...Critical Argument Analysis Gabriel Martinez ENG/215 November 9, 2015 Professor Stephanie Critical Argument Analysis “There’s not a man that can’t be thrown, not a horse that can’t be rode, a bull that can’t be stopped, there’s not a disco that I Coke La Rock can’t rock”. (DJ Coke La Rock 1973) This line spoken by Coke La Rock was the birth of rap and hip-hop music. This one bar made Coke La Rock the very first rapper in Hip-Hop and birthed a new genre of music, we now know today as Rap music. John McWhorter, Opio Lumumba Sokoni, and Desi K. Robinson all have written about their different views and opinions on the good the bad and the ugly of rap music. They all offer different arguments on the effects of rap music. Rap music began as a way for black families to focus on bringing families together and uplifting each other’s spirits in times of heartache and pain. However, now since its humble beginnings so much has changed and developed but the spirit of its heart and soul stays the same. John McWhorter argues in his article, “Mean StreetsTheater,” (2003) on the negativity of rap music and the violence that it promotes. He argues that the violence of rap music is causing the rappers to be murdered. He goes on to say that not only are rappers being murdered but also they’re being murdered in front of their children, exposing their children to the violence. Today in our society many agree with his point of view and are causing...
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...“A Long Way Gone” by Ishmael Beah is a book about the loss of Innocence at the hands of war. Unfortunately this happens to many children across the world every day and it has throughout history. When the book begins Ishmael is a normal boy. He hangs out with his friends playing soccer and listening to music. He has not seen much violence yet and the the only form of war he is seen is in movies and in literature. He has not witnessed a murder or seen the terrible things he will later in his life. I included this part of the book to my analysis to give an example of where Ishmael is in his life before he is thrown into war unwillingly. He is childish and lives like any of us would. However this does not last. A group of rebels go from village...
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...Abstract Raves have historically referred to grass-roots organized, anti-establishment and unlicensed all night dance parties, featuring electronically-produced dance music (EDM), such as techno, house, trance and drum and bass. Since their late 1980s origins in the U.K., raves have gained widespread popularity and transformed dramatically. Consequently, their many cultural traits and behaviors have garnered much sociological interest, which mostly falls into two competing perspectives: cultural studies and public health. In this paper, we review what raves look like today compared to their high point in the 1990s. We then discuss how the cultural studies and public health perspectives define raves and have studied them over time, focusing on the “pet” sociological concepts each has sought to advance. Our analysis of these literatures reveals important differences in rave research by country and over time. We end by discussing the politics associated with the shift in rave research. Introduction Society has been greatly influenced by many alternative scenes, subcultures, or lifestyles oriented around music, youth and young adults (Epstein 1998). Some of the more notable ones include the English punk scene in the 1970s- 1980s, the U.S. jazz (1930s-1940s) and hippie scenes (1970s), and the 1990s rave scenes in the U.K. and U.S. From them have come musical innovation, social identity, fashion and other aesthetic nuances, and mainstream and alternative cultural production...
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...Setting Analysis Sonny's Blues Sonny's Blues takes place in Harlem, New York. The story unfolds during the 1950's which was a time frame that swept the African American community into a downward spiral. This period followed the Harlem Renaissance and although that historical event ended after the 1920's, the effects on the black community were still very prevalent factor. Musicians, poets, writers and other creatives still managed to flourish. On the contrary, poverty stricken neighborhoods consumed by drug activity, prostitution, racism and scarce resources seemed to have impacted the majority throughout the city. This may have been a result from the continuation of oppression that blacks experienced from the residuals of The Great Depression and The Great Migration. The author vividly describes Harlem in a sober manner. Poverty is the clearest painted picture. One can picture homeless people walking about, trash filled streets and numerous people in a state of stagnation, just standing outside roaming. There sounds of hopelessness and lost souls can be heard as the unnamed narrator describes the condition of Harlem at that time. When his brother goes away to jail, the disappointment rattles through his voice. The conversation with Sonny's drug addicted friend yields a sense of sympathy and disgust at the same time. Upon Sonny's return, the narrator depicts Harlem as a place of entrapment. He was bringing his brother “back into the danger he had almost died trying...
