Todd Strandberg, the founder of the Rapture Ready website offers these interesting comments about the current music scene this country is experiencing.
21 Nov
My Two Cents on 50 Cent and His Ilk
The moral watchdogs who bemoaned the wicked state of music in the '80s had no idea how bad things would be today. Rap music is has set a new standard for evil in pop music. Rap, in the form of hip-hop and gangsta rap, has grabbed about 80 percent of the market share.
I was watching some of the videos for this type of music on MTV2 and I was amazed at how focused they have become at promoting immorality. Nearly all of the videos followed the same plot line. If you click to a rap video at any hour of the day, you find the glorification of vices such as crime, violence, hedonism, misogyny, drugs, and greed.
When I saw one video, I thought the devil himself must have produced it. It showed a group of hoodlums dancing around a fancy car. Wearing stylish hip-hop clothes and diamond-encrusted jewelry, they waved cash to the camera while a couple of half-naked honeys made their moves in the background. The video was the perfect ad for materialism.
The number one rapper today is "50 Cent" Curtis Jackson. This guy's life story is one of a horrific series of tragedies. Jackson never knew his father. When he was 8 years old, Curtis' mother, a bisexual Queens drug dealer working under "Fat Cat" was murdered. As a teenager, he made a living by selling crack cocaine. His choice of vocation led to prison time.
In May 2000, Jackson survived being shot 9 times in the face, hand, and legs by an assailant. He was also stabbed twice, once by rival rapper Ja Rule in one of his many violent disputes.
You would think that it would be impossible for someone with such a villainous background to get a recording contract. Because of his 2000 shooting, Columbia Records executives did decide to drop him, claiming the shooting was negative publicity.
The folks at Columbia quickly learned how the world has changed. Fellow rap stars Eminem and Dr. Dre signed 50 Cent to their Shady/Aftermath label, and the rest, as they say, was history. In its first week of release, 50's first major label debut, Get Rich or Die Tryin,' sold 872,000 units. So far, it has sold over 11 million copies worldwide. His follow-up CD, The Massacre, sold over 8 million copies.
I checked out the lyrics for his Get Rich album, and I noticed that six words seem to be the backbone of every song. I would need an adding machine to keep track of how many times he uses the f-word, the s-word, nigga, bitch, money, and gangsta.
Many of the songs, if it is possible to call them that, are about his disputes with other rappers. He promotes three very simple messages: only look out for number one; never show love; and money is the only thing that matters.
I can't believe that people buy this excrement for its entertainment value. The inversion of the value system is what has allowed a person who speaks to such low values to become so successful. 50 Cent is honored as a street-wise hero with a hard knocks success story. The filth that he spews from his mouth is praised for being a realistic portrayal of life.
I truly believe that Satan has run out of ideas for how to produce music with a more evil nature. Maybe a level lower would be a category of music that had pedophiles singing about molesting little boys while blaspheming God's holy name, but I doubt it could be made into palatable format.
In doing research for this article, I could only find one Christian source that had anything negative to say about 50 Cent or other rappers. It seems that the music of today has become so diabolical and so engrained into society that church leaders have no way to invoke reproach upon it.
I can only conclude that the state of popular music shows that we have progressed to the end of the apostasy stage, and judgment is the next logical step.
Read the rest of Todd's commentary here.
It's almost like the music industry is taking a step back. Of course, we are talking about the only industry who can sue their customers and stay in business. I have to wonder...maybe if the music "artist" were making was good music, there wouldn't be so many people trying to download it. Sales would increase because people would want to buy the music because it was good. A novel thought I know, but just maybe....
It's getting harder these days to find business people who are not afraid to make their Christian values a part of their business operating procedures. One such man though is David Green, the founder and CEO of Hobby Lobby.
For those of you who slept on the pillow wrong last night, I'll turn it for you.
