By Kristine W. (Mrs. Hobson, Period 1)

Why these artists?

The black community deals with a lot of poverty and struggle, but those struggles doesn't mean that we can’t achieve our goals. As black people we are looked down upon a lot just because of our skin color and backgrounds. People put us into these stereotypes that been around since forever and are so hard to break. 

Nipsey said back in 2013: “I remember being young and really having the best intentions and not being met on my efforts. I’m going to really lock into my goals and my passion and my talents’ but you see no industry support. You see no structures or infrastructure built and you get a little frustrated."

Black children fare much worse. Three-quarters (75.4 percent) are poor during childhood. A lot deal with in-home problems such as parental problems, gang or drug violence, and even police brutality from a young age -- not to mention the gun violence that is still incredibly impacting a ton of our black community to this date.

The reason I chose to do these rappers specifically is because they all had a rough upcoming, whether it had been with a broken home as a kid/teen or just overall not treated as an equal. All of these rappers have amazing stories behind their music and it just crazy the things they were put through. These black men all still made it through their struggles, and all of the rappers I chose died of tragic shootings at a relatively young age.