it won't last

  Is it fair to say that music is the narrative of adolescence? I certainly think has a major influence of the development of personality and instils certain values or attitudes in growing minds. I'm certain this has been thought about by every generation. My parents thought what I was listening to was awful stuff. I thought what they were listening to wasn't all that either. But then again, I didn't adopt the rock and roll attitude that many of my peers did. I held onto my beliefs on topics that weren't cool back in the day. What I mean is my lifestyle didn't reflect the music I was listening to. No long hair, no peace signs, no Beatlemania on my part. Oh, I was listening, I was hip to the scene man, but I didn't always agree with the show. It's also true I wasn't listening to music almost 24/7 like many do today. I had the radio, a record player, and later on a tape player. There was no such thing as a Walkman, they didn't appear until 1979. Boomboxes were just a bit before that, and I never owned one of those. Portable music was mostly whatever you sang or an instrument you could play. 

  I heard on the news this morning that a celebration of fifty years of hip-hop is being planned. Hip-hop isn't a genre of music that I have much knowledge about. I went to Wikipedia, I know not the most reliable of sources, but there is a list there of hip-hop stars that were murdered. It's quite a long list beginning in 1987. There have been at least 77 killed and forty of those murders are unsolved. According to Wikipedia a study was done to determine why that happens so frequently with this hip-hop. Basically, what they said is, it is culture. Now that includes, poverty, gangs, marginalized individuals, and racism as the contributing factors. 

 As I said I don't know much about hip-hop but an examination of the lyrics to those "raps" would have to be included as well. There is certainly an inordinate amount of violence and murder going on associated with that genre of music as compared to any other. Is that driving a narrative? I googled some rap lyrics to see for myself what they said, I wouldn't copy and paste any of that into this post of mine! It was a bit shocking to say the least, and I'm no choir boy! Remember I spent twenty years in the Navy and have heard just about everything, heard all kinds of stories and tales. I've seen those "toxic" males you hear about, the macho men. If living the music is what is expected of the kids in the neighborhood, there's your answer. To a certain degree I believe that is what is expected of you when you are a kid. It's what's cool. I get it, I understand all of that perfectly. 

 According to a poll in the music industry R&B is enjoyed by 62% of the black market. Hip-Hop is in second place. I wonder how many that started listening to hip-hop fifty years ago are listening to the new artists? A good number of the musical artists I enjoyed are gone now and I still listen to those same old songs. Not the songs when I was a teenager though, mostly those from my twenties and thirties. My teenage music stills provide some amusement when the mood strikes. I wonder if that applies to R&B and hip-hop as well. It was said that rock and roll would never last, that devil music! The exact date can be argued but it has been around for at least seventy years now. To be honest about it I couldn't name a single rock and roll band popular today. I read that they still exist though. Hip-hop is turning fifty. A celebration is planned. I wonder if the celebration is warranted. Well, the same was said about Rock and Roll, Jazz, R&B, and all the others. Anyone written a symphony lately? I sure haven't heard about that. No sonata's, concertos or fugues. That long haired music will never last.