Bud’S Not For Those Under 21 Anyway
...from people who just do not understand where these people come from. Most people who believe that rap is bad do not seem to understand the struggles that those people go through everyday, which is what real rap is about. However, Bill O’Rilley manages to make some points. Now whether I agree with these points is another story. His arguments include Ludacris’s music and lyrics, Ludacris’s employment with Pepsi, and Ludacris’s employment with Anheuser-Busch.
In his article, “This Bud’s Not For Me,” O’Rilley basically says that hiring a person like Ludacris as a spokesperson for anything is a bad idea because it would be rewarding him for his actions. O’Rilley states, “Ludacris puts out raps that celebrate criminal activity, general debauchery, and violence against women.” He goes on to talking about Ludacris’s music “encouraging the life” of criminals and gangsters from dangerous neighborhoods and that “most educators in poor neighborhoods will tell you that the debasement of our culture, of which gangsta rap is a bid part, has coarsened children in general and put high risk kids in a dangerous place.”
Now, I’m not here to defend Ludacris in any way, however, O’Rilley insists on labeling all rap and Hip-Hop as bad. That is not fair, just because Ludacris uses foul language and suggestive themes does not mean that all rap is about slapping bitches or shooting police officers. I believe that rap is much more than music. I believe what Tricia Rose states in her book, Black Noise: Rap Music and Black Culture in Contemporary America, “Rap music and Hip-Hop culture are cultural, political and commercial forms, and for many young people they are the primary cultural, sonic and linguistic windows on the world.” Rap music and the Hip-Hop world provide an escape for most people. “Whenever a group of people are locked within the margins of American social...
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