Hip-hop Today As a hip-hop music fan, I am extremely disappointed by what is considered hip-hop music today. Unfortunately the music has become vulgar, disrespects and downgrades women by by casually objectifying them, and frankly supports the negative stereotype of men being disgusting pigs who do as they please. I honestly feel that "hip-hop" artists now-a-days should not be given the priveledge to catergorize their music as hip-hop because it has lost the very essence of hip-hop. It seems to be that when music artists put a certain beat behind lyrics it becomes hip-hop. I strongly disagree. Hip-hop used to be an art that people could genuinely appreciate. It was poetic and had a deeper purpose behind the lyrics that were used. It was an outlet of self expression, not a haughty statement of material posseions and self glorification. It was an outward expession of feeling, a ballad of hard times, a word of encouragment or enlightenment. A good example would be Tupac's "Keep Ya Head Up". His lyrics,"Keep ya head up, oooo-oo child things are gonna get easier, oooo-oo child things are gonna get brighter" may stir up reassurance within many different people. However, what is known as hip-hop today has become an expression of disrespect, rebellion, drug addictions, lust, and as previously stated self glorification. This new hip-hop doesnt attempt to represent anything of positive nature. And with this "hip-hop" being so popular and music having such a