Beyond Beats And Rhymes

PAPER #3

In Beyond Beats and Rhymes, filmmaker Byron Hurt challenges hip-hop musicians and fans to start thinking "outside the box." The box that Byron is speaking of is that they write songs about bitches, hoes, drugs and killing others, in other words objectifying women and masculinity. In order to support his thesis that hip-hop has changed dramatically from its original roots, he went to Florida for an event being held by a popular hip hop network. While at this event he greatly proves his point, he shows people freestyling and battling and all they rap about is killing people and making other men feel like women by calling them bitches and faggots etc.

Everything he sees at this event shows different types of conflict models. It shoes white majority vs. ethnic minorities when rappers talk about living in ghettos and white people who live in the suburbs listen to rap as their only means of understanding what black people go through in their lives you could also include wealthy vs. the working class in this argument. Patriarchy vs. feminism is also great discussed in this film when he talks about women from Spellman College in Atlanta were angry at Nelly for sliding a credit card through a woman's butt crack in one of his music videos.

Hip-hop could get step out of the box very easily all they have to do is start rapping about the good side of African American life and avoid the negative. Be the innovators of change for the African American society, by giving back to the communities. They should lead by example they have great power and a voice that people will listen too if they used it to speak about change and education people will listen.