The Hip Hop Wars Chapter One

In the first chapter of The Hip Hop Wars, Tricia Rose addresses the contention against hip hop that it “glorifies, encourages, and thus causes violence,” a claim which Rose argues is problematic because it is the result of the perception that “black kids are the source of violence” which ignores the “extraordinary violence done to them” (34, 52). Rose maintains that violence in hip hop is a real concern, but argues that in order for the concern to be addressed, we must first address the larger problems which create violence in the communities within which hip hop emerged.

Rose lists five situations which lead to increased violence in urban communities, all of which must be understood in order to come to terms with the “social responsibility for creating and fostering these contexts” (51).

1. Unemployment (43)
Rose notes that in the late 1980’s, unemployment for black teens was somewhere between 50 and 70 percent, while the rate for white teens was somewhere around 13 percent. These high rates of joblessness for teens leads to the understanding that the “traditional avenues for working-class job stability were becoming closed to them.” This results in both economic crisis as well as instability in the family and community, which in turn leads to increased violence.

2. Loss of affordable housing (45)
Rose refers to this “widespread destruction of housing” as “root shock,” the process by which the stable community in which urban dwellers turned “segregation into congregation” is destroyed, resulting in “social disarray” and further, increased violence.

3. Drug Trade (46)
Accessibility of cheap drugs, namely, crack, which destroyed individual lives and families, influenced the sex trade, and contributed to the spread of aids, all of which result in violence.

4. Automatic Weapons (48)
Automatic weapons emerge as a way to protect business in the drug trade.

5. Police and Law Enforcement Response (48-50)
Rose states that “the ‘war on drugs’ was really a war on the communities which bore the brunt of the drug crisis” (48). The response to the drug trade “turned communities into war zones” and “failed to address the roots” of the trade. Additionally, the sentencing policies initiated privileged white drug users over black drug users, instating less severe sentences for possession of coke, used primarily by whites, than the mandatory minimums instated for possession of crack. The drug sentencing rate for blacks was 49% higher than for blacks, who have become 40% of the prison population.

The perception of hip hop as more violent than other spheres of culture is exacerbated by several factors, including the misinterpretation of hip hop lyrics as literal depiction's of violent acts, which are often pure fabrications or exaggerations of real situations, as well as the perception of rappers as “outside, negative, aggressive influences” which is based on the presentation of rappers in popular culture (37-39). Rose also contends that extra attention is given to violent imagery in hip hop community than in other spheres of media, a double standard which, although relevant, is not, according to Rose, the most valid confrontation of the issue of violence in hip hop.

Rose concludes her chapter with three imperatives by which she hopes to resolve, or at least diffuse, the debate concerning violence in hip hop. The first determination is that the hip hop industry must “stop making violence sexy” and stop allowing the commercial industry to profit from the “exploitation of black suffering” (58, 57). She cites 50 Cent as an example, whose “promotional campaign relied on the fact that he sold crack, that his mother was a crack use, that he was shot nine times” (58). Instead, she states that efforts must be made to support and rebuild the black communities which have been destroyed. We must pay attention to black youth, and the real harms that have been inflicted on them. Finally, we must no longer hold hypocritical standards about violence, viewing it simultaneously as a social problem and a source of entertainment.

Cara Miller and Breanna Wagner