Feature: Hip Hop music does influence positivly

No I dont sell crack or carry guns!

Hip Hop music has always been under scrutiny for its use of explicit lyrcism which is brought to realilty even more with its explicit videos.

Many people begin to question the infuluence of such music on teengers perhaps. Or many ignore the unavoidable parentel advisory logo on most hip hop albums which warns of explicit lyrics.

Lyrics that revolve around selling drugs, violence and living harsh lifestyles are common within hip hop music, and if those lyrics are taken away, then the artists image would be taken away as well making him/her fraudulent.

Being a fan of this genre, I can certainly highlight the positives that hip hop music brings, focusing on critically acclaimed rapper Nas' song and video I Can, the second single from his 2002 album God's Son.

The song starts with a drum pattern mixed with Beethoven's classic Fur Elise medoly, which represents class and sophistication, as Nas decides to take a different route in terms of style.

The video portarys a young girl on a piano playing this melody surrounded by flats in a deprived area which shows that talent is hidden and not always on the forefront.

The chorus of the song is what turned it into an inspirational anthem for young children who are not fed with silver spoons, which is sung by children who tell each other that after hardship, sucess will follow.

"I know I can, be what I wanna be".....if I work hard at it, I'll be where i wanna be".

As a rapper, Nas proved to be a clear role model for African American youth who dont always grow up with luxuries, and a smooth childhood.

If only more songs like this were produced, then hip hop music would not be getting ignorant remarks from critics.

For instance an unsatisfied David Cameron who states: "Do you realise that some of the stuff you play on Saturday nights encourages people to carry guns and knives?" He should have mentioned heavy metal music as well with lyrics of a sadistic and sexual nature.

What am I doing?

Many repace old media with the latest. In this case replacing your diary notebook with a blog account.

Then i ask myself this question: who really wants to know our daily activities, and what everybody gets up to? Because I for one dont.

However if the activities are important or effect me, then it will create an instant interest like something newsworthy for instance or something personal.

Ordinary bloggers cannot interest me with their day to day lives, and reading their daily accounts would surely mean that I am bored beyond imaginition.

Staying in touch with friends and family however and what they get up to sounds more appealing. This is where I introduce Twitter, a service which is similar to Facebook's status updater and tells you what others are doing.

It seems to be an effective tool, which is heavily used in the media, from journalism to entertainment. In the recent Mumbai attacks, Twitter users were almost writing the news with posts like "Firing happening at the Oberoi hotel where my sister works", as well as every minute updates.

Its effect on journalism is incredible, because journalists and reporters are not always in the right moment, in the right time, and this is where citizens come in and perhaps do their duty for the (global) community by informing others.


image source: google images

Feature Intro

As Christmas is soon approaching, and the module being in its ending stages we have been given a task of writing a series of posts for a feature.

This can be of our choice or subject matter, which left me thining the whole weekend because there is so much to write about, yet it was still not easy to decide.

Too be honest quite frankly I have had enough of writing about news for now or politics which is the reason my feature will lean into a more entertainment based area focusing on music mainly.

At first I felt like continuing with a similar format like our group blog where i would cover international news stories however with the amount of freedom with content and subject matter available for this feature, I decided to write about muscic; a passion of mine.

Music itself is a huge and popular market, with many genres and niches. I dont aim to write about every single genre and imitate Wikipedia, instead I shall cover Hip Hop music, which has endless blogs.

It is difficult to be creative in a field that is so broad, like music. Instead of simply writing about my favourite rappers for instance, I will be writing about hip-hop music and its relationship with the internet.

As far as getting other people involved, I will use the main marketing tool for bloggers. Being a member of a couple Hip Hop forums, I shall comment there with links to my feature, and offer interaction.


image source: cheese-on-bread blog

Evaluation of Group Blog

In our group blog, we aimed to analyise foreign news coverage, and divided the work load equally with every individual choosing one continent to cover.

A problem that arose was realizing the fact that we did not use a blog website like Blogger or Word press, which enables us to edit posts at all times.

Instead we used a website whereby only the editor can publish posts, and we have to send an email every time we want to update or post a story. The layout of the website was a little all over the place; however nobody was expecting a top of the range website.

The problem when using a website is that the front page stays the same, whereas with Blogger, every new post goes on the front page, until a new one comes along.

The websites URL stayed the same when accessing different parts of the site, which prevented some of us from not leaving comments on other blogs as it would lead back to the main website not the specific part

Overall, I am pleased with the outcome of our group blog, especially the content which is of good quality, and the topic that was international news. Personally I experienced a delay in posting on one of the five days for a good reason obviously, and apart from that everything went well. I enjoyed writing for the group blog, however I enjoy writing for my individual blog more as there are less restrictions.

