There is nothing more capable of bringing a group together than music. In every celebration music is at the forefront, and has been used to protest conditions since as far back as the Greeks. Nothing ties together armies better than drums coordinating every movement, and even The Bible exults us to send a great noise unto the Lord. It can be a force for creating power, and has shown that it can sap power.
Gospel music can be used to focus a group, and create a force to be reckoned with. It can create a positive force, a force of healing, a force that forge a community with ties of iron. It draws upon the strength of our combined past, reminding us that we have power to overcome anything by persevering and by remaining true to who we are. It reminds us that we can overcome, and that any sacrifice is worth it in order to win the day.
At the other extreme is rap music. It speaks to the weakness within our souls, our hubris instead of our righteousness, our fears instead of our bravery, and our lust instead of love. It encourages pursuit of money, not for the sake of the raising us up but for the sake of slaking our thirst for worldly things. No other form of music speaks so much to our baser instincts as rap music does, and none as brazenly.
It encourages a culture of violence, by exalting the use of firearms for their use in revenge and attacking those who might attack us. Women are treated as mere playthings and encouraged to submit themselves to men for sex, as it is the only way given for them to contribute to the community. Alcohol is seen as a lubricant in order to further enable its imbiber to greater acts of lust and violence, and drugs are the golden highway to more of the same. It doesn’t even encourage imagination, as the music providing the beat is created either through artificial means or by stealing music from others.
Even the situations it deals with encourages solutions that we know do not work. It encourages violence against police and other authority figures. It encourages hiding from the truth rather than facing our oppressors. Rather than encouraging our children to gain education so that they can defend themselves, it encourages them to lay down their minds and pick up weapons and syringes.
Even when it’s used for positive means, it must deal in the imagery of the music before it. In order to be heard, they must be louder than their brethren, and even that does not work. I submit that rap music is something that must be eliminated before the black community can take its rightful place, as it keeps us down rather than raising us up. I strive for a day when a black child can look at his non-black peers without seeing them through the haze created by rap music.
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