Mozart, John Lennon, Johnny Cash, Notorious B.
Number from one to six the importance and relevance of these musical artists, one being the most important and six being the most dispensable in today's society and your life.
II. (Gather and present results to the audience).
A. Margo Whitmire, a writer from the prominent music industry magazine "Billboard, stated that in this year Grammy Awards "Pharrell Williams, who along with Outkast, Jay-Z and Beyonce, leads the nominations with six ." All of these artists are hip-hop artists such as the Notorious B.I.G.
B. On the 13 of February of 2004 Billboard also reported on their web site, the top 10 songs being heard in America are all Hip-Hop and R & B songs.
C. This evidence proves that although you may or may not think that Hip-Hop is important or relevant in today's society and in your life, the rest of the country does.
III. Should this be an alarming concern? Does Hip-Hop hold credibility as a good, important, form of music? Is the majority of this country supporting music that is leading society on a downward, evolutionary spiral? Today I will inform you of the two sides, presenting the most common ideas relevant to the topic.
IV. I have studied music performance, theory, and history at a university level, done extensive research on this topic, and I am the demographic for which most hip-hop music is aimed for. This sufficiently qualifies me to speak on this topic.
(Transition: I will begin my speech exploring the side that dismisses hip-hop as dispensable).
Body.
I. Society is settling for mediocrity.
A. Today it seems as though hip-hop artists just want to create music in order to strut around and display material gains, gained from there fame.
1. Catherine Foster of Christian Science Monitor reports that today MTV programming reaches 251.4 million households in 64 territories on four continents.
