Sounding like Gibberish
In Adam Sternbergh’s essay “Got bub all up in the hizzle, yo!” His main idea for the essay was that rap actually does a lot for the English language by making it exciting and innovating. I think that rap is not all that he makes it out to be. The groups of people that listen to rap are teenagers and young adults. Today many of these teenagers and young adults have young kids that listen to the same thing. So what impression is this making on the younger generation about our language? As a child it could be very confusing to learn English one way in school and then go home and have English presented another way. A lot of kid’s don’t know how to distinguish between what’s right and wrong. So how do they know what English is correct?
Sternbergh talked about in his essay the famous song by 50 Cent where the chorus said, “You’ll find me in da club/ Bottle full of bub/ Mommy, I got the X/ if you into taking drugs.” Not only does this song have horrible grammar, it has a horrible message. If I were a parent I would not want my young child listening to the music. These lyrics if they were made into a movie, the movie would be rated at least PG-13. Yet this is being broadcasted all over public radio and public television.
The music that our parents listened and still listen to had and have morals and lessons in them. They were happy and talked about PG things. They motivated people and gave a positive outlook on life like U2’s song “Beautiful Day” from the album All That You Cant Leave Behind he says, “It’s a beautiful day, don’t let it get away.” This is the kind of stuff that I would want my young children to listen to. The song has good grammar and it is very positive. Its feel good music and you don’t loose brain cells listening to it.
Every time I hear rap I feel as if I am loosing brain cells because not only is what most rappers sing about ridiculous, the grammar is horrible. Sternbergh states that “You’ll find very few arguments however, praising rap music for keeping the language alive.” I think it is making the language less innovating. If this is the kind of music that sells and people insist on listening to and defending, soon we will all sound like we’re speaking gibberish.
2 comments:
I disagree with you Sarah. What rappers rap about is not always ridiculous. If you haven't noticed, there are entrepreneurs out there finding ways for students to learn faster through "rap and ryhming music". Over the generations, music does tend to become a little explicit, however;judging from the lyrics of Olivia Newton John's," Let's Get Physical it's certainly is not talking about exercising; so rap music is just a way of being blunt as opposed to "sugar coating" what we gossip about in every day conversations. So does rap music cause you to lose brain cells? maybe not rap music itself, but the fact that you may not understand it.
Sara I agree that rap music is not the best influence to young children. Most of the time it does not promote a good message and it does invite kids to speak using slang, though kids will continue to listen to it not only because it’s on public radio, but because it’s popular, and I doubt it will lose it’s popularity anytime soon. People consider rap as a part of a culture, and even though it’s not a positive influence, rap does influence the language.
Also I doubt that people would start speaking gibberish, because some people can’t understand rap enough to mimic it.
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