No two artists at this time were the same. This was the beginning of a new style of music and these different groups were trying to figure out how to make hip-hop as great as it could be. This music also gave younger kids a chance to express how they felt and what they were living through at the time. Run-DMC is given credit for moving this genre of music into the mainstream.
A form of art that became very popular in the 80’s was graffiti. People would go around and spray paint buildings, cars, and subways. Even though these acts were illegal some stores kept them because of the interesting designs. Some of these graffiti artists were also gang members and were marking the territory for the group they were in.
Rap really began with one on one battles where two DJ’s would battle each other to see who were the better artists. The birthplace of this type of music was Chicago. This music was meant for a good time and to dance to. This type of music was very popular at house parties and expanded to the radio in the early 80’s. In 1980 police cracked down on these house parties and one of the only radio stations in Chicago had to shut down. What gave these houses a bad representation was the drug use so that is a big reason why the police would crackdown on these parties.
Growing up in some of these poor inner cities was a hard life on a lot of people. Some did not know how to express the anger and other emotions that they had built up through the years of living in these areas. This was also a new form of music that helped keep the youth out of trouble.
(1990s)The United States faced a plethora of race and sex related issues in the 1990’s. After decades of pushing aside the injustices certain racial groups faced, when a video of Los Angeles Police Officers surfaced of them beating Rodney King, an African-American man, riots sparked all throughout Los Angeles and the United States. Nonetheless, this officially started conversations about how underrepresented individuals were treated in the hand of the law and in their community. This served as just one of the several examples of how Americans viewed race. Three years later, and America found itself just as divided, if not even more, after O.J. Simpson was arrested for the murder of his white ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson. Their complicated and emotional issues surrounding their abusive interracial relationship “caused different races and sexes to take different sides,” (Irvine, 2014).
With these several race related issues, this served as a perfect time for hip-hop artists to breakthrough and discuss the several topics that affected their personal lives and communities. Although several artists like Tupac, A Tribe Called Quest, and Public Enemy spoke about the institutionalized racism that swept across the United States, the majority of hip-hop artists decided to stay neutral and rap about topics we hear far too often: sex, drugs, and partying. In 1991, at the beginning of what would be a controversial decade, Cordozar Calvin Broadus, Jr., better known as Snoop Dogg, released his famous song Gin and Juice. Halfway through the first verse appears to be a description of a party he is hosting, “I got bitches in the livin’ room gettin’ it on, And they ain’t leavin’ till six in the mornin’. So what you wanna do? Shit, I got a pocket full of rubbers and my homeboys do too. So turn off the lights and close the doors. But (but what?) we don’t love them hoes, yeah,” (Dogg, 1991).
1990 was the time for underrepresented members of the community to unite and fight back, nonetheless, rappers like Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, and Jay-Z were able to continuously bring down their community with the constant use of the n-word, degrading of women, and so much more. Homophobic lyrics had not reached its peak during the 90s because being a member of the LGBTQA community was not yet accepted as a social norm. HIV had been introduced in the beginning half of the 1980s but became a well known sickness after Earvin “Magic” Johnson and N.W.A member Eazy E were diagnosed with the virus. In the biographical film Straight Outta Compton, when Eazy E is notified that he is diagnosed with HIV, his initial response is “but I’m not a faggot”. As a result of HIV only being associated with members of the LGBTQA community at that time, Eazy E was quick to disassociate himself from this particular group. When looking at his past lyrics, for example Nobody Move from the “Eazy-Duz-It” album he states how he is about to rape a woman until he finds out she is transsexual, leading in the following lyrics, “She took her panties down and the bitch had a dick…Put the gat to his legs, all the way up his skirt/ because this is one faggot that I had to hurt.”
Hip-hop artists in the 90s were given the perfect opportunity to discuss serious issues, nonetheless several artists returned or continued to rap about topics that would lure in money.
(2000s). In the early 2000s and beyond, we begin to see a continuation of homophobia in hip hop, along with a rise in the sexual objectification of women. With songs like Eminem’s “Criminal” and Lil Wayne’s “Go DJ,” we see rappers blatantly disrespecting the LGBT community with little or no consequences. The LGBT community is being shamed blatantly through hip hop songs, and artists are barely facing backlash for their words.
We also see a rise in the objectification of women. The early 2000s definitely had a large influence on Hip Hop in terms of women being objectified and only seen as sex objects. Hip Hop and rap diverted from a focus on rap wars, social justice issues and hip hop as a form of emotional expression, to a focus on women as sexual objects and toys. We see this in song lyrics and music videos, where women parade around in barely nothing, portrayed as objects for men to play with. In songs such as 50 cents “Candy Shop,” Sisqo’s “Thong Song,” and the Ying Yang twin’s “The Whisper Song,” lyrics and music videos become more and more explicit and our culture becomes more accepting of the objectification of women.
(2010s) Hip Hop artist during the 2010’s have become more vulgar, and the message behind the music has been almost to entirely lost. Hip Hop artist like future that talk about doing drugs and having girls while not focusing on the issues are mainstream things now. Other artists like this include young thug and Nicki Minaj. While there is still hope that there is still some real hip hop left in our society with artist like J. Cole and Kendrick Lamar still keeping hip-hop with lyrical messages that talk about what is going on in hip hop.
During the recent year, LGBTQ coverage has gone mainstream with many people coming out and showing support for the LGBTQ community. However, homophobia in hip-hop still isn’t openly talked about, and it seems that hip hop is torn over whether they support or they don’t acknowledge. Many rappers who have publicly said the word faggots have openly shown support fo the Orlando shooting victims such as T.I and Styles P. Many rappers have said that it doesn’t matter if someone is gay let them love who they want to love such as Jay-Z, Fat Joe, The Game and Kid Cudi.
Kid Cudi is the most outspoken rapper during this time to openly show support for the LGBTQ community that is apart of the hip hop community. He has even kissed a guy for a movie scene once that was eventually cut during the final editing. According to complex.com many rappers such as : Jay-Z, Nas, Eminem, Jadakiss, Nicki Minaj, Future, Tyler, The Creator, Chance the Rapper, Jeezy, J. Cole, Wiz Khalifa, and Earl Sweatshirt are just some of the rappers who have not only used the word “fag,” or “faggot,” in their lyrics. So it seems that hip hop is torn wether they want to be politically correct or do they believe what they say in their music.
However, there has been some progress with artist like young thug becoming very gender fluid wearing dresses and other hip hop artist such as ASAP Rocky and Kanye West openly wearing kilts but there still arent any famous openly gay hip hop artist. It seems as though some rappers would be accepting, others would shun, and then others wouldn’t think anything of it. According to interview with Nas who stated that some of these n***** have to be gay which in a way is slight homophobia but it seems that many would respect it. While other rappers like T-Pain said, he doesn’t get why it matters if you’re not gay then gay things should not affect you.
Therefore the homophobic terms used by hip hop artist such as “no homo,” “pause,””fag,” and ”faggot” should not be used if you are not gay there is no need for the words.