Today, class closed with the professor saying “Music is saturated with the politics of America.” I guess that’s what this entire class has centered around but it wasn’t until he actually said that line that I really began to think about it and decided to write and think about it generally. We’ve been taught multiple lessons with specific examples on how this is true such as minstrelsy’s influence, which I find unfortunate, but I never wrote about the topic itself. Until it was said, I didn’t feel like I was really absorbing any truly valuable information in class other than what was expected for the final project and paper. Not only do people no longer listen to music without any distractions, but people probably don’t think about how politics have shaped a song or entire genre. Writing about this could easily be a 10 page paper but in this small blog space I just want to acknowledge that the products of music we receive are in large part results of political events or people’s financial standings and any form of art is impacted by this. I feel like hip-hop/rap artists are notoriously known for expressing their feelings of discontentment surrounding their place in society and their journey to success that was harder to achieve being part of a certain community. All genres can and have vocalized their passionate ideologies as rock has done it too, U2 for example, but rap has never been reserved in the regard of current politics. I think the world operates in such a way that we are ever-influential to one another and music is influenced by politics which in turn represents those who don’t have as powerful of a voice and that’s why it’s so important to people. Politics have both positively and offensively impacted artists and it’s a conversation many are unaware of and worth discussing.