The Misunderstood

The other day I was channel surfing and came across an interesting program, it was on one of the music channels, I can’t remember which one. One of the group members from Cypress Hill was giving an interview that was taking place in the neighborhood where he was raised. For those of you who aren’t familiar; Cypress Hill’s genre is somewhat the gangster/hood mentality. I caught the show towards the end. He was riding around the streets, while a camera was filming him talk. He passed the block where he had been shot years ago. He was telling his story and how it happened. He then tied in how he eventually had to choose between making music or gang banging. He said he couldn’t be going to the studio, shows, etc. hitting up everyone he saw (something gang members do). He decided to do music. After his explanation of how he made the difficult choice he went on to speak in a positive, role model type of way. It seems like the intent of the program was to show good examples for the youth. Cypress Hill has some very vulgar music, very disrespectful, and violent music. I believe one of their tracks is “I could just kill a man”, and another “Insane in the Membrane”. They also have multiple songs about doing and selling drugs. These guys are legends in the hip hop world, but the youth tend to be very naïve when idolizing artist such as these. Youth lack life experience which gives them a disadvantage when their judgment comes into play. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with music and expressing oneself in any way they desire. The problem arises when the youth take much of the music literally. Here we have the artist years and years later after his music is released, promoting the opposite lifestyle of what he was almost instigating in his music.  When a teen can relate to music that’s just a wonderful thing, no matter how dim the situation may be. It’s a way for kid not to feel alone.  The kid can feel connected and understand that there are others who have gone through the same type of life (for example: the gang life). It’s a good thing to be able to relate but when a child doesn’t understand that music is created as a form of expression and creativity they sometimes get lost in the lyrics. If cypress Hill is rapping about “I could just kill a man”, a naïve kid could think that this type of thing is acceptable. All the while, the goal of this artist was to use the environment that he was in as a means to change his life in a positive way, to make music. The kid doesn’t realize that Gangs get you know where in life and the actual band member came to that realization as soon as he started doing music and dropped the gang he was associated with.