Rap Representation

 

 

 

Personally I agree with the three statements as many famous rappers are all the same and videos all have lots of similarity. In many videos you see them flashing money and dancing with half naked women, one statement expresses that a real man will have control over lots of women and you will always dominate them. Rappers and hip hop artists such as Jay Z and 50 Cent use these stereotypes in their videos, 50 Cent’s video ‘Candy Shop’ shows him being flocked by many women who are worshipping him, also he is the only male in the whole video and this shows he is dominant.

Throughout many hip hop videos you will see hip hop artists wearing expensive clothes and with accessories such as chains and watches. This is a show of wealth and that they have lots of money which is stated in the statement. In 50 cents ‘Candy Shop’ it shows him sitting on the bonnet of an expensive fast, red car wearing a big chain this makes 50 cent look very rich and highly powerful which will attract girls to him. It then zooms into his trainers, they say G Unit on and that’s the name of his group, by wearing these it shows he has lots of money to create his own brand of shoes and that he is powerful.  Jay Z’s ‘Pimpin It’ starts with a huge yacht sailing across the ocean this shows he has plenty of money, it then shows Jay Z on the yacht with plenty of women scattered around the whole boat. Jay Z is sitting down smoking a big Cuban cigar, when I see somebody smoking a Cuban cigar I assume they have lots of money and people look up to them as being powerful. More recently hip hop videos have the artist wasting expensive alcohol around and this is also done in Pimping It this shows they have money to waste.

Many of the lyrics refer to other meaning such as in Candy Shop he calls it a candy shop but in reality the ‘candy’ are the women. He later says he is ‘the love doctor’ this shows he is dominant over the women and they all come to see him with their problems and he can sort them out.

So personally I agree with these statements as this is what I see hip hop as. But at the end of 50 Cent’s ‘Candy Shop’ he wakes up sitting in his car in a drive through collecting his takeaway, he was daydreaming which shows he doesn’t actually have the life that is portrayed in the video. So even though you and I may believe all hip hop artists are the same but in reality they aren’t and that videos over exaggerate what a hip hop stars life is like.