The problem is that the lines are now blurred between art and real life and impressionable young black kids cant tell the difference. The art of hip hop has a larger influence in our youth than movies do, that's a fact and everyone knows it. These messages are fed to our kids and they have become normalized...
My suggestion is that these hundreds, thousands of black artists in the genre STOP, or DE-ESCALATE, the frequency with which they project glorification of drugs and violence.
Let's not act like you cant talk about other things, because I can give a long line of examples from Nelly to LL to whoever who don't project these images in their music. The industry heads will push back (because its white owned and black men as violent piccaninnies is an age old American Way), but if more of our artists stood their ground on what they want to sell consumers, eventually the industry will flip to what is sold...
These white rappers are successful without overwhelmingly selling violence, why is that? And why is our genre the only one that has, let's call it what it is, our genre is the only one with mass murders? Not country, not pop, not rock, not gospel, not EDM, no one else has these mass violence issues. Because I'm not saying you cant talk about some of this stuff at all, but let's keep it a bean: when people think of hip hop, the image in the minds eye is glorification of materialism, violence, and drugs...
Stereotypes that America preyed on us before hip hop, and we cultivated the most popular genre in the world and allow them to perpetuate these stereotypes further with our willful inclusion...
Cats gotta stop acting like there's no other way, like we have to do hip hop the way it is, that's a cop out. For me and my part, I don't believe in censoring music or movies, etc, because life ain't gonna bleep out curses and derogatory language when they out at the store, parked at a stoplight, have an angry teacher in school, etc. Life ain't gonna bleep out that they WILL know people who are sexually abused, people who commit crimes, people who are racist, etc...
I have two daughters. When they get old enough to feel what I listen to, and then choose their own music and such, my job and objective is to tell them that the music/movies whatever else are art sold for entertainment, to explain to them the harm that some of these images perpetuate on black people, and to understand the harm they inflict on us as a people if they carry themselves with certain behaviors publicly. So let's be honest, did your parents or guardians have that conversation with you? How many do? Mine didn't, and at any rate I wasn't all that influenced by music but if someone sat ne down and talked to me about the shyt I listened to while I hung out and how it subconsciously okay'd my actions, maybe i go down a different path. Who knows...
The conversations about hip hop have to be like the conversations about black folk being stopped by police. Some of yall may think that's radical and that's fine, this isnt a consensus viewpoint so most people at this time aren't gonna accept this. My walk just colored me differently, and especially when you know that a number of guys pushing the images weren't active to the degree they talk about, why should I be okay with them selling it to impressionable youth? Why should I accept the active ones selling it to impressionable youth? Why is it okay?
I still listen to certain music I came up on, may check out newer artists with unique talent (like Lil Baby) from time to time, but for the most part I'm not with the glorification of these images anymore. And I'm also a consenting adult who knows how to separate what I hear from how I act and how I look at black people around me. But I have an obligation to teach my daughters so they don't perpetuate the shyt, and I feel a calling to educate the younger generation after me that are prone to the same mistakes I made...
