The Black Lives Matter Movement And Hip Hop Culture

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The Black Lives Matter movement, which began in 2013, is directly, actively, and importantly implicated within hip-hop culture and rap music because both dynamics, are a “self-defense mechanism that counterattacks the system of white world supremacy” (Chang, 2005, pg. 289). It was also “the first popular form of black music that offered little or no hope to its audience,” and like the Black Lives Matter movement, continues to cross many dominant, social boundaries. (Forman & Neal, 2012, pg. 486). Since hip hop culture has existed, and become involved with American politics, initiatives have been made by members of this community, referred to as hip hop activists, to “create a sense of community and responsibility, and to define a new praxis …show more content…
“Hip-hop is an environment created to protect the masses from obscene impositions of cultural dominance” while Black Lives Matter is a movement created to fight against these “obscene impositions” and the injustices, violence, and oppressions they cause. Black Lives Matter as a vocalized or hashtagged expression is not as taboo nor controversial as it once was before hip hop culture and its beloved artists combined this related movement into the larger movement of hip hop culture. It is the years of efforts by hip hop culture that has broadened Black Lives Matter within other communities, such as when NFL player Colin Kaepernick of the San Francisco 49ers sat during the national anthem to protest police brutality, or when actor Jesse Williams spoke against this same violence during the 2016 BET Awards. With the collaboration and alliance of Black Lives Matter and hip hop culture as a “developing sociopolitical consciousness to…. bring down the walls of an ongoing American hypocrisy,” it is argued their combined influence will be “as powerful as the civil rights movement,” and thus, ensure that black lives, as argued for decades by hip hop culture, do in fact matter (The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education,

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