How Censorship Has Impacted Rap Music

Censorship of art is nothing new. However, in the long history of hip-hop, censorship has always been present. Through exaggerated efforts to control and attack rap music, hip hop has often become the scapegoat to justify extreme social behaviors. Attacks represent the entire political spectrum, left and right and focus on the explicit sexual and violent rap lyrics. From Run-D.M.C. and Tupac Shakur to 50 Cent and Young Jeezy, hip-hop has been making enemies for as long as it has been captivating fans.

> Rule No1: Before you can label something as a good or a bad influence you should be able to assess what is this about.

When hip-hop emerged in the early 70s from the poor hoods of Bronx, Brooklyn and the surrounding areas of New York City, the American system despised it. It was much easier to consider it a temporary fad, a transitory phase. Middle-class white Americans could not accept its harsh language, and its direct associations to sex, street violence, drugs, alcohol, gangs, gambling, prostitution, and many more. Hip-hop was provocative. Hip-hop was challenging the system reflecting controversy and opposition. Later, with the evolution of gangsta rap, hip-hop was glorifying crime, sexism, greed, misogyny and homophobia. Hip-hop was spitting America on the face and America held hip-hop liable for everything, dismissing it as noise and blaming it for concert riots and gang explosion.

But, it was so much more than that.

Hip-hop was actually the voice of ghetto America that echoed the misery of African American and Latino youth. Visualizing the American dream as a new cultural power that would not encompass poverty, unemployment, criminality and police brutality, hip-hop became the new street culture. This rapidly growing phenomenon shifted from the ghettos to the suburbs and ultimately to the boardrooms of corporate America. The policy was clear: as hip-hop could not be ignored, it had to be censored.

> Rule No 2: You cannot ignore the facts that create the need for opposition

To my view, censorship was a wrong thing to do and rather unsuccessful. First of all, opposition and controversy are always the consequence of an unjust political system. Black America in the early 70s was greatly misused, both by society and police. African Americans were viewed as second-class citizens and black people in the ghettos were looking for a way to react to violent police brutality. Hip-hop was the way to voice their opposition to White American indifference.

Second of all, music cannot be regulated by censorship. Freedom of speech applies to music as much as it applies to any other form of art. The oxymoron with hip-hop is that the more it openly provoked, the more it was selling. Its mounting influence on the masses was directly proportional to its unrestrained and controversial lyrics. This happened because hip-hop was describing the reality of life in the black hoods. For instance, when N.W.A. released F*** Tha Police" from "Straight Outta Compton" in 1988 they described a real situation that had occurred in Southern California.

Thirdly, although corporate America decided to censorship hip-hop on the grounds that it conveyed degrading messages and as such, it was a bad influence on young children, it profoundly capitalized on hip-hop's massive influence. Corporate giants like Sprite, Burger King, Tommy Hilfiger and others, made hip-hop almost mainstream and, definitely, a highly profitable industry.

> Rule No 3: You cannot censor the truth

Without any doubt, censorship does not help music. Hip-hop, punk or rock, are music genres that actually "speak from the streets". The explosion of hip-hop culture and its dominance on the system was similar to what happened in the UK in the mid 70s with punk. Only then, it was not about the black youth. Punk was about the white youth that was outraged on the system and found in the lyrics and music of punk a way to translate anarchy and chaos into authentic political philosophy.

I believe that censoring hip-hop did nothing more than flaming more opposition and more open reality. Music can, by no means, create violence. Music simple reflects social realities. Hip-hop is real music for real people. No censorship can change that.