Month: March 2019

Logic 1-800-273-8255

What I plan on drawing is a kid walking down a hallway crying and kids and a bunch of kids pointing at him and laughing at him as he is walking down the hallway. The reason that I am creating a drawing on this song is because this is song is about suicide and bullying plays a major role in kids suiciding. Suiciding is a major issue in the world but I feel that people don’t take that topic that seriously. It continues to happen in this world and people keep going on and on by saying hurtful things to kids and they end up hurting themselves. The difficulty I had was the thought of that to draw and show in my drawing the hurt in someone without actually showing them in the image. Then I ended up thinking a bit hardier and came up with the idea of drawing hurt kid walking down the hallway. As I was drawing the artwork I actually realized how miserable other peoples life can be. Many people around this world till this day either want to hurt themselves or kill themselves but it is the matter of the people around them that can change that. I am talking about just always being nice to someone you never know what someone can be going through even just giving them a smile or talking to them about something nice can make them feel better about themselves and you never want to add onto someones pain.

NBA YOUNGBOY is a rapper from Baton Rouge, Louisiana who is currently the rapper who is averaging the most views on YouTube. One of his most famous songs is Genie. The reason why people listen to that song a lot is because it describes certain pain that most rappers don’t show. Youngboy starts of by expressing he doesn’t care about anything and on this song he is going to say everything on his mind. NBA Youngboy is known for his violent activities as there is multiple videos show online of him fighting people and getting in altercations. Some of Youngboy’s song are about him doing violent things that are proven.  Youngboy continues the song by saying “to may problems, thinking how I’m going to solve them, so much pain in my body, they selling lies and I bought it”. This is one line most people can relate to because everyone has believed a lie and been taken advantage of. We all been at a point where we had a life problem with no idea of a solution. Youngboy continues the song by throwing a shot at his ex, Jania. Youngboy says “saying you would never leave how can you just lie to me, get from your knees you aint gotta cry to me”. Jania is known for being the one who gave Youngboy herpes. She cheated oN him with a rapper named Gee Money who she got the herpes from and then gave to Youngboy. Jania was a person Youngboy trusted and to betray that trust really shows that you have to watch out for these females. Youngboy continues the song by saying “I’ve been giving you all my love do you feel it, never learned how to trust sittin in penitentiary, all for you I take a slug baby who the realist, had to tell her I’m a genie I can answer wishes”. NBA Youngboy has been to jail for years and currently has cases pending against him. This line is basically Youngboy saying that if he ends up trusting and loving you then he will give you anything you want. Youngboy continues by saying “I got my static when you ridin with me, we get pulled over know you ain’t gon no time for me, I put my hands up police drew down on me, so many charges make me want to go way oversea”. This is an important line because Youngboy is saying how loyal he wants his female to be to the point where she is willing to go to jail for him. Also he is saying how he is tired of his criminal charges that it just makes him want to go to another country where he has a clean slate.

David Wu

3/13/19

Prof. Hall

Eng 1121

The mentor article I chose that was interesting to me was short, simple and straight to the point. With the article being short and simple it is easier to understand and remember. The author analyzes the song and music video thoroughly to explain the whole idea and concept in a short amount of time. In the article, the author explains how Kendrick’s “Alright” goes about on police brutality. The author deconstructs the video and explains the important scenes and lyrics of the video on how it tackles on the social issue. I see the article fitting in the publication I chose because most of the audience who views this mentor article are African Americans of all ages. The topic of police brutality will definitely engage the audience since the problem of police violence against African Americans has been a relatively popular of nationwide discussions about race. The language will also engage the audience since Kendrick is not afraid to get into politics and use his voice to drive movements that matters to him. The song, which has served as the rallying cry for the Black Lives Matter movement, seemed to speak directly to the audience facing a time of increased tension to show that black lives matter too.

Celebrities, everyone in the world has a celebrity which inspires them to do better and one day become like them or maybe people want to become like them. Well, what if everyone is going to start doing what most celebrities do. In some cases this can be a tragedy, because in the past few years many known celebrities committed suicide. If everyone would start doing the same the world population would go down pretty quickly, which is not a good think. A study released in February by researchers at Columbia University said there were 18,690 suicides in the four months after the death of Robin Williams in August 2014, suggesting an excess of 1,841 cases — nearly a 10% increase, based on previous monthly suicide data from 1999 to 2015 (Fottrell 4). In the past year celebrities Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain had ended their lives which has caused a lot of rumor in social media. This means that celebrities are effecting other people when committing suicide. It is important that people understand that we should stop the spread of suicide and once for all end it. Many factors are not helping stopping suicide from happening but instead numbers of people committing suicide are increasing and reasons are unhappy environment, social media and substance abuse.Woo and Postalache states “Behind the curtain of world economy globalization, the occupational environment is delivering increasing stress, such as job insecurity, increasing workload, and the burden of lifelong learning. Larger proportion of employees became involved in service- and knowledge-based industries requiring heavy technological preparedness and mental stress. If the pace of change exceeds the capacity of the workers to cope, negative stress reactions can occur.” Also another statement is  “The relationship between occupational environment and mood disorders seems to be reciprocal, creating vicious cycles in many cases. For example, depressive episodes resulting from work-related stress can impact vocational performance by ‘presenteeism’ due to decreased concentration, reduced motivation, and decision errors, as well as ‘absenteeism’ Negative feedback from the organization, decreased self-esteem, and reduced salary may follow and add on the stress level of depressed workers.” (9) This evidence is showing how bad environment can effect people in a way which most of the times leads to suicide. Most of us spends at least 5 to 8 hour s a day outside, this is why environment has such a big effect on us. What then people experience when outside effects them in different ways and those can vary. A bigger part of people are effected most by their work environment. This is crucial because by understanding what is frustrating many of us can result has a better environment and that can then lead to an happy environment and suicide rate caused by unhappy environment might reduce.

Amani Nassar

English 1121

Dr. Hall

March 12, 2019

We Gon’ Be Alright

Music has become the most expressive form of power in times of struggle. The Compton born, Kendrick Lamar has been making history all throughout his time in the music industry with one of his most groundbreaking album “To Pimp A Butterfly.” The multi Grammy winning album speaks on the many issues people of color face as well as mental health in songs like “King Kunta”, “The Blacker the Berry,” “U”, and one of the most influential songs of our time “Alright.” This notable Hip Hop album pulls a rally of emotions to call for a push to change the world we all live in. Who would have known the tremendous impact this song would have on our generation?

The song has reached many platforms from a chant at rallies for protest at institutions to even protest at presidential campaign. The chants of “we gon’ be alright” have become so symbolic as the people look for a reason to keep hoping for change. Past acts of oppression and current acts have helped create songs like “Alright” where Kendrick created music that resonates with so many people helping them get through tragedies they may face almost everyday. There is a sense of unity within the song that Lamar creates that reflects the black community.

 

Kendrick Lamar is such a renowned artist, yet very few of his songs are played on the radio. He is just one of the few artist who actually makes music with an impactful message unlike others who only rap about money or sex. I admire him for standing out in a crowd of individuals who all sound alike, he has so much to offer his fans.

 

The music video starts off with a monologue where Kendrick talks about his journey growing up as a young black man in society. The videos includes acts of police brutality. There are several visuals that Kendrick uses as metaphors to allude to the black community rising against oppression and police violence in scenes like where you see 4 white police officers carrying the car in which Lamar and his friends sit in. There are other scenes in which we see singers and dancers on top of police cars acting almost as if there was nothing bad going on around them. This seems to bring a hopeful feel to the video that together we are strong and we can get through anything.