Understanding Popular Culture through Hip Hop

This article discusses the impact of hip hop music on society through the lenses of social sciences and humanities. It analyzes how hip hop music strengthens human relations and changes attitudes towards different cultures and values.

Running head: UNDERSTANDING POP CULTURE THROUGH HIP HOP 1
Understanding Popular Culture through Hip Hop
Student’s name
Institution affiliation

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Understanding Popular Culture through Hip Hop
Part 1: Hip Hop Artefact
Hip Hop as an artifact is a form of culture and musical expression and originated from
Africa-American especially the Latino communities living in New York City in early 1970’s
(Alim, 2009). In this work am going discus Hip Hop music as an artifact of my choice. I selected
hip hop due to the popularity of my culture. I am going to analyze Hip Hop music in the lenses
of social sciences, natural sciences, humanities and history.
Hip Hop music and social sciences
Human beings are social beings. This means people were made to live together in a
communal and social way. Social Science is the study of society and the relationships among
people. The study focuses on how people live and ways to improve their living. Scientist use this
lens by collecting primary and secondary data, analyzing it and making conclusions on the
finding after the project on the ways to improve the society. Hip Hop Music origin was based on
a mixed culture (Rose, 2014). Slavery made some African find themselves in America. In earlier
days Africans were really discriminated by American. Hip Hop came as a means for this
different cultures to express themselves. Music expresses feelings and emotions that a person
won’t speak, it’s the deep soul speaking. Hip Hop music made a bridge and a communication
channel in which the different cultures could interact and this made the society better. The
choice, attitudes and the behaviors of the people towards one another changed significantly with
one another (Bennett, 2009). Careers in sociology, psychology, sociology and more propagated
the need for a better society. Hip Hop Music through this lens is seen to make a better society.
The theoretical frame work that I will employ is dance. This is because, due to many
occasions in my humanitarian culture involves dance. Hip hop has one of the best dances which
expressed people feeling. Through the lenses of social science, hip hop provides a social
commentary by giving people and understanding of sound human relations. Human beings are
social beings naturally. Hip hop music carries a lot to be learned in terms of human interactions.
The feeling expressed by hip hopers gives a society or community with different people a human
and hind way of dealing with one another. Social relationships are highly strengthened through
the artifact of hip hop music (Alim, 2009). In my theoretical framework I will construct my
reading by using literature. Through literature I will gather many hip hop songs and analyze the
wording critically to get a lot of which they are saying in terms of social sciences. Literature will
be a wealthy way of expressing social science to my society.

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Hip hop and humanities
Humanities are the study of cultures all over the world. This lenses focuses on the
similarities and differences between cultures in different societies. Hip hop expresses the human
expression in how people with difference experiences express themselves. Other mediums such
as literature, dance, fine art, philosophy and photography express peoples’ culture and values.
Professional in the field of humanities uses primary data to forecast the community culture and
values (Stovall, 2016). They study in a period of time how a certain art was made and how it is
different in the present time. They also show the impact of science on cultural behaviors and
values (Fricke, & Ahearn, 2012). Hip hop has much to express the community culture and
values. For example there is a certain way in which the people addicted with hip hop music
behave.
Analyzing hip hop through the lenses of humanities on how it; - interacts with me as
person and in my professional life. I have a culture which is influenced by hip hop music. This
artifact is available in all accessible media and is played daily in events and special occasions. As
a persona I learn a lot of what composes my culture and the values of my culture. Hip hop
teaches the best human relations and values which make people stay together regardless of their
choices and attitudes. In my profession hip hop makes me knowledgeable on how to uphold my
professional ethics. It gives some insights on what is morally acceptable when dealing with my
fellow professionals (Dolberry, 2015). Hip hop music through humanities. Humanities involve a
study of cultures all over the world and Hip Hop has affected cultural institutions especially in
literature and philosophy. It has made people in cooperate culture in learning. People have
changed their primitive cultures to adapt to acceptable cultures by the world as a whole (Perkins,
2016). Institutions have changed from discriminating students and have accepted learners from
everywhere in the world. In the work place people are able to accept and incorporate different
cultures and values. Hip Hop music has changed institutions socially significantly. People are
able to interact with respect, relationships in institutions doing different activities have been
strengthened, careers such as sociology, anthropology and psychology have been able to impact
lives of many through the knowledge acquired (Samy & Pennycook, 2017).

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Conclusion
The two lenses show clearly how popular culture impacts society. The society is able to
strengthen human relations. People are able to improve in the way they make choices. Attitudes
of people are also changed on how they view different cultures and values. My artifact has a
good interconnection with the society because it’s the commonly kind of music. They society
learns a lot from hip hop music making it the best artifact I could use for my work.
In my field of study I can strategies and use popular culture in bringing people together,
for example in times of conflicts between societies I can use popular culture to make peace
between them. I can also popular also to make societies to appreciate their culture and make use
of culture to reach other people with goodness of their culture.
I can use social sciences in everyday life by making people understand the composition
of a society and teach people how to appreciate one another. I will use also these lenses to teach
people human relationship and how they can live peacefully with each other. I will use natural
sciences in my profession to teach people how to appreciate the physical life. I will teach my
colleagues on how to protect human environment. I will employ history in my field of study to
teach societies that they have to appreciate their origin and how things were done at specified
times in history. Humanities will help me show people the need to appreciate different cultures
and values. Societies have different cultures and each can learn from the other all over the world.
Analyzing popular culture will make me able to interact with all cultures because I know
how culture in all perspectives. I am able to live everywhere because I know how to lie with
people of all cultures everywhere. Human relations, is very possible for I know how people of
different culture differ in their values.

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References
Alim, H. S., Ibrahim, A., & Pennycook, A. (Eds.). (2009). Global linguistic flows: Hip hop
cultures, youth identities, and the politics of language. Routledge. Journal of Black
Studies, 18(1), pp.31-45.
Bennett, A. (2009). Popular music and youth culture: Music, identity and place. Macmillan
Press Ltd. Journal of Black Studies, 28(1), pp.3-25.
Dolberry, M. E. (2015). From" They" Science to" Our" Science: Hip Hop Epistemology in
STEAM Education (Doctoral dissertation). English journal, 88-92.
Fricke, J., & Ahearn, C. (Eds.). (2012). Yes, Yes Y'all: The Experience Music Project-Oral
History of Hip-Hop's First Decade. da capo Press. Journal of Black Studies, 28(1), 3-25.
Perkins, W. E. (Ed.). (2016). Droppin'science: Critical essays on rap music and hip hop
culture (Vol. 79). Temple University Press.
Rose, T. (2014). Black noise: Rap music and black culture in contemporary America (Vol. 6).
Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press.
Samy Alim, H., & Pennycook, A. (2017). Glocal linguistic flows: Hip-hop culture (s), identities,
and the politics of language education. Journal of Language, Identity, and
Education, 6(2), 89-100.
Stovall, D. (2016). We can relate: Hip-hop culture, critical pedagogy, and the secondary
classroom. Urban Education, 41(6), 585-602.