Last but not least.

In concluding the end of the semester for my African American Literature class, I am going to try to sum up months worth of work in one blog. I have truly loved blogging on the hip-hop culture and have found it enlightening. I have written eight blogs so far and they have all been an honest expression from a white middle class female.

My first blog titled “Hip-Hop at its finest” was a short introduction of how I was feeling about blogging, to a humorous side of tough rappers turning into thespians. I used the example of Ice-T, which I also spun off my blog name “White-Tea” for that particular rapper.

The second blog intitled, “Impressed? I think so.”, is a foundation of how the rest of my blogs will be molded. My overall theme for blogging was transitions. With that being said, my second blog discusses the transition of Jay-Z from growing up in the projects to becoming a major record selling artist and producer.

“Lets hear it for the legendary…” is my third blog that begins to get more controversial and is stating an argument. This is a blog that shows my transition from light hearted written into a deeper meaning of how I thought Biggie Smalls role was in the hip-hop community. I also show in my blog my thought on how Biggie became a legend was the transition to his death, not his music.

Blog four “Old Vs. New…round 1” is an obvious blog written on the transition of listeners. Since “Old School” and “New School” are sayings you hear so often in reference to music I wanted to blog on what qualifies an “Old School” song, and what transition takes place to a “New School” category. I compared an “Old School” DJ named Grandmaster Flash to the artist known as 50 cent. The majority of this particular blog was comparing lyrics of both artist and concluding that both “Schools” are saying the same message with a different beat.

“Shame Shame” was a look inside the hip-hop world and noticing the lack of ethnic groups. “Shame Shame”, was a blog written on transition, but more on the lack there of. Since it is obvious that hip-hop is a dominantly black society with a few white people in the mix, I noticed that Latinos and Asians and many more ethnic groups haven’t been given the breaks in the rap world as black and white people have. In the blog I voiced that listeners needed to branch out of the Salt-n-Pepper stereotype. I felt this blog to be compelling amongst readers.

“Separated at birth…” is a brilliant blog about how rap and country music are so close to the same. All throughout the blog I have compared and contrasted the clothing styles and lyrics of both a country and rap song.

My seventh blog titled “Elvis Lives” is showing how Elvis could have been considered a hip-hop artist to today’s standards. This blog also shows a transition of how hip-hop music could have started in the 70’s with Elvis and evolved to what it is today.

“Lil Kim is my hero” was a blog written on how when women rappers talk about sex they get a bad reputation. Lil Kim is an artist with a harsh voice and sharp tongue; these combinations can be deadly to an unaware listener, particularly a man listener. I picked Lil Kim to speak on because she is a rapper that I hope more woman transition to, someone that is strong, confident and knows what they want from life. I think Lil Kim had to be over the top to get peoples attention and let them know what she expects out of life.

In wrapping up this blo,g my grand summary for the semester is transition. I feel this topic is fitting since I have also transitioned. I started out as a very ignorant student in terms of the hip-hop culture to some one that can appreciate and understand the background of hip-hop and where it’s going today.