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...10:30am-1:30pm 311 Level: * Jonathan Chism, chism@rice.edu, Office hours: Thursdays, 1:00pm-4:00pm * Darrius Hills, darrius.d.hills@rice.edu, Office Hours: Tuesdays, 1:00pm-4:00pm * Jason Jeffries, joj1@rice.edu, Office Hours: Wednesdays, 9:00pm-12:00pm Course Description: Understanding religion as the “Quest for Complex Subjectivity” or more simply the effort to make life meaningful in complex ways, this course explores the relationship between Hip Hop culture and religion. That is to say, this course is concerned with discussion of the ways in which Hip Hop culture discusses and provides life meaning in complex ways. This will be accomplished by: (1) discussion of the history and content of Rap Music; (2) examination of religion in rap music; (3) exploration of the religious...
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...Compliant Destruction Music artists and their lyrics have a very large impact on their adolescent listeners, and the negative influence surrounding today’s popular music is detrimentally affecting today’s youth. “In a study done in 2000, North et al found that a sample of 2465 adolescents in England reported listening to music for an average of 2.45 hours per day” (American Academy of Pediatrics 1). This means that teens are listening to lyrics that desensitize and glamorize the use of drugs, sex, alcohol, and discrimination for at least two hours a day. Then, in addition to listening to music, teens watch explicit music videos, read incriminating articles, and see scandalous stories on the news that further amplify this negative influence....
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..."This album is dedicated to all the teachers that told me I'd never amount to nothin'. To all the people that lived above the building that I was hustlin' in front of, called the police on me when I was just tryin' to make some money to feed my daughter, and all the brothas in the struggle. You know what I'm sayin? It's all good, baby baby." This introduction is from the song 1994 song "Juicy" by Christopher Wallace, or as the world knows him, The Notorious BIG. The late Christopher Wallace used music to express the circumstances that he encountered as a young black man in New York in the 1980s. Like Wallace, and many other black men and women, life was extremely difficult during this time. The war on drugs had just ended (allegedly) and racial injustice was a huge problem....
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...Choice, Sports, Stem Cell Research, Steroids, Terrorism, Violence, War on Drugs, more... Business - Advertising, Business, Buy Web Sites, Economics, Finance, Management, Marketing, Sell Websites Education - ADHD, Learning, Philosophy of Education, Privatization, Public Schools, School Violence, School Vouchers, Teaching, Technology and Education, Test and Testing, Writing English Composition Essays - Analitical, Autobiographical, Argument, Cause/Effect, Classification, Compare/Contrast, Comparison, Conversation, Creative+Writing, Critical, Deductive, Definition, Descriptive, Description, Dialog, Division, Exploratory, Expository, Informative, Interview, Inquiry, Journalistic, Narration, Observation. Personal Narrative, Place, Profile, Process, Proposal English Literature and Literary Analysis - Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, A & P, Antigone, Apocalypse Now, Araby, The Awakening, Barn Burning, Beowulf, Beloved, Bible, Birthmark, Blade Runner, The Bluest Eye, Candide, Canterbury Tales, Catcher in the Rye, Cathedral, Chrysanthemums, A Clockwork Orange, The Color Purple, Comparing Literary Works, Crime and Punishment, Death of a Salesman, Death in Venice, Desiree's Baby, A Doll's House, Dr. Faustus, Epic of Gilgamesh, Everyday Use, A Farewell to Arms, Frankenstein, The Grapes of Wrath, Great Gatsby, Great Expectations, Glass Menagerie, Gulliver's Travels, The Handmaid's Tale, Heart of Darkness, The Iliad, Invisible Man, Jane Eyre, The Joy Luck Club, The Lottery, ...
