Look beneath the rapper?

**It must have come as quite a shock to Granny’s pacemaker when the Beatles who wanted to hold her hand were replaced by Nelly advising her to remove her cardigan because of the humidity in the room, while surrounded by a scantily clad harem of ‘real’ women of course.**

In the world of R&B, hip hop and rap that can come across as dominated by misogyny, money, masculinity and heterosexuality, it came as a surprise that in July 2012 Frank Ocean would be brave enough to open up about his sexuality, becoming the first modern black R&B star to do so. The reaction of overwhelming positivity from other artists who took to social media to express support for Ocean would be even more telling.

Tyler The Creator, a collaborator accused of homophobia on a regular basis was one of the first to offer a message of support. Upcoming artists like A$AP Rocky were also given an outlet to admit that in the past they had been homophobic but had realised that ‘wasn’t the way to do things’. The bull in a PC china shop that is Chris Brown had the opportunity to drop himself in it again by allegedly using the term ‘no homo’, a backhanded, backwards ‘compliment’ to a fellow male artist, to avoid seeming homosexual reminding us that there is still a long way to go.

When you grow up listening to your dad’s De La Soul records you realise that urban music hasn’t always been like this; it had been just as hippy as the Beatles and as innovative. So as well as perpetuating openness of sexuality it’s nice to see modern artists like Das Racist poking fun at the material extravagances of the past and present e.g. R Kelly’s Arctic tampon coat. Obama himself admitted that he was troubled by the misogyny and materialism of rap but felt that ‘the genius of the art form has shifted the culture and helped to desegregate music’.

What they say isn’t always right, lyrics are often frustratingly contradictory and hypocritical but many young adults believe they have more in common with these artists than the politicians who represent them. They have an influence which can either be positive or negative, so it is important to encourage the positive. Urban music as an art form should never be dismissed or generalised; I was pleasantly surprised when a lecturer, asking what literature is, mentioned Jay Z as poetry, something you don’t hear every day amongst the stuffiness of a lecture hall. Rap can be intellectual: Kendrick Lamar rapped ‘I wrote poems in these songs’, rap is poetry, a modern poetry that is more in touch with people than other literary forms held in higher esteem. It has its upsides and downsides, like everything. If it’s good enough for Obama’s iPod it’s good enough for mine.