Working title
Is the violent, materialistic and sexist content in Chief Keef's music taking negative representations in the hip hop genre to new extremes and what impact does this have on audiences?
Angle
What impacts does the increasingly violent, materialistic and sexist Hip-Hop genre have on the audience? How and in what way does it affect them?
Hypothesis
Chief Keef’s music genre is making audiences increasingly violent, desensitizes and provokes them to violent and mimicking actions as portrayed through the artist himself.
MIGRAIN
Chief Keef is represented as a stereotypical ‘bad boy’, ‘thug’ or ‘gangster’ within his music as well as his videos, pictures and cover art. He portrays himself this was as he associated with that kind of crowd and this is due to where he was brought up in Chicago, Illinois. He refers to ‘O-Block’ where he is from along with some of his friends and includes it in many of his songs. He himself is a negative dominant teenage representation of someone of that area, showing it as a violent and rough area where you would need to be careful about who you look and where you take a step.
His attitude is seen as negative by the older generation, there are already stated views of how the elders seen teenagers, Chief Keef presents what they fear. For example when an old lady would see a group of boys who present themselves as people from the ‘hood’, an old lady or man would cross the streets to avoid the encounter due to fear of what they may say or do as a joke between themselves.
The major generic conventions within the chosen text, being rap artists revolve around a few key words that some or all are mentioned in one song. These key words are the main themes for rappers; these words are those that are associated with sex, alcohol, drugs, weapons, women, materialistic belongings, reputation and also how good they are about what they do. These key conventions are portrayed in a range of artists’ music dating back a couple of decades to the present, we commonly see these aspects of artists under this genre and it becomes their focal points.
From this genre of music, Hip Hop/Rap, the characters associated become alike, their image engraved to resemble other from that genre. This category of music focuses on the same conventions therefore the characters that rap within this type of music become generically determined by the audience. The portrayal of a rapper is a gangster associated person like Chief Keef along with others such as 50 Cent, CokeBoys and others.
This representation of Chief Keef is portrayed by himself, his record label and his fellow associates. A majority of representations are negative making it fair, however Medhurst says that stereotypes are short hand indications, a way to reflect a conventional image through small iconographic notes. Perkins says there’s some elements of truth behind stereotypes making it not as accurate as Chief Keef was brought up in the way he is portraying himself as his crimes support his lyrics and presentation to the world.
The music Chief Keef makes is addressed to the age range of 18 – 25 mainly. The users and gratification includes an audience that seeks entertainment and escapism; this is because they want to be amused and watch something interesting as well as watch something that includes things or a lifestyle they desire. Many people want to be rich and famous, have expensive cars, a nice house, drink and eat everything and anything they want. The ease of getting things is what people want, therefore watching his videos shows the viewers what kind of lifestyle they desire to have. The psychographics include aspires and mainstream people as they fall into the popular trend, a song of his could be recognised by the people that listen to popular music.
Social
The continuously improving digital media world has allowed people to stay up to date on particular artists, to comment and post about them and also to talk to others about them. This enables people to use social networking to keep up and to stay on the hot topic as the artists release new information, images, phrases or music to the audience. The copycat theory a way that the gounger generation would be influenced to idolise these ‘wannabe badmen’ due to the exceptional and easy looking lifestyle they portray. People may be influenced by his lyrics, actions or presentation and mould themselves to be more like them.
Historical
Chief Keef posted several YouTube videos while he was under house arrest for a weapon charger. He received a lot of attention which increased during the short time between the releases of several mixtapes for example ‘Bang’ and ‘I Don’t Like’, which became a local hit in Chicago getting the attention of Kanye West. A remix was soon then released featuring rappers such as Pusha T, Jadakiss and Big Sean.
Chief Keef was wanted by a number of labels asking him to sign onto their record including CTE World (Young Jeezy) however he signed up with Interscope Records as they allowed him to have his own label called Glory Boyz which is now the CEO of, the deal was worth six million dollars.
Chief Keef released his studio album Finally Rich on December 18th 2012 featuring 50 Cent, Wiz Khalifa, Young Jeezy, Rick Ross, French Montana and Lil Reese.
In 2013 he released Hate Being Sober featuring 50 Cent and Wiz Khalifa, on November 16th 2012 Chief Keef was a no-show for their music video shoot in Las Vegas.
On may 21st 2013, Katy Perry tweeted he dislike for this song and Chief Keef replied in threats and insults to the singer, grabbing a lot of attention from both fan bases.
Complex named the song number 20 of the 50 best songs of 2012, Rapper Drake praised the song via Twitter saying he played it 130 times in 3 days and Chief Keef announced the single would be on Grand Theft Auto V.
On May 8th 2013, Gucci Mane announced that Chief Keef would be the newest member of 1017 Brick Squad Records. On 18th August 2013, the rappers 18th birthday, he released his mixtape Bang Part 2.
Chief Keef has a number of incidents:
January 27th 2011
Chief Keef was arrested on charges of heroine manufacture and distribution, he served time on house arrest.
December 2011
He was charged with three counts of aggravated assault with a firearm on a police officer and unlawful use of a weapon along with misdemeanour charge for resisting arrest. He was held in the cook county juvenile detention centre until he was sentenced to home confinement.
