Saahil Patel Essays - African-American Culture, Music, Free Essays

Saahil Patel Essays - African-American Culture, Music, Free Essays Saahil Patel Global Hip Hop January 24, 2016 Gilroy talks about the black culture in a very emotional way in The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. Gilroy opens by talking about how authenticity has always been a challenge in the black community and how they will always will. He also touches on ideas from other famous philosophers such as W.E.B. Du Bois and Zora Neale Hurston over authenticity' and it s advanced perceptions li ke truthfulness and attraction. By using the metaphor "the black Atlantic ," Gilroy says that the black community has to be able to adapt to the different influences to be able to survive and overcome challenges that may come up in the future. In the chapter one, Gilroy talks all the aspects of political opinions. He makes an argument that the Atlantic music was a response during the 1960s. During this time, Gilroy brings up the idea of double consciousness that was expressed between the Europeans as well as African Americans. A lot of these individuals had not found their true identity and were confused about why they were treated differently than others. He brings up many interesting points such as cultural formations and social analysis where races had to do self-reflecting for the first time in many years. When Gilroy goes through to talk about ethnic authenticity , he says that a lot of it was driven through music. When music started to come out and races would listen to certain genres , society would directly tie that particular race with that type of music. It shows that the history of black Atlantic community was classified based of the type of music they would listen to. As Gilroy said, "T hose inherited from Africa, and those generated from the special bitterness of new world racial slavery ." According to Gilroy he is saying that is the specific definition of authentic black music. However, I believe there is no way to be able to identify what that actually means. He was simply grouping all music that was created by Africans and said it was coming from the motherland of Africa. Gilroy ignores the place of where the songs were originated in and goes on to argue that it is a problem from within the community. An example would be Nas , also known as Nasir Jones. Over his rap career he talked a lot about how all of African history is world history. Nas brings up an interesting point saying that whenever there are any problems in society, Africans tend to have problems with other races as well that classifies it as world history. Nas also has criticized the quality of hip-hop music. In many interviews he talks about how they he wants his music to reach people in Africa and show them that things have changed. Even if there are cultural differences between the two nations, he still wants his music to get to everyone around the world. Another example who m also displayed a very similar message was Jay Z . Even though Nas never became has famous as Jay Z, they both were trying to get the same message across the table. Jay and Nas beca me two of the most influential artists over a period of time to help change that co ntemporary hip-hop music to a more historical side. It was driven more to help educate a widespread community that all had the same taste in music and to prove a point. Even in recent tracks such as "Bridging the Gap," Nas talks about how they need bend music genres together and not worry about where the origin is, but more to put more emphases on the meaning behind the music. Nas was one of the few to stay away from rapping about the generic topics that most rappers stick too such as; drugs, gang violence, and growing up being poor. He was able to use African history to bring together the community and make a new name for contemporary hip hop. Kanye West, much like many philosophers, wanted to spread his ideas of humanity through his music. Most of West's songs are about race and how recent violence has once again