In a race-relations initiative directed at youth an audience of 200 tried to answer the question: What message is Hip-Hop Sending You?

Led by Sean Tate, a staffer at the Texas Council on Family Violence, the forum was part of the Bermuda Race Relations Initiative (BRRI) series.

And one participant, Glenn Tucker, a photographer for The Royal Gazette said the purpose of the forum was to examine the power of Hip-Hop.

He said: “We discussed why the young black men these days feel like they have to be so hard. Before there was a variety of Hip-Hop with very different messages.

“Now it is all about shaking your booty, shooting people and selling drugs being the main theme. The problem is many of the twenty-somethings felt like that way of life represents what they live on the streets in Bermuda.

“The Bermuda where they grew up was one where they didn’t know their fathers and these images were cool and what they wanted to replicate.”

To start the discussion on Hip-Hop, its history and future, Mr. Tate showed a documentary titled ‘Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes’.

In order to get the message across to his audience, Mr. Tate would stop the film and ask everyone to reflect on the images they had seen and what they were thinking.

The point of the exercise all afternoon, however, was to have the audience come to their own conclusions and try to imagine their own solutions to counter the negative images.

Mr. Tucker added: “The gangsta rap is so prevalent today because that is what the record companies are pushing. Before, Hip-Hop was a positive way for young black men to make money to get out of the ghetto.

“Now the gangsta rap is what the young black men are hearing and think they should be. And it is what the white young men are hearing and thinking that is what black men are.

“Even in movies that is how black men are being portrayed.”

But rather than ask the audience to provide conclusions on the images, Mr. Tate helped them come up with solutions for life in Bermuda.

Mr. Tucker added: “We decided as a group that they only way to counter these images was to support positive young black entertainment.

“Gangsta rap is here to stay but we have to be able to give other options in order to try and pressure it to change.”