Rap Music And Its Effects On Society

Music and society have always been closely related. For years now music has been apart of people’s everyday lives all around the world. Having so many different genres out there, it makes it easy to be appealing to so many different ethnic backgrounds. However, one type of genre in particular has seemed to grab the attention of a younger generation. Rap music has undoubtedly had its utmost impact on African American youth, since many of the performers themselves are African American. An overtly masculine culture dominates rap music and creates gender stereotypes that become abundantly popular to the youthful audience. Three constant themes that are found within the rap culture are encouragement of violence, the misogynistic representation of women, an extreme hatred of homophobia. Each theme plays a detrimental role in the process of defining black masculinity as well as shaping the values, morals, and beliefs that its younger audience adopts after tuning into this “gangster lifestyle”.

The impact music has on the life of people is very powerful. It can easily revamp the way people act and take control of people’s emotions. Rap music is a very common and popular type of music within the world today. Rap music has existed since the mid 1970s, nowadays it is practically everywhere. It is easily a central focus of many young people’s lives. Rap music was essentially intended to create a voicing of one’s frustrations and disappointment with society, it has recently taken a turn and is creating a negative impact on the youth. It is the root that influences and encourages degrading women, violence, and is filled with sexual content.

The birthplace of rap began in New York City. Rap was meant to be the life of the party, but nothing serious. The 15 minute long song “Rapper’s Delight” by the Sugarhill Gang, was the first rap song released in 1979, the song was meant to be catchy and memorable. The song inspired many other artists to follow Sugarhill Gang’s lead and produce songs like “Rapper’s

In society today, it is highly noticed that the role of rap music messages and video images of violence causes an increase in negative emotions, thoughts and behaviors which could lead to violence amongst youth. Rap music has been at the center of concern in regards to the potential harmful effect of violent media on social behavior amongst youth. This potential behavior could be seen in the music video titled “Kim” by Eminem. In this music video, the storyline, language and sound encourages hostile thoughts and feelings amongst its audience. In the music video, Kim husband catches her cheating on him in their home with another man, while he is away. However, when Marshall gets home and finds out that his wife is cheating on him, he gets upset, angry, and abusive and becomes violent towards his wife Kim. He screams at her saying that, if she moves again, he will “beat the shit out of her” (Line 11). Violence in rap music has increased in response to the complex interplay of changing social conditions such as the elevated levels of youth violence in the changing commercial practices within the music industry. Hence, the media influences violence in four negative ways, which contributes immensely to anger amongst youth which leads to aggressive behavior such as social violence, substance abuse, domestic violence, and negative perceptions of women.

Music is seen as a damaging influence toward teenagers because of the language and message that is mainly sent out in several songs. It is seen as an encouragement for teens to react with violence towards the situations that are occurring worldwide. For example, there are rap songs that mostly talking about how they do not accept President Donald Trump as their president; people think that teenagers are taking a different message than what artists trying to transmit. They believe that teenagers might want to take action towards Trump with violent. Rap music is not meant to be an incorrect influence to teens or any other person. This type of music is a way for society to express their feelings towards situations that they might not have the

Rap music doesn’t always influence bad habits, (ex: fighting or drugs). Around the world rap music is seen to be a genre of music that represents, negativity such as street warfare, gangs, consumption of drugs and alcohol, sexual exploitation and negative attitudes towards women. Along with that there is a strong amount of profanity used in the lyrics.

Even though many of us are familiar with rap music, most of us don’t know its origin. Rap music began in West Africa. It started out as a story that was turned into rhymes. All they had for a beat were drums and made up instruments. In Africa, griots began telling stories about their home and family. Griots were the West African historians and storytellers who kept all the records throughout the village. In the 1970s, rap music started becoming popular in the U.S as street art among African American teenagers. A popular rap group gain their popularity in 1979. This group was known as ‘The Sugarhill Gang.’ They are mostly known for their single “Rapper’s Delight” that made producers realize how big rap was getting. As rap began expanding, African

American Rappers have been perceived as artists who cannot do any good to society, because of their lyrics or the music videos that they make, but that is only one small group of individual rappers. Generalizing has never been a good thing, and that is exactly what these people do all the time putting all rappers in the same category. How can some people be so ignorant and not recognize the excellent music that has saved people from themselves? Out there right now there are a lot of rappers that are always making beautiful music and this type of rap music has been made since Hip-Hop's beginnings. Making people believe that rap music is the worst thing that has ever happened just makes the society unknowledgeable and doesn’t allow that the good rap music that has already inspired a lot of people to overcome their adversities reach and help even more people.

