American Gangster, Jay-Z: A Music Review

Track Listing:

1. Intro
2. Pray
3. American Dreamin’
4. Hello Brooklyn 2.0
5. No Hook
6. ROC Boys (And the Winner Is)…
7. Sweet
8. I Know
9. Party Life
10. Ignorant Sh*t
11. Say Hello
12. Success
13. Fallin’

14. Blue Magic
15. American Gangster

To follow-up my last post about Hip Hop, I’m providing you with a personal review of the newly release Jay-Z album, American Gangster.

The album opens up with the Intro providing listeners with the meaning and mentality of a gangster. With this understanding the listeners can better understand the songs that follow.

Pray, American Dreamin’, Hello Brooklyn 2.0, No Hook, Say Hello are songs that also provide a setting for the listeners , while also providing them insight to a day in the life of a hustler. Hello Brooklyn gives you a glance at the city through his eyes. This track is hot because he gives Brooklyn attributes of a woman; listeners would think he was talking about a woman how he describes “Brooklyn’s curves”. American Dreamin’ and No Hook provide listeners with the reason why he chose the life that he did. In American Dreamin’ he talks about thinking about going to college, but he can’t focus on that while people are around him starving. The life gangsters live is one of danger, but in Pray, he shows that gangsters need God to. In Pray, he prays to God for strength and protection.

ROC Boys and Party Life provide listeners with a glance of the good life. It shows when the hustlers at his peak; moneys good and how they celebrate in their high times. Fallin’ gives listeners a glimpse of the fall of the gangster if he continues with that lifestyle.

Overall it’s a great album. To get the full affect, one would have to listen to the entire album from start to finish for it’s a project. It’s not an album you would want to flip through; it’s well worth playing all the way through. I recommend this to everyone, especially people who don’t like hip hop. This album is a mirror of many peoples’ lives every day, and to better understand hip hop, it’s purpose, even appreciate it. This album will show you why you don’t have to necessarily like it, but because of its honesty we all have to respect its truth.

Image provided courtesy of CD Universe

Increase in Technology leads to an Increase in Accessibility: Music

Music is an influential sector of entertainment. Yeah books, movies, and sports have influences on its participants, but these other forms are not as scrutinized by society. Some of these forms are limited to other parts of the world. I’m pretty sure that music is censored in many areas as well, but for the most part it’s not. The advancement of technology has a direct effect on the accessibility of different forms of media, such as music, films, and such. Music is being scrutinized more because it’s more accessible now; but one genre of music more so than others. Hip Hop is the only music genre that’s being blamed for society’s problems.

Why are we using Hip Hop as a scapegoat? Hip Hop is a cultural genre of music that first made its appearance in 1970, New York. It was the block parties in New York that gave hip hop its first “air-time”. Back then it was an instrumental provided by a DJ and someone rapping over the track. This genre was a mix of the African music and the African American music; it was hip and funky at its debut. It made a lasting impression on its listeners because it was wholesome music; a great beat with a positive message. Today’s hip hop is nothing like it was when it appeared on the scene. Hip hop, today, seems to be more about nice clothes, flashy cars, and sex with beautiful women. And it’s because of the more suggestive lyrics that, the genre is constantly under a microscope. I feel that critics have a problem with it because it is widely heard and easily accessible. There are parental advisories on albums containing explicit lyrical content, but with peer to peer sharing children underage can still gain access to it. It’s the younger audience that can’t discern between the music and reality. That’s our main problem.

What’s a possible solution to this problem? Well first let’s agree that hip hop, the producers, the artists, and the record labels are not the only people who are responsible. Parents, communities, bootleggers, and various peer sharing sites are to blame as well. Hip Hop is music just as any other genre of music. Some of it can be superficial and vague; providing false representations of reality, but we have to take the good and the bad. There’s some good music produced from this genre; the music that portrays what really happens in our streets. Is censoring hip hop the solution? No. To censor hip hop would be to censor a cultural; a reality that is real to many people. To censor it would say that it’s not important or ceases to exist. We also need to recognize that there is more to our culture than our music produced. We need to recognize that some music produced is strictly for entertainment reasons. There are many books and movies that entertain us without providing some advice to better ourselves as human beings. To censor one of form of expression would only be justified by censoring all. AND THAT’S NOT HAPPENING. The solution is to have everyone recognize how they’re contributing to the problem, and become a part of solution. We have the parental advisories and there need to be tighter restrictions on these peer sharing sites. Parents need to take active roles in controlling what their children are exposed to. We are not going to stop children from hearing the music, but we can limit their exposure in different ways. At the rate in which technology is advancing, it’s important for people to be aware that music, and other media forms, will become more accessible.