Music is among the ways through which people express themselves. In fact it is believed that where words fail music speaks. Professional musicians have mastered the art of putting all their emotions and feelings into a song. The power of music should never get underestimated. Music is a powerful tool. It reaches the depth of people hearts better than any other form of art. Expressing oneself through the art of music is one of the arts used to pass messages to authorities and the like. When people are fed up by how the systems gets run. They sing and in the songs their frustrations are evident. These songs are passed down through generations, and they tell the people of their history. A good example was when hip-hop was born and how it as born (Price, 11). The genre of music got started by the African American communities. They sang pop music to take their minds off the frustration they went through as slaves. They also sang the same to communicate with the authorities and inform them of their discontentment of how they got administered ‘justice.'
Similarities
The song 911 is a joke by Public Enemy is on the hits songs of the 90s. I would like to compare it with formation by Beyoncé. These two songs sung by two different musicians probably of two separate generations and definitely in two different era can compare on more than one level. In his song, Public Enemy registers his disappointment on the first aid organization that takes their job too lightly. He complains that people who need the urgent medical attention suffer for too long before the help they need arrive if it arrives at all. He registers the disappointment of the whole community he comes from and even goes on to give examples (Price, 57). The song was among the biggest hits in his most celebrated album of the 90s ‘fear of the black planet.’
In the song by Beyoncé, it has a couple of hidden messages that may get interpreted according to the audience’s understanding, she still shows discontentment in the way people treat successful black women. In the song, she registers her disappointment when people attribute her success to externalities when, according to her, she has worked hard for every single penny she owns. On similarity with this two hits is that even twenty years apart, the two generations are affected by the evil called racism. It is saddening that the African American still feel the discrimination. Either way, music communicates the above effectively.
Differences
The song natural born killers by Ice Cube is a song of the 90s that was also greatly celebrated. Inspired by the notion that the African Americans got taken to be violent people and it was assumed that any crime that took place near them, there was a likely hood that they were responsible. (Knobloch-Westerwick 125)What they felt was the highest levels of discrimination and incrimination of the same. The legal assumption of innocence until one gets proven guilty got tainted by this notion. The judgment of the enforcer and those in charge in the justice offices got clouded. It was the presumption made by all people, and it affected the black people. They always stood guilty even when all evidence pointed out to another person. The state of affairs got changed these citizens that they started to retaliate and hated the way they had to be seen as criminal even when they strived to be law- abiding citizens the song above proved all the frustrations of the people and communicated the messages from the African American’s hearts.
When this song got compared to American Oxygen by Rihanna, the difference regarding the emotions portrayed by the two is distinct. The American in this latest hit shows a sense of unity, and the white, and the black have come together to celebrate their pasts and learn from those mistakes. Looking back at the death of the black activist like Martin Luther King Jnr, the African Americans feel proud. They now feel that all their efforts were not in vain. They are happy to get associated with the great nation and got contented with the systems of government in place. More confidence got shown by the judicial body.
Conclusion
The musicality and functionality of music have more or less stayed the same. It is the manner in which the music got to put that has changed. Another thing that has changed was the delivery of the same (Sommers 241). The way music got delivered to the people is not the same way it gets communicated today. People talk more openly about individual life and human aspects. Sex is more elaborated in the videos in the modern day. The events have also changed. The issues that musicians wrote about ten to twenty years ago are very different from what got sang. However, what is constant, the way emotions are brought to life in the music in both the past and the present.
Works cited
Knobloch-Westerwick, Silvia, Paige Musto, and Katherine Shaw. "Rebellion in the top music charts: Defiant messages in rap/hip-hop and rock music 1993 and 2003." Journal of media psychology 20.1 (2008): 15-23.
Price, Emmett G. Hip Hop Culture. Santa Barbara, Calif: ABC-CLIO, 2006. Print.
Price, Emmett G. The Black Church and Hip Hop Culture: Toward Bridging the Generational Divide. Lanham, Md: Scarecrow Press, 2012. Print.
Sommers, Jordan, and Steven Chean. Hip Hop: A Cultural Odyssey. Los Angeles: Aria Multimedia Entertainment, 2011. Print.
