In my essay I will be talking about the reel. The Reel is when people act a certain way to ‘fit in’ people do this because of the way music had portrayed them, The Reel is a concept created by a writer called M.K Asante, A show Reel is in the cinema to show a movie, a show reel is used for entertainment, so M.K Asante is saying the rappers that talk about Guns,Drugs,Money and Girls are lying they are rapping those thing to get money.

Hip-Hop was made in the South Bronx it focused on emceeing, break beats and house parties.
Hip-hop started out to be when emcees would speak or chant rhyming lyrics it was called commercial hip-hop. Hip-hop as we know it today started to become popular when a rap group called “sugar hill gang” made a song called rappers delight, major companies such as CBS, Polygram, Warner, BMG, Capitol-EMI and MCA started purchasing the labels. The record labels didn’t think they would get profit talking about police brutality and social issues so they decided to change what they were rapping about, the things they rapped about was guns, money, drugs and girls. When the rappers changed there lyrics White Suburban people liked to listen to the new lyrics and bought the songs, the White suburban customers explained that they “enjoy the hyper violent lyrics.”

Mos Def

At the moment we are studying a rapper called Mos Def in one of his songs called Mathematics has lots of quotes to criticise the reel. The quote that I’m choosing to use is “This is business, no faces, just lines and statistics” If I break the quote down I think he means when he says “This is business” I think he means that because how music has changed now the emcees don’t have a choice about what they want to rap about. When he says “no faces” I think he means, because rappers rap about what sells they are only know because of their record labels. And when he says “just lines and statistics” I think he means by saying lines he is talking about the bars and when he says statistics he means their profits.

Akala

Another artist we are studying is named Akala he has appeared on the Television program SBTV where he is discreetly criticising the Reel in his song, one of his quotes is ‘Just thought that killing should not be glorified, silly me
Apparently murdering man has become an aspiration’ Akala is saying that killing people should not be an aspiration and implies that killing has been norma in society  . He also says
‘Sorry kids let me apologise before I go further
Unfortunately I don’t rap about how many man I’ve have murdered’ Akala is apologising for not being a stereotypical liar that raps about girls, money, guns and drugs.

Mick Jenkins

Mick Jenkins is a rapper we have studied he has many songs that criticise the reel one of them is called Martyrs in this song Mick Jenkins refers to hanging as a double entendre chilling with your friends and to be lynched, to be lynched means to be hanged by a tree, in his song he says ” Ima get all this money, Ima buy all this shit, Ima fuck some many hoes, N*gga ima fuck yo bitch”, here Mick Jenkins adopts the mindset of the youth nowadays, the youth think this way because of the change in music since Hip-Hop began.

Kendrick Lamar

We have studied a rapper Called Kendrick Lamar and his song “The Blacker the Berry”  Kendrick Lamar uses repetition on his song “The Blacker the Berry” to talk and criticise the way white people treat black, Kendrick Lamar explains how to be blacker is to be better and that they shouldnt be intimidated by the whites in his song “The Blacker the Berry” Kendrick says “The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice
The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice The blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice The blacker the berry, the bigger I shoot”  i think he is saying is that black people should not angered or upset with there race because black people are just as equal as white people, he shows this by saying “I said they treat me like a slave, cah’ me black
Woi, we feel a whole heap of pain, cah’ we black
And man a say they put me in a chain, cah’ we black”