Telling a Story Through a Song

Hip Hop is often viewed as a simple ghetto music with little to no meaning by those who do not fully understand it. However hip-hop can be so much more. Hip-hop can be the medium for expression for those who cannot express themselves or be heard any other way. This is often known as story telling. An artist or a Hip-hop group will often aim to tell a story through their songs to either promote a message or bring the worlds attention to a critical issue in their lives.

One of my personal favorite examples of this is the song “My life”  by The Game featuring Lil Wayne. The song’s intro begins with a very dramatic scene of a break-in gone wrong with the robber getting shot at the end. Someone who does not understand the background to the song or the background to the musical style might see this as a senseless addition to the song, however, it is much more. This part of the song demonstrates in full what the message of the song is. This scene displays the tough lifestyle that someone who lives in the “hood”, to quote The Game, might have happen on any normal night, along with the hardships of everyday life. The song goes on from there to describe the “grind” of everyday life just to make it through the day. This is mainly to show the audience the hardships of life in the ghetto and the struggle to stay alive. This struggle is also later expressed through the game mentioning he wants to leave the hood. “Take me away from the hood/ like a state penitentiary./ Take me away from the hood/ in a casket or a Bentley./ Take me away...”(The Game). This is the exact essence of what story telling through Hip-hop is. The game through verses like this is telling his story of struggle and hardships that people need to hear. This is my personal favorite Hip-hop song that tells a story because I heard this at a time where I knew very little of the hood. When I first heard this song it changed my viewpoint on the hood a lot. This shift in viewpoint was mainly because I was young and very uninformed about conditions outside of the neighborhood that I lived in. The song, written with a story behind it, allowed me to branch out and see a bigger issue in the community around me.

            Another song that tells a story beautifully most would not even understand or think about. The song has a deep hidden meaning behind it that most would not understand. When I first played the song in my car with my dad, he grabbed the CD and threw it out the window, simply because he did not understand the meaning and took it the wrong way. The song is “25 to life” by Eminem. This song is a very violent song that sounds as if Eminem is yelling at a girl and all that she has done to him. However, it is so much more. The “girl” he is speaking of through out the whole song, and album, is not actually a girl, but rather fame in general. Through this song Eminem tells his story about his battle with fame and all that came with it and how it was not good for him. However, those who do not know the story are often turned off by this song due to its vulgar language against what they think is an actually girlfriend. This is Eminem telling his personal story in a song that can be heard and played over modern Hip-hop stations.