Hip-Hop culture has been prevalent in the United States and all over the world since the 1980s. It is a culture most people automatically associate with gang violence, drugs, the over-sexualization of women and many other things. Today, I'm here to show all of the positive things hip hop has taught me.
It's important for you to find your own sound. What do Kanye West, J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar, Lecrae and Andy Mineo have in common? Besides the fact that they're some of the most prevalent rappers of today, they all sound nothing like what typical hip-hop or rap sounds like. Most is a trap beat with the same words repeated over and over and over again until it's stuck in your head and you're singing it wherever you go. Also, with artists like Future and Desiigner popular, we sometimes have no idea what we're even singing. Newer artists that are coming out are finding their own sound before they hit the limelight and are learning what works for them. This taught me that sometimes what works for you won't work for me.
It gave me the confidence to stand up when I didn't have the strength on my own. At the lowest point of my life, I found the one thing that gave me a voice. Eminem became my all-time favorite artists but not for the reasons you might thing. I liked him when he was open and honest with what he felt. He would talk about going through drug addiction, what his mother did to him and how he wants his daughters to remember him. Eminem through his music gave me the courage to stand up to the people who bullied me and made my life a living hell.
It gave me a fresh perspective. Sometimes if you see the same place and same things for too long you become comfortable. You become use to the world around you without asking questions. Hip-hop and rap opened me up to a world I had no idea about. People are doing what they have to do to support their family. Now in no way am I condoning robbing, stealing, killing, or selling drugs, but if you had to do those things to put food in your family's mouth, would you? Some of these guys and girls had nowhere else to turn and could do nothing else but that to help their families out. I wish that wasn't a part of life, but I would never judge somebody who did the wrong things for the right reasons.
If you need another point of view, check out Lecrae's opinion on hip-hop culture:
