Hip-hop is not just a type of music; it is a way of life and expression. Hip-hop was born in New York in the 1970s and spread all over the world. What makes the hip-hop music style so special is the rappers who describe the life and social problems they live with all their subtleties and realities with song lyrics. I will talk about two of these rappers: Kendrick Lamar and Tupac Shakur.
Kendrick Lamar was born on June 17, 1987, in California. This successful rapper began his music career in 2003 by releasing mixtapes under the stage name K-Dot. He has many awards that make him different from other rappers. I would like to talk about two of them: The Grammys and the Pulitzer Prize.
Kendrick Lamar has won 27 Grammy Awards, and he is the most awarded hip-hop artist. He also became the first hip-hop artist to win the Pulitzer Prize with his album DAMN. The Pulitzer Prize is usually awarded to classical and jazz musicians, and his jazz influence can be clearly heard in his album To Pimp a Butterfly. The fact that he achieved such firsts in these awards really interests me. However, there is something that interests me even more. Kendrick Lamar, like many hip-hop artists, talks about and criticizes social issues in his music. But some hip-hop artists stopped doing this because of public reactions and adopted a more apolitical attitude. Kendrick did not put aside what he supports or stay silent. On the contrary, he continued to express his ideas and even emphasized them during major events like the Super Bowl, where he could reach a much wider audience.
Because of this attitude, I like him and I enjoy listening to his music even more.
Tupac Shakur was born on June 16, 1971, and sadly passed away on September 13, 1996, at the age of 25, six days after being shot in Las Vegas. He was much more than just a rapper; he was also an actor and a poet.
Some of the productions he appeared in include Juice, Poetic Justice, Above the Rim, Bullet, Gridlock’d, Gang Related, and Nothing but Trouble.
As I mentioned, he was also a poet, and his most famous poem is The Rose That Grew from Concrete. Honestly, what fascinates me the most is how, beneath Tupac’s creative and intense rapper identity, there was also a deeply emotional poet.
As one of the West Coast rappers, Tupac often addressed social issues, like many other rappers. However, unlike today, there was a dominant and threatening East Coast–West Coast rivalry at the time, and many people believe he was killed by someone from the East Coast.
I find it very impressive that this rapper, who died at such a young age, was so successful and able to express himself not only through his music but also through his poetry.
I especially wanted to mention these two rappers because the way they express themselves and stand by what they believe in without giving it up is very inspiring. That’s why I like them.
Photo Credits
Featured Image: https://kopuurt.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/hip-hop_kulturu-scaled.jpg
Photo 1: https://chatgpt.com/s/m_69c3eef2f20481919ef31e6b1ddeb6f0