commercialization and association

I was never attracted to the genre of Hip Hop. This was mainly because i did not like the way women were portrayed in the top 40 'commercial' Hip Hop videos I viewed on music television. Artists such as Snoop Dogg, 50 Cent, 2PAC, etc generally would have scadly clothed women dancing around them wearing next to nothing shaking their booty doing everything they can to satisfy the allmighty gangsters. I however have a younger brother whom is a Hip Hop finatic and introduced me to the 'authentic' side of Hip Hop. Most people today whom are exposed to Hip Hop on the likes of Juice TV, CV, etc only view the sensationalized masuline model which majority of video clips are based on. These images of wealth, 'bling', cars, drugs, gangs, guns and the staple booty shaker become societies model of what Hip Hop is.

Snoop Dogg and Pharrell Williams released a song called "Drop it like its hot" (2004) which minimalisticly yet powerfully encompasses these themes. "The expression is basically a call for a female to perform a suggestive dance (usually directly in front of or with a male) that involves shaking her lower body until it touches or nearly touches the floor." (Wikipedia). In the video women shake their booty in response to Snoop Dogg's lyrics along with images of marijuana, cars, pimping, etc. Songs like this that are actually themed on tropes of the 'commercial' gangster rapper culture, deepen their overall associations with the Hip Hop genre and its ideals. Music video's are often the first and sometimes only times that we are able to see songs gaining visual definitions and/or affirmations. Music videos have the power to not only give a song life, but instill visual representations, whether they be positive or negative, within our minds. With the abundance of 'commercial' representations of Hip Hop being put on mainstream television, it is easy to see that society's views on Hip Hop ideals and history is derived from the Gangster Lifestyle.

(Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drop_It_Like_It's_Hot)

Here is the video link for "Drop it like its Hot" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFC_L8iOSzY