It all started with the birth of a nation. The shameful crimes that build this country rest on the backs of an enslaved people, yesterday in chains and with laws and today behind bars and within socialization. The tale is as old as our time. The first slaves were brought to the Virginia Colony in the early 1600s. they were simply indentured servant whom would be released after working an agreed number of years. They came to America on a voluntary basis. Soon after, that model of slavery was replaces with the race-based slavery used in the Caribbean. Slavery was officially legalized in 1641 and gradually progressed to the brutal form that we know today. The undermining and oppression of those African people were sealed in 1712 when …show more content…

The members of this anomic class, having similar reasons for alienation, have been brought together and cohesion has formed which strikingly resembles mechanical solidarity. Mechanical solidarity is a social bond based on resemblance. It is the common oppression that creates the collective consciousness that maintains this bond. “Blackness” is the token that is deified. Characteristics of that “Blackness” are marginalization, poverty, and oppression. These are the most prevailing themes in the “society” that is created. Not surprisingly, these are also the main themes in Hip-Hop music. The collective conscious of this group is translated through symbolic communication such as slang and beat making and translates to the collective behavior which is the Hip-Hop culture. A subculture such as this one is a response to the gap that has been created between the involuntary or mainstream ideology and the group that one has chosen. These subcultures are a necessity to restore control back to the main society. We see evidence of this in the adoption of Hip-Hop into the mainstream culture which has lessened its marginality and brought African Americans into the control of White America once again. This shows very much in the content of the music that is made today versus when Hip-Hop was still underground.