Interviewing Target Audience

Zaheers Interviews:

How do you feel about the artists some kids would call their role models, would you say they are the ideal role models?
It’s an interesting topic because of the amount of media coverage that music artists get especially rappers and other artists in the hip hop industry. Gang violence and street crime are occasionally done in thought of hip hop music lovers and it would not be foolish to say that the ideas came from a song they have heard or music video that they have seen. Rappers such as 50 Cent and Eminem have often voiced their opinions on violence and they do make it sound appealing, now if you take that into a young child’s mind, they will absorb it because their mind is like a sponge. Before their time, rappers such as Tupac and Biggie Smalls were also heavily involved in violent acts and jail punishments were not enough to suffice this unfortunately. It would be wrong to say that it is all music’s fault that violence occurs but I don’t think I would be wrong in saying that it does have an affect. I listened to a song by Eminem and D12 the other day and the lyrics were so explicit, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. They took it to a political and religious level and I was shocked to hear the kind of stuff they were saying. Has this become the standard explicitness of today? Now talking about role models, a role model should be someone that inspires you to do better, in the face of adversity they should be there for you spiritually and mentally in order to help you through your cause. If you look at the many famous role models of the modern era, you could look at the likes of David Beckham perhaps, or Thierry Henry, both footballers who earn obscene amounts of money per week but when you look at their behaviour on and off the pitch, you could say they were role models. They fight for club and country and do everything they can to entertain. You see the amount of flack that these players get when something goes wrong and you have to have a hard head and thick skin in order to prevent it getting to you and that is the kind of attitude that a role model should have. If you look at hip hop artists, if one person says something that another person they don’t like, it only leads to shootings and violence, then more people get involved and it becomes gang warfare until it becomes Tupac vs. Biggie all over again and its one side or America against another, Eastside against Westside. Looking on the other hand, you could say some artists would be good role models, sometimes they have their moments were they become so stereotypical and so controversial its unreal, but the likes of Eminem could be seen as a role model because he shows no matter what has happened to you in the past, you always have a punchers chance of making it big in life, and that I would say is quite admirable. Although the lyrics are quite explicit from him, he does make a lot of people laugh and he loves his daughter dearly, usually it’s the dads of the world that are crucified for abandoning their kids but Eminem shows that he is no dead beat dad and he does as much as he can to bring her up by himself while maintaining a good career in music. Overall I would say it’s a mixed bag when it comes to role models concerning music artists, some are good and some are terrible, it also depends on who is idolizing them but the main thing is they must know what is right and what is wrong, I love music but I wouldn’t go and fight someone over it and that is the message that should be sent out, not guns are used to protect people because nobody ever believes that, guns are used to hurt people that try and hurt you first, at the end of the day, its not the gun or knife that kills people, it’s the person using it and if that person is a star in the music industry, then I don’t feel they should be a role model.


Do you feel that hip hop music today has taken on too much in the form of nudity and does not focus on the music enough?
I do feel that hip hop music videos are mostly about the pushing of boundaries of showing nudity. There has been a progressive sexualisation of public culture, as well as a blurring of public and private spheres. Nudity and sex are not a private acts anymore, with young girls being taught, through magazines, the art of seduction and how to improve their sexuality. The artists are just following society’s notions of hypersexual females, who are constantly flaunting their bodies. Hip hop has taken the ideals of the liberation of the body, but made it into a commodity which can be used to have their music videos more widely talked about.
At first, hip hop artists realized that the controversy that comes with a video pushing boundaries, can lead to them getting more media coverage and allowing them to disseminate their music to a wider audience who want decide to see for themselves the reason for all the controversy. This was achieved through late night music channels, but recently, audiences have been able to use the internet to for search videos that would have previously been censored by the music channels, allowing the videos to achieve cult status.
The artists can still achieve mainstream coverage through editing their videos; to produce a cleaner version can be shown on mainstream censored music channels, whilst still distributing their full length graphic video on various uncensored hip hop websites.
As a result of the videos focusing mainly on nudity, it detracts from the lyrical and musical content of the song because the brain is predominately stimulated by the visual aspect of the video. There is a notion that the song does not need to be good, but if the video is visually brilliant, it will get more plays on music channels. Audiences are more likely to be flicking through music channels in order to find a song they want to listen to, and so having a striking visual video is more likely to keep the viewer on the channel. The audience may also have the music channel playing as part of the background to them working etc, and so having a video that is controversial will make them focus on the television screen.
In my opinion, I think the exploitation of the female body is wrong, and although the women in the videos think they are being liberated and empowered by getting paid for using their sexual capital, the videos are still producing gendered stereotypes. The hip hop artist, who is male, is portrayed as the guy who has enough prestige or money, to be surrounded by women who wear next to nothing. This submissive role is then taken by some members of the audience, as being a reflection of the world, where any women you met will dance for you if you provide them with a material incentive. It is nothing more than the glamorization and normalization of pornographic images which are abstract from reality. Not all women are interested in being submissive to men, but the music videos don’t portray that side of reality.
Too much emphasis is put on the music video and not the song itself, or the talent of the artists. For audiences who first hear a song on a music channel, they will automatically attribute the song with its music video, and if all the content of the video is nudity, the song will only be associated with nudity, despite the fact it may be dealing with serious issues. The talent of a true artist does not need to rely on controversy to sell.