It was a good experience to be posting five days, as a group, and it would be interesting to see how it succeeds into the real world, once changed are made to it.

Pirates of the Red Sea

Dumping of waste in shores and seas has always been a problem for environmentalists, and continues to be a problem today.

In Somalia however, this problem is being taken care of well with self-proclaimed ‘coast-guards’, equipped heavily like in the Black Hawk Down film.

They are young men who patrol the coast of Somali in speedboats armed with machine guns. Hijacking ships, asking for incredibly high ransom fees and keeping all the money to themselves.

Inspired by Pirates of the Caribbean perhaps, who vigorously sail the oceans of the world for riches, these Somali fishermen, turned pirates are the modern day Jack Sparrows, driven by huge lump-sums and don’t intend to stop anytime soon.

In reality however, they are men who live in a war-torn and lawless nation and survive by any means necessary. When large ships sail through the Somali coast, and dump tons of waste, they can’t expect to get away with it. Matter of fact, they can’t get away without some altercation or confrontation.

Condemned by the media and global leaders, the pirates are laughing off such displeasure as they cash in sums that Hollywood stars would get after a few Grammy awards.

What these ‘pirates’ are doing is not entirely pleasant. Causing havoc within the oil market due to the hijacking of a Saudi oil tanker recently, as well as ‘threatening one of the world’s busiest shipping routes’.

While Somali pirates own modern technology and weapons, commercial ships are virtually unarmed, which make them easy targets.

What people fail to understand is that these coastguards behaviour is a consequence of ships dumping and fishing illegally in Somalia’s waters. These men are not outlaws; they do not kill innocent people.

The rise of piracy on the coast of Somali and the Indian Ocean has increased since Somalia's civil war in 1991, where fishermen turned in their fishing nets for machine guns, as they began losing their livelihoods.

"Illegal fishing is the root cause of the piracy problem", claims a Garowe resident, where the pirates "call themselves coastguards." Surely this cannot continue for long as a global message has been sent out by recent actions of the pirates.

Whoever continues to dump waste illegally will simply have to pay the price. Being ungovernable, in the north east region of the country, these pirates are practically the law, acting as regulators.

Fashioning a multi-million dollar business, these pirates have found their new livelihood. "Somalia's fishing industry has collapsed in the last 15 years and its waters are being heavily fished by European, Asian and African ships".

How ironic as Somalia’s coast sees less traffic now and ships are advised to stay 200 miles away. I wonder for how long, before this will end up in some sort of battle to make the coast of Somalia and nearby safer.

Very entertaining for audiences to see these men who go out action-packed and armed patrolling such a massive area of sea in little speedboats, abducting ships who can be spotted from the country side, and making money out of this.

The zealous atmosphere of the pirates in their pursuit or moment of attack definatly brings laughter to me. A Hollywood remake of the Pirates of the Caribbeans to the Somali version would be hysterical.

Well since Barack Obama became the new-elect President of the United States, anything is possible!

Pirates seize oil tanker

Guardian editor praises the web

Neil McIntosh, head of editorial development at the Guardian online recently spoke at the University of Westminster about the future of journalism both print and web-based.

'Online journalism can be serious if it wants to be', states an optimistic McIntosh who has seen large success over his nine-year period with the Guardian.

"We're in a position, where in the next two years, we are able to redefine what journalism is".

The best platforms and methods of work within journalism will be established. Instead of print journalism working against online journalism, they will aim to work synonymously to provide their audiences with quality and variety.

This is illustrated by The Guardian's recent move to a new multimedia building in Kings Cross, whereby online and print journalists will be working together on the same floor as to previously in different segments.

As online journalism is under constant scrutiny by perhaps traditional journalists, they cannot deny the success of its innovations and usage. Exemplified perfectly by blogging, a user generated phenomenon which McIntosh claims to be the 'root to market your voice'.
The ability to reach out to audiences globally through your work can be done online proficiently and easily.

BBC's Pete Clifton seems very welcoming of the bloggers and citizen journalists. "We have another arm of news gathering operation- it can ultimately add to the richness of what we do".

Professor of media and communication James Curran states that 'the internet has made some aspects of journalism worse'.

This is certainly true with citizen journalism whereby ordianry individuals report or cover issues and news stories.

Personal opinion tends to be the leading factor in such reportage and facts are less covered. The citizen mainly re-cover stories with their opinion, as it is difficult to break stories without Reuters or other news agencies beating you to it.

So with the infiltration of citizen journalists with bias coverage, does this make us turn to good old fashion newspapers?