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...Across the Universe Film Analysis Alisha Liboma English 225: Intro to Film Professor Denise Orpustan-Love July 30, 2012 The Beatles were one of the worlds most influential and iconic bands who evolved in the 1960’s from Liverpool, England. For years people have found refuge in their lyrics that calm, inspire, and awe us to this day. Across the Universe not only provides the audience with a more in-depth look at the Beatles’ lyrical explorations, but also incorporates the use of filming techniques such as, cinematography, editing and sound techniques. It also gives us a closer look at the Vietnam War, struggling singers, love and life during a revolutionary period in U.S history that would prove to be unforgettable. This review will encompass topics such as “mise en scène,” (Goodykoontz, 2011), storytelling, cinematography techniques and the meanings behind the directors actions in a film. The names of the characters in Across the Universe, with the exception of the character “Max,” played by Joe Anderson, were all derived from original Beatles songs. For example there is a character named “Jude,” from the song, “Hey Jude,” who’s character is played by Jim Sturgess, as well as a character named “Lucie,” played by Evan Rachel Wood, and, “Prudence”, played by T.V Carpio. In any part of the movie you see, you can find a character of a Beatle’s song. Using the Beatles’ music to create a flow to the movie allows for all types of audience members to connect to the film. While...
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...Virginia Watkin Professor Dave Graham Music 118 November 26, 2013 Rock and Roll has Lost the Ability to Effect Meaningful Societal Change Music has often been said to be the universal language. Rock musicians especially learned to use the power of rock music and lyrics to effect powerful changes in society, most particularly in the 1960’s and 1970’s. The early age of Rock and Roll was an exciting time for the musicians, lyricists and the mass of young people who listened to them. While it may be that rock music in all of its genres of today can still prod listeners to champion for social change, the rock music market has fragmented so dramatically that rock and roll has lost the ability to impact mass sections of the population and has therefore, lost its unique voice and ability to effect real social change in US society. The turbulence of the 1960’s, due to the escalation of the conflict in Vietnam to a full out war, the assassination of both President John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. and the push for civil rights for all people made for fertile ground for songwriters to encourage change for the better through their music. (Hibbard and Kaleialoha, p 122) Lyricists and composers worked in tandem to write songs to both inform the public and, in some cases, incite the public to take action against what was happening in, around and to the world. Songs such as “Blowin in the Wind, written by Bob Dylan in 1962 and “Ball of Confusion (that’s what the world...
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...The 1960s was a decade filled with change. It started out with optimism among America’s youth that was unprecedented in history. Before too long headlines of civil rights, university reform, pacifist movement against the Vietnam War, women’s rights, and sexual liberation were made and the “Camelot” vision was quickly shattered. America’s youth began to revolt against the establishment and the foregone conclusion that they would adopt the lifestyle of their parents. In ten short years societal norms were turned completely around. Never before had change happened so quickly or been driven by the same group. This rapid change is breathtaking, considering most young people are generally naïve and disinterested in events outside their immediate scope. I have therefore decided to investigate what role the media played in the youth revolutions of the 1960s. This paper will identify media’s influence in driving change and analyze relationships between media, specific historical events, and the reaction of America’s youth. This will be achieved by looking at both primary and secondary sources to determine how much influence the media played in manipulating America’s youth via songs, marketing, and select writings. The media industry’s reaction to the social and technological upheavals of the twentieth century was to encapsulate the mantra “youth as fun” and sell it to America’s teens. . It was the social exposure that the media promoted that resulted in the heightening...
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...Davon Keppel Professor Todd Craig English 112 3/19/16 What Is Happening to The Message? Throughout history, poets were known for telling the people what was going on in either their country or town. Hip-hop was born as a descendant from poetry. But as it began its craze was due to the DJ scratching different beats together. As the DJ began to like the music they created it became background sound to the lyrical Emcee. Everyone wanted to know what the Emcee had to say and how they would rhyme. I have noticed that the positive message in the Emcees rhyme’s and political statements that rap music started with began to deteriorate over time. It was as though hip hop went from talking about what was going on currently in a positive way, to rappers encouraging violence as promoting a negative message. Since the 1980’s to current time there has been a persistent problem of how hip-hop has changed. Grand Master Flash’s “The Message” is a sociopolitical rap song that is truly about poverty and how inner city life was in America in 1982. The first verse speaks to the apparent struggle in his time, “Got no money to move out, I guess I got no choice”. Many people at the time, even though their surroundings were not safe, had no money to move away. Another verse from Master Flash “Rats in the front room, roaches in the back/ Junkies in the alley with the baseball bat” is a light way to show the public what is going on in some neighborhoods. In the 1980’s there was a crack epidemic...
