The fact that rap has either destroyed or created a new type of music genre is all relative to other people and their own views on it. In “Decoded,” Jay-Z’s 2010 memoir, people still ask the same old questions. He says that the Flippancy annoys him, the ease with which some still dismiss rap as “something that is just this bad, foul language, or a bunch of guys who degrade women, and they don’t realize the poetry and the art of it.” This is perhaps one downside to having the “flow of the century.”

In the article, “The House that Hova Built” by Zadie Smith, it says that with Tupac, you can hear the effort, and the artistry. And Biggie’s words first had to struggle free of the sheer bulk of the man himself. When Jay raps, it pours out like water from the tap. Rap, in many cases, is considered an art form for people who listen to it. To me, it seems like it’s just talking. In “Decoded,” Jay-Z writes that “rap is built to handle contradictions,” and Hova, as he is nicknamed, is as contradictory as they come.

Life stories can be told through rap. Niggas acting like I sold crack. Like I told you sell drugs, no, Hov’ did that. So hopefully you won’t have to go through that. Sure are. Odd Future. Waka Flocka Flame. Chief Keef. Returning to what appear to be the basic building blocks of rap: shock tactics, obscenity, perversely simplistic language. I believe that most rap is comprised of these lewd and lascivious behaviors. This language is probably used to show what life is really like in the ghetto for a young black man. It was said in “The House that Hova built,” that Rappers use this language as a form of asymmetrical warfare.

In other words, Asymmetric warfare can describe a conflict in which the resources of two belligerents differ in essence and in the struggle, interact and attempt to exploit each other's characteristic weaknesses. How else to explain George W. Bush’s extraordinary contention that a line spoken by a rapper----- “George Bush doesn’t care about black people”-----was “one of the most disgusting moments in my presidency”?

In the article, “The House that Hova Built,” it says that Kanye raps: I feels the pain in my city wherever I go. 314 soldiers died in Iraq. 509 died in Chicago. Based on these lyrics, rap is not only for lewd and lascivious comments about women and racial epithets, but rap can also be used for political purposes to show and talk about politics in their beats and talk about other pop-cultural events.

I believe that rap still isn’t music. I think that rap is more about the life of a person in the gutter or the ghetto. Rap music takes you in the day in the life of a typical black person. Yes it does talk about current events and make many pop-cultural references, but rap, to me, is just music mangled up in a lewd and raunchy form that only real fans could understand. The culture behind this rap “music” is very negative talking about pimps, prostitutes, crack, and being robbed, which seems like where most crime would take place in the ghetto.