myHIN Blog

November 12, 2012

Can Music Increase AIDS Awareness?

Considering the fact that I am a DJ, it was only a matter of time before I decided to write a blog post about music. Last Sunday, I tuned in to BET’s annual “Black Girls Rock” and I was excited to watch, as Black women were uplifted for doing great things in our community. Alicia Keys was one of the women honored that night and her philanthropic efforts for her organization Keep a Child Alive was a major highlight. Keys is a co-founder and ambassador of Keep A Child Alive, a people’s movement that provides life-saving AIDS medicine and surrounding care to children and families in Africa and India [1].

While watching the tribute to Keys, I began to think about R&B and Rap songs that I have heard mentioning HIV/AIDS. I could not recall many, but I was not surprised since HIV/AIDS is such a taboo subject in our community.

Kanye West stuck out first since he’s my favorite rapper of all time. On West’s sophomore album Late Registration he has a song titled “Roses”. If you have not heard this song before (the video link is below), I will tell you that West is upset throughout the entire song because he wants someone in the hospital to help his grandmother who is currently unconscious. In the first verse West says:

“If Magic Johnson got a cure for AIDS
And all the broke people pass away
You tellin’ me if my grandma was in the NBA
Right now she would be ok?”

While West used this line in a metaphorical sense, it still made me think twice about how expensive it is to access medication for AIDS. For a second, I really did think that if you could not afford the medication that you would in fact die and since Magic Johnson was extremely rich, that is the only reason why he is able to live healthy with such a critical disease. Working with this project I have learned that this is in fact false; however, it is interesting to see how an artist was able use a song about his grandmother to paint a picture about the economic hardship that buying medicine for HIV/AIDS can cause.

Rapper T-Pain has a very thought provoking skit and song on his sophomore album Epiphany titled “I Got It” (skit) and “Suicide”. “I Got It” is a conversation between a guy and his girlfriend when she tells him they are both effected with HIV. The woman did not know the best way to tell her boyfriend that they were infected, but she eventually was able to tell him. As one could imagine, he was not very receptive to the news. In fact, he blamed her and asked ‘what were you thinking’ as if she was the only one to blame. I will save the analysis of this skit for another post, but “Suicide”, which follows this skit, is about the guy planning to kill himself as a result of the news.

I must say that I was surprised that T-Pain would write a skit about such a touchy subject, especially with the song “Suicide” following it. In my opinion, this was a very daring move by T-Pain. This was only his sophomore album, which is very important for new artists so that they will not hit the ‘sophomore slump’ (an instance in which a second effort fails to live up to the standards of the first effort) [2]. His listeners could have assumed that this situation happened to him since his first single was titled “I’m In Love With A Stripper” and his first single off of Epiphany was “Buy You A Drank”, both talking about risky behaviors.

To date, the Epiphany album has sold 1.5million copies, and to my knowledge, no one has accused T-Pain of having HIV/AIDS, so writing these songs were a risk worth taking; but I wonder, out of those 1.5million people who bought this album, how many of them paid this skit and this song any attention? I definitely commend T-Pain for his efforts at exposing a disease that is so common in our community through his music. Hopefully, like Keys, he will become an ambassador of HIV/AIDS and help bring awareness and fight for support for those in need.

For years, music has been able to bring awareness to what’s going on in our society, by catching our ears with a beat first, and delivering a message later. How often do you gain a message out of a song that is not a gospel song? Do you think it is effective to use music in order to increase social awareness? Give us feedback and let us know. @myhealthimpact

Other songs mentioning HIV/AIDS:
Killa Mike & Big Boi - “ADIDAS”
“When I drill, I don’t spill, even if she’s on the pill
Keep my weapon covered, concealed, and in a shield
Cause I don’t need that A-I-D-S
A D and an A missin’ out my ADIDAS”

Trey Songz - “Store Run”
“I ain’t ready to have no babies
No ifs, ands, buts, or maybes
I’m tryna keep it safe
Girl ain’t you heard of AIDS?”

TLC - "Waterfalls"
One day he goes and takes a glimpse in the mirror
But he doesn't recognize his own face
His health is fading and he doesn't know why
3 letters took him to his final resting place
Y'all don't hear me

Sources:
[1] http://keepachildalive.org/about/alicia-keys/
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophomore_slump

Kanye West “Roses”