Negative Effects Of Rap Music

Many believe that rap music has taken a complete 180 in the industry and has turned their lyrics of inspiration and positivity, to drugs and gang violence. Although several signs can point to this statement being true, rap music does not encourage teens to act violently. In fact, many artists/rappers spread positive messages across, giving solutions, and inspiration to the audience.

Music can be a reflection of our life experiences. Each genre of music invokes different emotions and reactions in its listeners. Rap has become a very popular genre of music. As its popularity has increased, some people have questioned whether it can trigger violence in teens. While some rap songs do have violent lyrics, there is no direct evidence that rap music provokes violence in teenagers.

In rap music it’s not hard to find the violent lyrics with most of the music speaks about gang violence, shootings, drugs, and more. An example of a song that influences violence is J. Coles song “A Tale of 2 Cities” with lyrics like “Picked up the paper and they say my nigga Eddie caught a body, I'm convinced anybody is a killer, all you gotta do is push 'em to the limps” in this part of the song Cole speaks about how his friend, who isn’t really a person who would commit a crime, murdered somebody; Cole isn’t surprised because he believes everybody is a killer if you push them to their limits. Another example in the song is “They robbin' niggas on the daily can you blame a nigga that ain't never had things? Guess not last night they pulled up on my nigga at the light like ugh, nice watch, run it” the first part of these lyrics Cole justifies the crime of robbing because they have nothing. In the second part Cole states that somebody came up to his friend and robbed him of his watch, on this part the sound of a gun being cocked in the background is heard and is continued with the chorus saying “hands in the air now” (Genius). These lyrics not only promote violence but justify why it was okay to do such crimes. The reasoning behind why artists talk about violence is that it’s a way of telling their story. Namir, a rapper in New York says “People have to realize that rappers are just like any other artist or musician. What makes an artist an artist is his artistic portrayal of his life and how he expresses his life through whatever art form that he does” (PBS). With people growing up in terrible environments and music being a way for them to cope the reasoning for the violent lyrics is the artist trying tell their

Whether you love it or hate it Rap music has come to be one of the most popular, yet arguable, music genres of the past decades. Today’s rap music has changed enormously since the 1970’s. Rap music was about having fun, being able to express what youth were feeling and a way to keep youth out of trouble. Rap songs usually use explicit and demeaning lyrics, which has huge influence on the youth of today. While rappers say that they’re plainly rapping about reality. They often use violence, the use of drugs and Guns as the main tool to tell the story of their lives and show how hard it is growing up in their neighbourhood. This surely does not set any good examples for the young men and women, listening to this trash and singing along with the

On the contrary, there are many people that are against censorship and believe that we have the freedom of speech for a reason. Rappers are after all speaking about their life and their hardships they have went through. This negativity in current rap music could also teach kids a lesson of how to not live or even shed some light on

The violence that permeates rap lyrics should come as no surprise because music is only one of the numerous forms of media, and violence in the media is often described as being too

Rap music has the power to influence people in ways such as dictating fashion or wardrobe choices, promote rebellious ways, and can even affect the morals you live by. The youth in America is highly influenced by famous rap and hip hop artist due to the many relatable stories they tell in their music. Many times the stories are speaking of hardships in life and crimes committed. Their lyrics are significantly influential enough to have caused people to commit crimes such as robbery, violence, and even murder.

A second reason how rap music is the source of violence is that is leads youth to join in gangs and when you’re in a gangs your causing violence by killing innocent people for money and creating shootings in communities. Rap music is the one type of music that talks about life being in a gang and when young people listen to the lyrics from their favorite rapper they might think it well be cool if they do the same thing or maybe how it would feel to being a gang earning money by themselves, getting nice things from being in a gang just like their favorite rapper did. In a song called ‘My Hood” by Gucci Mane, there have been some kids wanting to from hoods because of the things he say. “First you get the money then you get the power,” this is

Rap music has been around for around 40 years but became nationally popular in the 1990’s. As the music became more popular within the public, the lyrics of these songs became notorious for being vulgar, derogatory, and a bad influence on the listeners. The new sound consisted of heavier beats and a more intense sound than songs of earlier decades. These heavier beats and lyrics about alcohol, sex, drugs, violence and crime all were thought to be the cause of adolescent misconduct. Almost all of the music portrayed a lifestyle that was not wanted among most of the population, but definitely influenced

The form of music that we know as rap is heavily influenced by earlier African American music forms. Modern day rap, originates from it’s previous form of gangsta rap. Gangsta rap is an extremely controversial form of music, even to this day, people argue about how “safe” it is

The article Rap Music and Its Violent Progeny: America’s Culture of Violence in Context, addresses how rap music persuades young individuals toward violence. Jeanita W. Richardson and Kim A. Scott researched to see if rap music stimulates young people to be violent in the society. According to the bureau of justice statistics violent crimes did in fact happen more among teenagers, particularly in African Americans. Conferring to the article rap music was more popular among the African American community in the beginning when rap music first became hip. It was indicated in the article that the ones that related to it was individuals in poverty and African Americans saying they could relate to the music.

The history of rap has been long talked about, it usually talks about fame and it also contains harsh words and the use of drugs. Many who defend rap believe that there is another side of this that doesn't involve drugs or harsh words. Those who caution towards the idea of rap believe that kids will do anything that they listen to and will use drugs at some point. Many want to get rid of it, but in the end both side of this issue have good reasons but rap isn’t going to change over night it might take years for it to change. As the debate of the genre keeps going nothing will effect it because it a big thing at the moment it only really matters to whom you listen too, with that being said to who ever you choose to listen to it might cause problems too, but like ice cube once wrote " Check yourself before you wreck

Researchers have found rap music to show more violence and have more explicit language than other music genres, and this language can directly impact teenagers. In an Emory University study, published in the "American Journal of Public Health," girls between 14 and 18 who viewed violent, suggestive videos for 14 hours a week or more were “three times more likely to hit a teacher, 2.5 times more likely to get arrested, and 1.5 times more likely to get a sexually transmitted disease, use drugs, or drink alcohol” (Ryan). Think about it--all these horrible actions can occur just because of an innocent listen to a song. Lyrics are even impacting the younger spectrum of our generation. A study performed at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine involved a survey of more than 700 freshmen who were exposed to more than 14 hours a week of music with sexual, explicit lyrics.

Rap, heavy metal, and punk are genres of music that typically express society’s dark side, the obsession of guns and violence. I think most rap artists rap about violence and guns to not to promote these things but to bring awareness to their audience about these issues; but this is usually not always the case in the rap world. Of course, this can easily be misinterpreted by people thinking that all rappers approve of violence, weapons, and inappropriate acts. There are also some rappers that do rap about violence because they think it will appeal to a certain audience. For example, the hip-hop group N.W.A brought some controversy on this topic. With song titles such as “F-the police” and “gangsta gangsta” that have the sound of weapon fire

     Most rap songs that contain violence reflects incidents that occur in today’s society such as the Rodney King incident. “Rap music brings together a tangle of some of the most complex social, cultural, and political issues in contemporary American society.” Rap and hip-hop artists write songs that promote the killing of enemies as well as targeting institutions such as the church, government, and justice system (Ro 145) Most artists relive their own painful experiences over and over again though their music, delaying their own society’s process of recovery . for example, in 1989