At the peak of the West coast versus East coast beef many people on both ends began to feel a personal connection to the issue and for Jenee Desmond-Harris that was exactly the case. The situation between both rappers, Tupac and Biggie, brought out the violence within the African American community to the forefront and the influence it had upon many on both ends. The essay I decided to evaluate was “Tupac and My Non-thug Life” by Jenee Desmond-Harris. The article entails Ms. Desmond-Harris’s experience of hearing the news of late rapper Tupac Shakur’s death. Ms. Desmond-Harris explains how she and her best friend Thea were huge fans of Tupac and the effect that his death had on their lives.…
Sean Diddy Combs, AKA Puff Daddy, is the definition of a mogul. Starting his career as the director of A&R at Uptown Records, he was integral in launching the careers of Mary J. Blige and Jodeci, and later started his own label, Bad Boy Records, which has fostered talent that includes Mariah Carey, Method Man, Boyz II Men, Lil' Kim and more. Combs' solo music career began in 1997 with his first single, "Can't Nobody Hold Me Down," which shot to No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, quickly followed by a No. 1 debut album that has gone Platinum seven times. This Grammy Award-winning debut was just the start of Combs' massive career, which has garnered countless No. 1 records, three Grammy Awards and ASCAP's Songwriter of the Year honor. Recently, he took the internet by storm with his sonic motion picture, "MMM," which was met with overwhelming critical praise from outlets like Billboard, Entertainment Weekly, XXL and The FADER.…
School/Peers Orenthal James Simpson developed rickets soon after he was birth and was left bowlegged and pigeon-toed. Furthermore, his family could not afford surgery so throughout his childhood he was…
All throughout American history, athletes have played vital roles in the way people act and look, what they want to be like when they grow up, and how they live everyday life. Those are just minor influences athletes have on people, but three athletes in the past fifty years have significantly impacted life in United states. Lance Armstrong, OJ Simpson, and Tiger Woods impacted US society both positively and negatively. Lance Armstrong impacted the US by his foundation, his comeback story from cancer, and his infamous seven straight Tour de France wins, but fell from grace when he admitted using performance-enhancing drugs. Tiger Woods impacted the US by overcoming prejudice and racism in his childhood and winning multiple major championships, but fell from grace when he guilty of cheating on his wife Ellin.…
There are many connections between the three readings that we used in class mainly between Mr. Cater in “I Ain’t Writin’ Nuttin’”, Maya in “No Kinda Sense” and Malcolm X’s experience with his “Homemade Education” autobiography . The people that the readings are focusing on all deal with them trying to find a sense of self, understanding who they are and how they play a role or the propose in their individual situations. They each go through their own story that test their ability to adapt or handle an environment with external life factors that they are not used to, where people around them effect their self-esteem and identity. Dealing with their obstacles forces them to open their minds and experience a change of fixed mindset (where people…
Published in 1993, “Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member,” is a memoir written by Sanyika Shakur. Set in East Los Angeles during the late 70s, 80’s and early 90s, Shakur’s book illustrates the overwhelming amount of violence that occurs due to conflicts between rivalry gangs. As mentioned in the book, the majority of the conflict is not between the Crips and the Bloods but instead between Crips and other Crips. The book offers a unique difference from most other books about gang life because the author, also known as “Monster Kody” throughout most of the text, is a notorious member of the “Eight Trays Gangster Crips” and manages to work his way through the ranks to Original Gangster. Just graduating the sixth grade, Kody has…
I think the coupling of the Jay-Z autobiography "Decoded" and the gaming of finding the sites helped to raise awareness or popularity of the Bing website because it gave Bing grab the attention of a market that they normally wouldn’t appeal to. In most cases people use google as their normal search engine. What Bing did in this partnership was appeal to the younger generation who doesn’t necessary use books anymore. We tend to use social media, nooks, iPhone more to get access to information on anything. Jay-z has billions of followers that have a brand loyalty to him.…
On April 14th, 2017, proclaimed artist, Kendrick Lamar, released his fourth studio album, titled Damn. This fourteen track album was possibly Lamar’s most personal and most in-depth project yet. However, no song on this album, perhaps, reaches the personal level of the fifth track titled “FEEL.” In this song Lamar gives a super in-depth look at what he believes his biggest issues are and allows the listener to realize your own by confessing his. The purpose of this essay is to conduct a rhetorical analysis of Kendrick Lamar’s “FEEL.”…
Once arrested, blacks are likely to remain in the prison. They are harshly treated, sometimes even for crimes not properly investigated and crimes they did not commit. The biggest crimes in the United States criminal Justice system is that it is a race-based, institution where African American are directly targeted and punished in a much more aggressive way than white people. Without question racism is still extremely present, fixed in a society that fails to understand it and buried in a badly damaged judicial system. An analysis of black history reveals that blacks often serve higher sentences than whites for the same crime because of inequalities such as racial profiling, bias in police department across the country and unfair criminal justice…
Fivey reached behind him and brought out his spear, named Winter's Song, spinning it. He then pointed the sharp tips at Lincoln. "Desist," he said briefly, eyes filled with calm rage. Lincoln only smirked, not fazed by this.…
Jenee Desmond – Harris wrote an article called “Tupac and My Non-thug Life,” which was published in an online article called The Root. The title of this article seems very contradictory and that is because it is. This article is about how Desmond – Harris, as a young privileged half white, half black teenage girl, finds herself trying to embody Tupac after his death. The contradiction of this is that Desmond-Harris did not relate to Tupac in the ways of how they grew up. Desmond – Harris had yet to confront any of life’s hard edges when Tupac had passed.…
The rapper extraordinaire. The real slim shady. The bleach blonde white dude who really knows how to write some slick lyrics. To his family he is Marshall Mathers. To us, he is Eminem.…
Ever since I was in kindergarten, my parents have instilled good judgement values when it came to interacting with my peers. As I grew older my father taught me the reason behind why it is important to have good friends. “Guilty by association” is his go to phrase when he talks about making friends, if I ever make friends with the wrong group of people, I am automatically believed to do something wrong with them. Thankfully, I have never made a bad choice when it came to making friends.…
In school he was known as poet, that he likes reading dictionaries and writing some lyrics since his childhood. His writings were greatly influenced by his trouble life events from his childhood. His father left him, then he lost his uncle whom he likes most, being bullied in the school, feeling lonely and his conflicts with his mother influenced his personality so much and he wrote them in his songs as lyrics. A remarkable psychological point of Eminem's childhood was that, he created shadow side of himself. He developed his sadistic, violent, and psychopath alter ego, which he called Slim Shady.…
On May 21, 1972, Christopher Wallace was born. He grew up in Brooklyn and from a young age took on the nickname Biggie Smalls because of his six foot three and almost 400-pound frame. Biggie dropped out of school by the time he was 17 years old and began to live his life on the street, selling crack. After serving time in jail for selling drugs, Biggie made some demo recordings on a tape, which eventually reached Uptown Records producer Sean Combs. Combs signed Smalls immediately and they started making music together for Combs’s label Bad Boy Records.…