Can we agree that "The Chronic" had a NEGATIVE impact on hip-hop & black youth?

[Turf Hitta]

Well I would have to say that these are problems that have always existsed within the black community, and Dre is not responsible for that. What it did do is make it "cool" for white kids to do it. I'm not convinced that it made anything worse in the black communities though, just gave it A LOT of exposure.

[nibs]

I don't agree with them entirely, but that doesn't mean they don't make SOME valid points.

the detractors are irrelevant, i don't think you need to rely on the detractors to make your point.

Whether we want to accept it or not, gangsta rap is having a negative impact upon black youth right now

i agree with you 106% that gangsta rap has had a negative impact on black youth; and continues to do so.  

I'm not saying there was no positivity, but I think "The Chronic"'s overall impact was negative.  The fact that hip-hop became the top-selling genre of music in America (largely because of "The Chronic") is NOT a good thing, IMO.

hip hop is an artform and a business.  anything that expands that artform and it's popularity is good.  hip hop itself is neither good nor bad.  gangsta rap has had a positive impact on hip hop, and a negative impact on black youths.  what is good for the artform is not necessarily good for the culture that spawned it.  hip hop has no duty, no responsibility to the black community or black youths to do good.

i think you could argue that individuals that used gangsta rap, that created music that had a detrimental effect on their own community in order to make money and get ahead in a way betrayed their own community in order to realize that success.  much like a crack dealer.

[Eihtball]

Well I would have to say that these are problems that have always existsed within the black community, and Dre is not responsible for that. What it did do is make it "cool" for white kids to do it. I'm not convinced that it made anything worse in the black communities though, just gave it A LOT of exposure.

Maybe Dre is not responsible for it, but he can certainly be accused of helping to perpetuate it (and perhaps make things a bit worse) - making the gangsta lifestyle acceptable in pop culture.

And I've always been a lot less concerned with gangsta rap's impact on white youth than black youth.  With white kids, the worst they do is act stupid (dressing like thugs, trying to talk street, playing their gangsta CDs' too loud in their neighborhoods, etc.) - with the exception of a very few kids who get bullied and then decide to shoot up their classmates, there's no epidemic of white-on-white violence in suburban neighborhoods.  It's not at all the same for black youth - they live in an environment where it seems like being a gangsta is the only way to survive and where brothers are willing to shoot each other over stupid shit, and with gangsta albums making it seem cool, they're bound to think of it as more acceptable.

[Turf Hitta]

I'm not convinced that it made anything worse in the black communities though, just gave it A LOT of exposure.

Actually, I have to take that statement back, becuase now that I think about it, I cant even count how many black kids seems to be trying to emulate the lifestyle of their favorite rappers. Trying to fit in to some thug fantasy, where these same kids would have been wearing shiny gold suits and dancing around like Earth Wind & Fire back then.

[nibs]

Well I would have to say that these are problems that have always existsed within the black community, and Dre is not responsible for that. What it did do is make it "cool" for white kids to do it. I'm not convinced that it made anything worse in the black communities though, just gave it A LOT of exposure.

gangsta rap clearly made things worse for black communities by reinforcing and perpetuating and distributing negative values and attitudes.  if you belive in judaic mythology you might remember the story of that dude and chick in the garden that ate the forbidden apple.  clearly those guys ate the forbidden fruit of their own free will, but it was the serpent that tempted them and set the whole thing off.  the serpent clearly made things worse.

similarly, gangsta rap teaches youths that women are bitches, and violence against each other and within the community, and selling drugs within the community is acceptable for self improvement.  now again, individuals make their own decisions, but the gangsta rap is presenting these individuals with negative and selfish alternatives and portraying them as valid and good.  and clearly this is bad.

[T-Dogg]

Where I do agree with you though is it did create a bunch of fake ass bandwagoners who actually did have a negative impact, through no direct action of Dre, because while there may have been missing elements of the streets on The Chronic, at least everything was authentic. Thats just my pennies...

Also I would blame today hiphop mostly on badboy in 1998 and No limit. That is when that bullshit bling bling era began to really take over.

That's pretty much my opinion right there...

[nibs]

with the exception of a very few kids who get bullied and then decide to shoot up their classmates

those kids were listening to marilyn manson.

[Eihtball]

the detractors are irrelevant, i don't think you need to rely on the detractors to make your point.

You don't think they make SOME valid points?  They be wrong to say "rap is not music" or "rap is crap", but they aren't wrong for being afraid of the harm it's causing.

hip hop is an artform and a business.  anything that expands that artform and it's popularity is good.  hip hop itself is neither good nor bad.  gangsta rap has had a positive impact on hip hop, and a negative impact on black youths.  what is good for the artform is not necessarily good for the culture that spawned it.  hip hop has no duty, no responsibility to the black community or black youths to do good.

i think you could argue that individuals that used gangsta rap, that created music that had a detrimental effect on their own community in order to make money and get ahead in a way betrayed their own community in order to realize that success.  much like a crack dealer.