September 5th 2012
Investigation for a possible connection in the shooting of Lil JoJo as Chief Keef twitted a mocking comment on twitter which he argued was a result of a hacker. The mother of Lil JoJo was convinced Chief Keef has someone hired to kill her son.
January 16th 2013
Taken into custody after a juvenile court judge decided a video of him firing a semiautomatic rifle at a New York gun range was a violation of probation. On March 14, 2013, Keef was released from a juvenile detention centre after serving the 60 days for violating his probation.
Keef was sued by Washington, D.C.based, Promotion Company Team Major for $75,000 for a missed show as he was supposed to perform at the O2 Arena in London on December 29, 2012 but never showed.
On May 20, 2013
Chief Keef was arrested in an hotel in DeKalb County, in Atlanta, for supposedly smoking marijuana in public and for disorderly conduct. He was released later in the day. Eight days later, Keef was arrested for driving 110 mph in a 55 mph zone in his hometown Chicago, and also for driving with an unlawful amount of passengers. He returned to court on June 17, and pled guilty to speeding. He was ordered to pay a $531 fine, serve 18 months of probation, complete 60 hours of community service and undergo random drug tests
Economical
Chief Keef usually uses himself and his fellow associate to be in the video, usually topless, bopping to the beat, smoking drinking and doing hand gestures. The costs of their music videos have no creativity or anything extra to it therefore they would be considerably low in comparison to other genre music videos like Lady Gaga Applause which uses a lot of creativity and scenery per shot.
Political
Censorship restricts him from using firearms in his videos so he uses hand gesture of a gun sign to the camera. MTV and VEVO have heavily edited a number of his music videos to remove references of drugs, sex, violence, weapons, racism or advertising. This includes taking out swear words such as ‘shit’, ‘nigga’ and ‘bitch’ resulting his song ‘I don’t like’ to have a number of gaps as the chorus include them as the main words.
Issues/Debates
Representation and stereotyping
This genre of music portrays the rapper character as one that is dangerous and intimidating as well as relaxed and luxurious. For example Chief Keef says he doesn’t like people that are a certain way and refers to shooting people and has been arrested for pulling a gun out on an officer. In his videos he glorifies his money, clothes, cars while drinking and smoking as he bops to the beat of the song. He has his videos with his friends showing he has a lot of people behind him that would do a lot for him, respect and loyalty in his gang. This representation of Chief Keef is portrayed by himself, his record label and his fellow associates. A majority of representations are negative making it fair, however Medhurst says that stereotypes are short hand indications, a way to reflect a conventional image through small iconographic notes. Perkins says there’s some elements of truth behind stereotypes making it not as accurate as Chief Keef was brought up in the way he is portraying himself as his crimes support his lyrics and presentation to the world.
This genre of music portrays the rapper character as one that is dangerous and intimidating as well as relaxed and luxurious. For example Chief Keef says he doesn’t like people that are a certain way and refers to shooting people and has been arrested for pulling a gun out on an officer. In his videos he glorifies his money, clothes, cars while drinking and smoking as he bops to the beat of the song. He has his videos with his friends showing he has a lot of people behind him that would do a lot for him, respect and loyalty in his gang. This representation of Chief Keef is portrayed by himself, his record label and his fellow associates. A majority of representations are negative making it fair, however Medhurst says that stereotypes are short hand indications, a way to reflect a conventional image through small iconographic notes. Perkins says there’s some elements of truth behind stereotypes making it not as accurate as Chief Keef was brought up in the way he is portraying himself as his crimes support his lyrics and presentation to the world.
Regulation and censorship
Censorship restricts him from using firearms in his videos so he uses hand gesture of a gun sign to the camera. MTV and VEVO have heavily edited a number of his music videos to remove references of drugs, sex, violence, weapons, racism or advertising. This includes taking out swear words such as ‘shit’, ‘nigga’ and ‘bitch’ resulting his song ‘I don’t like’ to have a number of gaps as the chorus include them as the main words. His videos air on TV after pre-watershed and advertising in his videos are blurred to censor it.
Media Technology and the Digital Revolution
Videos, images, phrase once released can never be completely taken down completely. Tweets, Instagram photos and Videos at shooting ranges have gotten Chief Keef a lot of attention, a ban on his Instagram account, attention from the media and his Instagram account being banned are a few consequences.
Media Effects
The copycat theory a way that the younger generation would be influenced to idolise these ‘wannabe badmen’ due to the exceptional and easy looking lifestyle they portray. People may be influenced by his lyrics, actions or presentation and mould themselves to be more like them. Chief Keef speaks about how he treats women, how he would kill people and other things that could influence listeners to view the rapped-about topic in the songs.
Theories
Gender and ethnicity
In this genre, there are hardly any recognised female rappers for the past few years. Males are the generic rapper in this genre, placing women on the side or behind in their videos, there to be looked at opposed to contributing to the song. Males are seen as dominant and powerful with a woman on his arm or h
Audience Theories
The users and gratification includes an audience that seeks entertainment and escapism; this is because they want to be amused and watch something interesting as well as watch something that includes things or a lifestyle they desire.
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