The ‘REEL’ is when people act a certain way to ‘fit in’. Many people saw hip-hop as a bad influence because they rap about having girls, lots of money and having sex. Hip-hop used to be a way for the black community to criticise social issues such as police brutality, racism etc. As hip-hop started to become popular, big record labels saw that the small labels which produced the hip hop songs were making money, so the big labels bought the small labels and hip hop becomes commercialised. As the big labels take over the songs are written so that they rap about violence, money and getting girls because that is what the white suburban teens liked and wanted to hear.I

One emcee we have studied is Kendrick Lamar. Kendrick Lamar is a Compton born rapper. He started his musical career as a teenager under the name K-ot, releasing his mix tape that attracted local attention which led to him signing a record label with Top Dawg Entertainment. He gained major recognition in 2010 when he released ‘Overly Dedicated’. In Kendrick Lamar’s song ‘The Blacker The Berry’ he indirectly criticises the REEL by rapping about social issues. You can see this when he repeats the line ‘the blacker the berry the sweeter the juice’ I infer from this that he is saying the blacker the person the better a person you are. You can see that he repeats the line ‘the blacker the berry the sweeter the juice’ multiple times, he uses repetition to clearly tell people to embrace the key point that being black is a positive thing at a time when being black is shown to be negative due to police brutality in the US.

Another emcee we have studied that also criticises the ‘REEL’ is Mos Def. We can see this in his song ‘Mathematics’. He called it this to show the relationship[p between numbers and the rap industry. During the song he says the line ‘I got 16 to 32 bars to rock it but only 15% of profits ever see my pocket’. Here Mos Def is exploiting the emcees. He shows this by comparing the amount of bars he makes to the amount of profit he gets. In the second part of the bar he says ‘Only 15% of profits ever see his pockets’ i imply from this that the record labels take advantage of him using his music and only giving him 15% of the profits.

Kingslee James Daley who goes by the name of Akala was born on the 1st December 1983. Akala is a rapper who has a SBTV freestyle. In his freestyle he starts it by saying ‘Sorry kids let me apologise before i go further unfortunately i don’t rap about how many man i’ve murdered’ here he tells people that he doesn’t rap about the REEL but he raps about things that are socially conscious such as police brutality and racism. In the bar he says ‘unfortunately i don’t rap about how many man i have murdered’ He says this as if its disappointing that he doesn’t rap about murdering people, he criticises the REEL here by saying that all emcees do is rap about how many man they have murdered.

Mick Jenkins is a rapper who has criticised the REEL in many of his songs. One song that criticises the REEL is ‘Martyrs’. In this song Mick Jenkins refers to the word hanging as a double entendre. One is chilling with your friends and the other is beong lynched. Being lynched is when a person was hung from a tree. In the song he raps the line ‘ Ima get all this money, ima buy all this shit, ima fuck so many hoes, nigga ima fuck yo bitch’. He criticises the REEL by adopting the mindset of the young people of today. This type of attitude can be seen in the rap music industry which has an influence on the listeners. He does this to show how destructive these mindsets are.

The last emcee we studied is YC THE CYNIC. He is another rapper who uses repetition to help him criticise the REEL. He does this by using the word Negus instead of niggas. Negus is a ethiopion word translating in to Royalty. He uses this word to say that black people are royalty before slaves. He uses the word negus instead of nigga because nigga is term used to put black people down and make them think they are lesser of a person than anyone else.

In conclusion, the REEL is something made by mass media to put a bad image on howyoung black people live. My essay shows that rappers only rap about guns, sex, money and girls becasue they have to not because they want to rap about it. The rappers i have studied all criticise the way REEL rappers rap and how it is bad