Opening Your Mind: The Truth Behind Rap

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As a kid, we don’t always understand why things happen. By far the song that has impacted me the most is “Mockingbird” by the great Eminem. I can remember it like it was yesterday. Waking up running down the stairs as fast as my legs could move. The excitement running through my veins as I ran to the Christmas tree. Hoping that I got what I had asked for. Only to be disappointed, by seeing only one box with my name. I opened it, looked inside to see clothes. I was young, I didn’t want clothes. I wanted and xbox. I confronted my parents—in rage—asked them why they didn’t buy me the xbox. They said, “That’s all we could afford.” Of course, being the stupid kid I was, I said some hurtful things, which I knew affected my parents, but I didn’t know any better. A couple years later I listened to “Mockingbird for the first time. There was a set of lines that really, I mean really spoke out to me. I will never forget these lines, “I remember back one year when daddy had no money, Mommy wrapped the Christmas presents up and stuck ’em under the tree/And said some of ’em were from me, cause daddy couldn’t buy ’em/I’ll never forget that Christmas I sat up the whole night cryin.” Immediately after hearing this I shed tears. I realized that my parents had done all that was in their power to buy me what I wanted. Unfortunately they couldn’t buy me what I wanted. I didn’t appreciate their effort. I could only imagine how they felt after I rejected the gift they worked so hard to get me. Because of Eminem’s lyrics, I learned that I should appreciate everything my parents do for me. Even if they are unable to give me what I desire. I learned that my parents have infinite love for me and will always do everything in their power to give me what I need. I will never forget this lesson, it’s one of the most valuable lessons rap has taught me. Perhaps if I would have never listened to “Mockingbird” I would have never learned that lesson. I have seen others older than me not appreciate someones effort. It’s truly sad, how someone can give you the world, but some want the moon. “Mockingbird” is a story, a story with great power. Because I was able to relate to Eminem’s story, it affected me greatly. I was influenced to change my way of thinking towards appreciation. This is what Gottshcall is talking about when he says, “fiction subtly shapes our beliefs, behaviors, ethics…”

Eminem has spoken the truth in his lyrics, but he’s not the only one. Hopsin, is another of many who show the true beauty of rap. Hopsin lost a friend to meth, he uses rap to get a powerful message out. He paid tribute to his dear friend by putting together “Old Friend.” In this song Hopsin doesn’t hold back he pours his feelings out. “If you're trying to live your life right, plan it It’s like your mind vanished, you don’t even know that I wish that we could go back, cause it’s so sad when I tell jokes and you don’t laugh” After hearing this come out of Hopsin’s mouth, I sat there and thought of how sad this was. I pictured this happening to my friends, this opened up my eyes. I realized that when you do drugs, it doesn’t just affect you, it affects everyone who you love and care about. This reaction proves how powerful stories in rap are and how rap is misjudged. Hopsin is also attempting to communicate a very powerful message about drugs. A message which has been trying to be delivered to the youth since they can comprehend what drugs are. Through rap, this message is even more powerful. If listeners realize that even rappers are saying drugs are bad—when they are the ones who are said to glorify drugs—it is showing them that drugs are an evil thing.

Through this story Hopsin is really tying to tell his listeners that drugs will consume you and destroy you. This song really gets to you, at least it got to me. After listening to this song, I automatically start to visualize this happening to one of my friends, and it really affected me. This story allows the listener to feel Hopsin’s pain, without actually going through it. “Keith Oatley calls stories the flight simulators of social life.”(Gottshcall 58) Flight simulators allow pilots to practice real life situation they may encounter when flying planes. They are able to make mistakes and learn from them without actually suffering any consequences. So, when they go out and fly in the real world, they can apply their experience from the simulator, to succeed. Essentially stories do the same thing. Rappers use stories in their rap songs to get out lessons they want their audience to learn. By having the audience experience this pain through Hopsin’s experience, it opens up their eyes to realize how losing a friend to drugs feels. This then may change the way they see drugs; therefore, influencing them to stay aways from drugs. Without actually having to go through the pain, one can learn a very valuable lesson about drugs. All this from a rap song, just comes to show the power of stories and music.

At times humans tend to close their mind and not open up to new things. Humans are afraid of what they don’t know. This tends to be why rap has such a bad reputation. News media’s attention on rap seems fixated on instances of violence at rap concerts, “gangsta” rap’s fantasies of cop killing, female bashing, and drug use. The reality of the situation, however, is the lyrics many rappers use contain positive messages of philosophy and of personal experiences. Artists use their songs to express themselves and their situations. Due to a biased media which portrays content of many rap songs as nothing but endless profanity and extremely offensive language, people are quick to judge and don’t attempt to give rap a chance. This was proved by a study conducted by Carrie Fried in 1996, titled “Bad Rap for Rap: Bias in Reactions to Music Lyrics.” In this study Fried showed the participants eight lines of lyrics from a folk song about a man who killed a police officer—“Bad Man’s Blunder.” The participants were split into three groups. One-third of the participants were told that the song was a 1960s folk song by the Kingston Trio, which is true. Another third were told the song was a 1990s country song by D.J. Jones, the last third was told that the song was a 1990s rap song by D.J. Jones. When people were told the lyrics were form a rap song, they said the lyrics were more offensive and a bigger threat to society. The groups who were told the lyrics were from a country or folk song, said the lyrics were much less threatening than the rap lyrics. The most important thing to consider about this experiment is that all three groups were given he exact same lyrics taken from “Bad Man’s Blunder”, which comes to show that the results are driven by negative views of rap. Sadly