When you typically hear the word 'urban', what tends to immediately come to mind? Is it cities, or popular metropolises? Or is it the stereotypical image of ghetto black uneducated people of color? My guess is that it's the later rather the former. Why do we tend to have this negative connotation with the word 'urban' in relation to the word 'blacks'? Let’s assume you are one of the many people who have very little knowledge or exposure to the very underrated and unappreciated genre of music known as rap. Besides me basically telling you to go listen to it for yourself to gain knowledge and exposure, let me take a more unconventional way and introduce you with a simple definition. I looked up the word ‘rap music’ on dictionary.com and this is what comes up:
Rap Music
Noun .a style of popular music, developed by disc jockeys and urban blacks in the late 1970s, in which an insistent, recurring beat pattern provides the background and counterpoint for rapid, slangy, and often boastful rhyming patter glibly intoned by a vocalist or vocalists.
My immediate thought when I read this definition was why the words ‘urban’ and ‘blacks’ were used, when in fact rap music was developed by artist from a plethora of different cultures and ethnicities, not just ‘urban blacks’. I also pondered why the term urban was used to describe blacks in this definition and wondered if the term had anything to do with the race at all. Here were my results:
Urban
Adjective 1. of, relating to, or designating a city or town. 2.living in a city. 3.characteristic of or accustomed to cities; citified:
Does this mean that every person living in the city is black? Why is 'urban' almost always synonymous with 'black'? Unfortunately this is common practice associated with the terms urban with blackNow, take this stereotype and look at modern day rappers. Artists like Young Thug, Drake, Rich Homie Quan, and French Montana, to just name a few, unfortunately, tend to fit this stereotype of ‘urban blacks’ and what society sees urban black rap music as.This means talking provocatively and vile way they address women, nonsensical, repetitive and meaningless lyrics often discussing flamboyant playboy lifestyle and promoting drugs and violence in a positive light. It's no wonder the dictionary.com views rap as rapid, slangy, and often boastful rhyming.
Just look at an example of modern day rap versus courtesy of a popular 2013 rap song Pop That “Throw it, bust it open show me what you twerk with / as** so fat need a lap dance I’m in that white ghost chasin Pac-Man.” This is just one of the many crude and moronic statements made by many popular rappers of our day, so it’s not much of a surprise that many of those ignorant to rap culture view it as urban nonsense. However, as with all things we are ignorant to, there is much more to rap music than we may think at first glance.