Rap music and R&B from rapper such as Tupac Shakur,The Notorious B.I.G , Snoop Dogg, NWA, and Nelly. All these wonderful rappers made up this form of music called “rap” due to their struggles and expressing of their feeling and emotions through rapping and making it into music . “There were kids in japan that don’t understand a word in english, but can still recite a Jay-Z album from beginning to end”(Baker 95). The music they were making was going all around world, rapping about the pain and the cruel things they had to face in society and in the world. “In the early 1990’s a new form of hip-hop made its way out ‘A mixture of break beats and down tempo electronic music’ made it around the world and most popular in clubs” (Baker 9). Artists went from just break beats to clubs and made these young rappers come up

In the world that is music there are many genres of music that fall under different categories. One of the more popular genres of music is Rap. Rap music evolved overtime and become more relevant as the years go on, accordingly the culture and other parts of rap changed as well. There a various differences between what rap music is now and what it had been in the past, and it all comes with the changes of the world. Some of the bigger changes in music is the culture that comes with the music, the lyrics of the songs as well as the reason for making the music.

Many people believe that Hip Hop is detrimental to society. I do believe that a lot of hip-hop culture revolves around negative things, whether it be objectification of women, violence, drugs, pimping, the care free lifestyle, now worrying about anyone but yourself, and being materialistic. All of that does not lead society in a good direction. And if you as a black person consider that to be you culture, that hip-hop is your culture, and the hip-hop you listen too predominantly promotes things such as violence rioting, and stealing, then to say that that culture is partially responsible for what is happening is correct. Before around the time my dad was growing up hip-hop was positive, then what starting happening is NWA (Niggas With Attitude) came out, and all these other groups that were just trying to “tell it how it is” or “tell it how it was” in their hood, constantly pushing violence, violence, and violence. This became much more acceptable. Anything that permeates the culture the way hip-hop has or the way movies have, they have an effect. Young people have taken on gangster mentalities like, do whatever you have to do to get by, if you have to sell drugs and murder then do what you have to do, and if someone disrespects then fight for respect. And all of this that you hear in music affects not only the black culture but also society as a whole, and if you do not believe that then I believe are delusional. No one person, no one group of music, no culture is

Rap culture kicked off back in the 1970’s in Bronx, New York. For many years, the rap and hip hop culture have evolved into the mainstream approach to express wealth and economical statuses. Rappers have expressed themselves through verses and lyrical aspects. Rappers tend to praise drugs, money, sex, violence and a lifestyle that’s lavish. While glorifying a materialistic standard of living, artist provide such empowerment to fans that with money comes a level of comfort. Some songs can be linked to criminal activity, because one will react off of the artist lyrics. Which gives the impression that killing drugs money, sex, cars and corruption will make one look tough or bold. On the other hand if we dig deeper and listen to the verses of many songs, we will find that some artist relay a positive message, letting people know the hardships they’ve been through on the road to fame. In a way acknowledging that they aren’t alone, everyone has been through some kind of struggle before. Also, that anything is possible if you work hard for it. I guess it’s safe to say that depending on the artist personality and lifestyle determines the

As a whole, “Rap music” is a misrepresentation of black culture. Rap teaches youth that violence, demeaning women and participating in criminal activity are acceptable in today’s society. Despite the rap artists’ that do use self-expression as a means of changing the way listeners view society, rap music contradicts the good that it can create. Rap is proven detrimental toward society, despite the political views most believe it provides. Simply stated, raps contradictive nature makes it impossible for it to be used as a vehicle of progressive change. As a result of Rap music’s misogyny towards women, women are depicted in a negative way which keeps society bias toward women’s equality. Through Rap music, youth are taught that the social norm is to objectify women and to depict them as manipulative. Next, raps glorification of the criminal lifestyle influences youth to practice unlawful behavior. Rap stereotypes African Americans in a negative light by influencing listeners to sell drugs, steal, and participate in gang activity in order to obtain fast wealth. Moreover, this paper will overview three topics that have influenced society including rap misogyny, criminal rap and rap stereotypes.

Music plays a immense part in the lives of those who experience it. It has the power to influence behaviors and moods and even important decisions one makes in life. A device with that amount of power must have very meticulous monitoring. Choosing between more uplifting music and more degrading music can be difficult surprisingly, simply because a lot of adults like rap and music categories like that that contain a lot of degrading messages. Positive, uplifting music is a much better choice for overall well being than negatively influenced music.

     Imagine an inner city kid having grown u in an environment where real life street violence is a way of life. His body, having survived personal experiences of violence, endured barely life sustained conditions, and many sleepless nights caused by the constant yet unpredictable call of death. His mind doubtful over where his next meal will come from, lost in search of some higher guidance, struggling through a world, not of innocent childish fantasies, but trapped in a forced reality. His only outlet is the loud blaring music coddling his already pent-up rage, an escape from these harsh realities, seducing him to a life of violence. In him is created a “me against the world” mentality that is manifested in