task 6

'LL Cool J comes out with one leg of his pants rolled up, the next day everyone is doing the same thing'[1]

How do hip hop music videos featuring contemporary rap stars such as Eminem and Lil Wayne construct ideologies of masculinity and why does this negatively influence teenagers?

Are artist represented in a certain way that it manipulates teenagers to act in a certain way? This essay research is going to find out how hip hop has changed during the years and whether it has had a big impact on teenagers. The hip hop genre has often been criticised for its unhelp stereotyped of young particularly black males: 'there are a lot of people who are doing something positive...But too often, the ones that get the most recognition are those emphasizing the negative'[2]. There are many more socially responsible hip hop artists such as Kanye West; and come of those demonised such as Eminem (in his track "not afraid" for example) or Tupac (in "ghetto ghospal! and others) promote uplifting values; however, the mainstream media often seems only influenced in perpecturating old-fashioned myths.


The main text that this essay will be looking at are, Eminem's 'love the way lie' and 'no love' and also will be looking at Lil Wayne 'drop the world'. The reasons that these texts have been chosen are because they show the typical codes and connventions of hip hop and also because Eminem and Lil Wayne have made it very big in the hip hop world and are contemporary and known world wide.
Eminem is an american actor, record producer and rapper. Eminem gained popularity with his album 'The Slim Shady LP' which he won a grammy award for the best rap album. He released an album 'recovery' which was very different to Eminem's style and even then the album sold 741,000 in it's first week.
Lil Wayne is an american rapper. At the age of 9 Lil Wayne signed with cash 'money records' as the youngest member on the label. In 1999 he released a platinum album which sold over one million in the U.S alone. His most successful album was 'the carter III' released in 2008 which sold over one million in its first week.