I don't see how you can say "The Chronic" had a positive effect on hip-hop and still agree it had a negative impact on black youth.  Considering how closely tied hip-hop culture is to black youth, there's really no distinction you can make there.  Hip-hop may not have a responsibility to the black youth, but it still has to acknowledge that black youth are influenced by it.  I agree with the last part, tho.

[Eihtball]

with the exception of a very few kids who get bullied and then decide to shoot up their classmates

those kids were listening to marilyn manson.

The Columbine high school kids, yeah.  The junior high kids in Jonesboro, Arksansas were listening to Pac and Bone.  Bizzy Bone addresses this on his first solo album.

[ABN]

damn,a lot of long ass opinons but it´s hard to blame this on 1 album coz allthough this was the first huge gangsta rap album with no real positive messages it certainly wasn´t the first album of it´s kind. and if you´re gonna blame things on The Chronic you need to put some of the blame on the albums that made The Chronic possible(Criminal Minded and a bunch of others). and fuck the detractors coz when was hip hop ever been about caring about what the white estabilshment thought of you and your people? i´ll come back with a longer response later coz i´m hungry now so i can´t think clearly.

[Turf Hitta]

Well I would have to say that these are problems that have always existsed within the black community, and Dre is not responsible for that. What it did do is make it "cool" for white kids to do it. I'm not convinced that it made anything worse in the black communities though, just gave it A LOT of exposure.

gangsta rap clearly made things worse for black communities by reinforcing and perpetuating and distributing negative values and attitudes.  if you belive in judaic mythology you might remember the story of that dude and chick in the garden that ate the forbidden apple.  clearly those guys ate the forbidden fruit of their own free will, but it was the serpent that tempted them and set the whole thing off.  the serpent clearly made things worse.

similarly, gangsta rap teaches youths that women are bitches, and violence against each other and within the community, and selling drugs within the community is acceptable for self improvement.  now again, individuals make their own decisions, but the gangsta rap is presenting these individuals with negative and selfish alternatives and portraying them as valid and good.  and clearly this is bad.

See above. I agree with that and I corrected that statement.

[No Compute]

It had a negative effect on the idiots who listen to to it and try and reenact it, not on hip-hop, the album is probably in the top 10 favourite albums of the majority of real hip hop listeners.

[Eihtball]

damn,a lot of long ass opinons but it´s hard to blame this on 1 album coz allthough this was the first huge gangsta rap album with no real positive messages it certainly wasn´t the first album of it´s kind.

But it was arguably the most influential ever upon pop culture.

and if you´re gonna blame things on The Chronic you need to put some of the blame on the albums that made The Chronic possible(Criminal Minded and a bunch of others). and fuck the detractors coz when was hip hop ever been about caring about what the white estabilshment thought of you and your people? i´ll come back with a longer response later coz i´m hungry now so i can´t think clearly.

Yeah, but that doesn't change the fact that "The Chronic" still took what KRS-One and Ice-T did and made it far more negative (at least BDP talked objectively about the criminal lifestyle), so no, those albums don't share the blame.  And since when are all of hip-hop's detractors white?  At this point, many blacks are also quite concerned - just look at the "Take Back The Music" campiagn.  I'm black (mostly), and I agree with SOME of what they say (except that unlike them, I still respect hip-hop as an art form).

[ABN]

^Dre might´ve made it more negative but it can´t be aiight for someone to do something negative and then be bad for someone else to do basically the same thing(i agree that Dre might´ve been more negative but guns on your cover aint extremely negative?). and have you seen the Lil Ghetto Boy video? if so you´ll know that Dre and them also showed what´ll happen to your ass if you fuck around in the streets.

[Turf Hitta]

Well I would have to say that these are problems that have always existsed within the black community, and Dre is not responsible for that. What it did do is make it "cool" for white kids to do it. I'm not convinced that it made anything worse in the black communities though, just gave it A LOT of exposure.

Maybe Dre is not responsible for it, but he can certainly be accused of helping to perpetuate it (and perhaps make things a bit worse) - making the gangsta lifestyle acceptable in pop culture.

And I've always been a lot less concerned with gangsta rap's impact on white youth than black youth.  With white kids, the worst they do is act stupid (dressing like thugs, trying to talk street, playing their gangsta CDs' too loud in their neighborhoods, etc.) - with the exception of a very few kids who get bullied and then decide to shoot up their classmates, there's no epidemic of white-on-white violence in suburban neighborhoods.  It's not at all the same for black youth - they live in an environment where it seems like being a gangsta is the only way to survive and where brothers are willing to shoot each other over stupid shit, and with gangsta albums making it seem cool, they're bound to think of it as more acceptable.

 Cant argue with that, but the negatives you are speaking on existed in music before Dre. There were artists before him doing the same types of records and its through the progress that those records made, it opened the door wide open for someone like Dre to really get huge off of it. If it wasnt for the progress that similar artists before him made, then it wouldnt have happened. I think as much as you can blame Dre, you can also blame the mainstream pop (white) audience that bought into it and the white machine behind it that made it as big as it was. If not for them, The images portrayed on albums like the Chronic would not have existed in the proportion that they did. There wouldnt have been the videos on MTV or the spins on pop radio. I dont think there is an artist in the business that can get that big with just a black youth audience.