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...Lyrical Reassessment Anthropologist and part-time rock critic George Starostin has suggested that for some people “heavy metal” is a label that they apply to heavy music that they don’t like. Definitions of the styles vary, but the close connection and yet occasional antagonism between hard rock and metal has lead to a game of tug of war whereby fans on either side of the fence each attempt to drag bands on the borderline like Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple into their respective camps. One band around which this conflict more rarely takes place is Black Sabbath. Around them, the argument is over, if it ever happened in the first place. Their classic early work is near-universally regarded in the metal world as the fundamental foundation of that style, an affinity and love for which is as integral to success as power chords and leather trousers. Whether by design or by accident, the Sabbath juggernaut has accumulated on its travels a dark and gloomy reputation that is a match for any even in metal.. However, a significant aspect of this reputation is that it has, to a large extent, been applied retrospectively. This approach has been useful to solidify the band’s (deserved) metal stardom, but it has also involved broad strokes of characterization which have sometimes glossed over important parts of the band’s music – that is, some of the band’s themes and lyrical concerns which don’t always mesh with Sabbath’s horror-metal edifice. The truth – sometimes bypassed – is that Sabbath...
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...In everyday life we are surrounded by consumption. We buy items every day, we pass millions of shops on our way home and see every other person carrying a branded shopping bag. So what exactly do we mean by consumption? The everyday use of the term nowdays states that 'consumption' is about 'use'. In postomodern accounts, cultural consumption is seen as being the very meterial out of which our identites are being construct – we become what we consume. Mackay (1997, p.4) In the 20 th century mass production has led to the commodification of culture, with the rise of cultural industries. Consumption serves the interests of manufactures seeking greater profit, and citisens have become the passive victims of advertisers. Mackay (1997, p.5) Boudreillard has a theory about consumer commodities. In late capitalism they developed the capacity to take up a wide range of symbolic associations which overlay their initial use-value and hence become comodity signs which leads to the loss of a sense of reality.Featherstone (1991,p. 56). Commodities came to lack authenticity and met ' false needs' . Consumers began to have a passive role , be manipulated, rather than creative and active beings. Karl Marx in his theory of capitalism says that production is for the market and for profit. Veblen's in his reaserch explains how goods are used as symbolic markers of social status, and how consumption is for the purpose of imprassing others.Mackay (1997, p.4) In 1984, Bourdieu provides a seeing...
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... Bilag 1a FILM ANALYSIS – an introduction (Source: http://www.filmeducation.org) – bearbejdet af Mi og LK, Favrskov Gymnasium Reading a film is just like reading a book, except that instead of looking at a written page we are looking at the cinema screen. Reading a film works in exactly the same way as a written text, or a picture, except that the tools that are used to create meaning are different. We call these tools film language. The opening sequence From the moment we first start watching a film, we begin to get involved. The first few minutes of a film (the opening sequence) are very important to us as they give us lots of clues about the film: 1) what will the film be about (conflicts/themes); 2) who are the most important characters (hero, villain, love interest); 3); what is the setting of the film (time and place); 4) the genre; and finally, 5) what sort of film language characterizes the film? We look at all these elements and begin to put them into context. Based on their environment, how they look, what they say and what we see them do, we make assumptions about the characters, their roles in the film and their relationship to each other. We also recognize so-called genre markers (things we associate with one particular genre) which tell us if we are watching a Western or a Sc-Fi film and, thus, form specific expectations about what is going to happen during the rest of the film. At the same time, we listen to the sounds and the music of the film and establish...
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