Take one look at me. I'm a middle-class white girl with a science major, so I'm not going to pretend to know much when it comes to the world of hip-hop.
But I enjoy getting down to good music just as much as anyone else, so I'm not completely isolated. It's not necessarily that I dislike hip-hop, it's that the artists in the genre today have caused the whole arena to become stuck in a rut.
There are two main sectors in the genre, rappers that are socially conscious and those that stick to more superficial themes.
Socially-conscious rappers like recent UB visitor Kanye West have taken cues from groups in the past like N.W.A. and Public Enemy. The old-school rappers spoke out against social injustices, inner-city problems and racial discrimination. Groundbreaking nerve and intelligence helped to bring many urban problems to the light in pop culture in the late '80s and early '90s.
While much of it was progressive at first, many of the themes have been repeated for the past 20 years. Either the artists today aren't being creative or, more likely, the problems haven't gone away.
Mainstream rappers like 50 Cent and Nelly have taken a different road to fame. They glamorize "thug" life by constantly talking about money, cars and women. Often the women in these songs are degraded, a situation that many female rappers, like Lil' Kim, have not done much to resolve.
These themes haven't changed much the past few years. The only difference from song to song and year to year is that artists come up with a new way to talk about shootings, sex and fancy sneakers.
The relentless negative themes of gang violence and degradation of women have helped shape the minds of the next generation, creating a whole new age bracket that looks to these artists as role models.
"I crush mics until my hand breaks/ then shag now and shag later 'til these women can't stand straight/ the Luda-meister got 'em feelin' so randy/ I'm XXL so I call 'em my eye candy/ brush my shoulder and I pop my collar/ cause I'm worth a million ga-zillion fa-fillion dollars," raps Ludacris on his single, "Number One Spot."
Not much left to say about that.
Any lyrical excerpts I could use to demonstrate the violence in some of these songs would be too clouded with expletives to be understood.
The only overlap between the two groups comes in the form of talking about growing up in a rough part of town. No one will pretend that it's easy growing up there, but let's take a look at what happens when an artist's album climbs the chart.
Rappers with money move out of the ghetto.
Activists like Bill Cosby have tried for years to preach the value of an education to those in an urban setting. Cosby condemns youth looking to neighborhood gangs as a way to get ahead and instead encourages active participation in sports and academics.
The overall positive feeling after listening to someone like Cosby contrasts heavily with the anger and violence that resonate after listening to many of today's rap songs.
As long as there are artists passing off trash talk and the exploitation of women as music, the themes in progressive rap won't change much. No matter how much good intent is in the music of rappers looking to change things, mainstream rap just perpetuates the situation for today's youth becoming the gang leaders of tomorrow.
50 Cent, Ludacris and the like undermine the efforts of activists to the point of self-destruction. And if nothing changes, we'll be hearing about the stagnant state of the ghetto for the next 20 years.
