Parental Discretion Advised

Personally, I wouldn't consider myself someone who listens to the Hip Hop music on the radio today. I don't have any desire to listen to music about slapping hoes, banging for money, and shooting people down on the streets. It's not that I am personally offended by the way women are portrayed in some hip hop music, even though any other person has every right to feel offense, but it's the fact that I would not want to support any artist that thinks that passing lyrics such as "got her on her knees, the same knees that she be prayin' on" is in any way an accurate portrayal of music. Yes, freedom of speech allots these songs to be produced and played on the radio and so forth, but music was an escape for everyone. Why would someone want to escape into a world of guns, violence, and objectification of women? I know that I don't understand it, but a lot of people buy into it. This shows that for some reason, this subdivision of Hip Hop, which is a vastly different style from the roots of Hip Hop (which mostly focused on social commentary and naming grievances), people are focusing less on the meaning behind the lyrics. People, being (a) the rapper- because there are a lot of other issues to write about other than sex, money, and drugs, and (b) the audience- no matter what, people know that these lyrics are offensive, and they just don't care. People will listen to this stuff, memorize the lyrics, fully know their meaning, and they have no problem with saying that their favorite song is something called "p*ssy, money, weed." I don't know, I just think it's a little disheartening to see music, something that hold so much importance on the meaning and the message, take this type of downturn. It was refreshing to hear Billy Drease Williams' work in class on Monday because it showed me that the original style of Hip Hop is not dead; it is just masked by the chart topping, radio raiding rap singles that evince the wrong messages.