Violence In Rap Songs

In life, music affects everything many people look at all the different stories of teenagers committing violent acts and have begun to wonder can violent songs make teens violent? With all of the violent acts that music glorifies as of recently many psychologists and parents alike have begon to wonder why certaint types of music cause their children and teenagers to become so violent. Because of the questions that violent songs raise and why teenagers have started to gravitaite towards violent songs more than ever before. Some factors that could be reasons as to why violent songs have such a powerful effect on teenagers could be that: teenagers learn violence from ther surroundings, teenages can have a history of violence, and violent songs give teens a place to vent their frustrations at,

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

It is suggested that one of the reasons why artists use misogynistic lyrics in their music is that they have internalized the negative stereotypes about women that are prevalent in American society. African women were historically portrayed as animalistic sexual beasts and African males in a submissive role, giving in to wild instinct or bodily impulses. The internalization of such stereotypes may be a possible explanation of the hyper sexuality within certain hip hop music. Various authors have argued that misogyny is merely an outgrowth of the cultural acceptance of misogyny at large.

One of Rap music's greatest criticisms is that it is sexist in its portrayal of women. Some argue that Hip-hop music teaches young children to look at women as "bitches" and "hoes", as women are often called in various hip-hop songs. It is this negative message that has constantly kept rap music in a national spotlight. Critics view sexism in rap as a symptom of an increasingly crumbling set of social values in the black urban community.

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

Since the birth of rap, the genre has been constantly ridiculed for its violent messages, drug references, and the degradation of women. Rap music has been accused of infecting our youth. Rap music has been blamed for increased violence in America. Rap music is constantly attacked by individuals who don’t truly comprehend what is happening in American society. Rap music is not to blame for society’s problems; furthermore, it should not be used as a scapegoat for those who don’t understand the current problems in urban America.

With things, such as explicit lyrics and depiction of women, drugs, and violence an assumption can be made that gangster rap represents a masculinity that rappers portray themselves as in their songs. Dating back to its origins, African Americans had always been the face of gangster rap, with such names like Tupac, Biggie, Jay-Z, DMX, and much more, as covers of rap magazines. Gangster rap had always been seen as what people interpret it to be and that is a raw rhythmic and explicit version of poetry in motion, but gangster rap depicts more than what people interpret it to be. Gangster rap depicts the image of how a strong African American male should look like, a bold, angry, rebellious, and fierce man. Strong African American males are subjective to gangster rap, mainly because of how gangster rap portrays masculinity. In “Brotherly Love: Homosociality and Black Masculinity in Gangsta Rap Muscic” Oware argues that although gangster rap music portrays the masculinity of African American males through the use of hyper masculinity, misogyny, and violence in lyrics, gangster rap music also provides a way for rappers to express themselves to commemorate their fellow friends through lyrics that depict family/friend relationships, success by association, and have a tribute for lost friends.

(Fitts, 224) Hip-hop appears to have gone away from the socially, culturally, and politically critical messages dealing with the plight of generally voiceless blacks to an expression of wealth, power, and hyper-masculinity. In an interview featured in Byron Hurt’s documentary Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, Mos Def commented on the presentation of rappers, stating that in the current rap and hip-hop culture, rappers have to assert themselves physically to seem powerful and worthy of respect; even he, as a self confessed bookworm, believes that rappers need people to know that they are not weak or docile. (Hurt, 2006) It might seem odd that rappers would portray such stereotypical and possibly self-degrading image of themselves by continuing to write songs and make videos laced with violent, sexist, egotistical, and hyper-masculine lyrics, visuals, and overtones. However, as it turns out, rappers seems to have less of a choice than one would think. In Hurt’s documentary, young rappers were seen rapping about very violent and sexist topics with the aspirations of one day signing with a major label and becoming

Hip hop music and its artists are often criticized by some for glamorizing violence and being questionable influences on today’s youth. However, these artists and the dancing styles tied to their music have not always been the same. In its roots, hip hop was originally designed to do just the opposite. Originating on America’s East coast, it was meant to distract the youth from the gang violence riddling their neighborhoods and promote healthy competition through the popular art of ‘break-dancing’. Break-dancing along with the art of ‘graffiti’ meant that these neighborhoods had a different means of competition rather than getting into fights, gun battles and other forms of violence to decide which neighborhood was better. As the rhythmic beats

Rap music is not the only type of American music associated with sex and violence. The history of Rock’s Roll for example, is a good example. The same arrangements, with white people at the top, uplifted an entire American generation on sex and violence in other types of music. Now they are doing the same with rap music (Roberts, 1994). Rappers have thus been forced to abandon the stated goal of their humble beginning to conform to the marketable aspects of their crafts. (Rebollo-Gil & Moras, 2012). Rappers have adopted all elements of hip-hop as a part of their daily practices claiming that hip-hop artists influence music, fashion, and speech. The portrayal of black men and black women in Hip Hop videos and lyrics serve the interests of white supremacist producers involved in rap music. Adams & Fuller (2006) describe racialized misogyny as a part of America’s awareness. The authors suggest that this belief has a profound significance on the inner spirit of African Americans as it feeds off not only animosity of women but loathing toward Blackness, which serves as a dual-purpose. Whether is the depiction of black female by black males in rap videos or the representation of black female sexuality by white racist, the sexual interaction between black men and black women takes on a compulsory heterosexual tone that explicates traditional heterosexism and entrenched racism (Rebollo-Gil & Moras, 2012).

It also leads to the inability to discern what is unacceptable and acceptable for young men to say about women. Unfortunately, the language used by rappers is tremendously pervasive and because its use has become so pervasive, the shock value to listeners no longer exists. The language along with the general way men refer to women in rap songs is a misrepresentation of women. Women are spoken about so poorly that they are beginning to give in and believe what the rappers are saying. Though it may not be targeted specifically at the woman the rappers are truly intending to speak about, the woman listening herself is affected. To go along with that, a study completed by Ellen Nikodym, of the Macalester College Psychology Department, on the effects of objectifying rap lyrics on female listeners proved, “The fact that [objectifying song produced an increase in self-objectifying behaviors] was present among African American women but not for the largely white sample tested”. In rap songs sung by men, women’s values are determined simply by their ability to be sexual objects for the pleasure of men alone.

Persuading people that rap music is violent is damaging to the reputation of the African American community. In Joan Morgan’s “The misogyny of rap” she does not mention any form of positive rap music. This shows her focus is a specific problem in certain types of rap music and not that all of rap is violent. If rap music is violent then most categories of music must also label as violent. For example, Grammy-winning country artist such as the Dixie Chicks, Garth Brooks, and Dwight Yokum, all have popular songs about murder: “Good Bye Earl”, “Papa Loved Momma” and “She Wore a Red Dress’. Regardless of its many popular violent songs, still country music is not labeled as violent. Just like country music, rap music has many positive styles: Christian, love and conscious rap. Therefore, this shows there is a captious double-standard when it comes to classifying African American rap as a treacherous form of music. Philip Bump, a national correspondent of the Washington Times, cross-referenced violent crimes, and explicit rap popularity from 1980 to 2005 to show that the popularity of explicit rap music has had a sharp increase while the number of violent crimes per 100,000 Americans continues to decrease. Additionally, the United States sentencing commission reports show that black male offenders received sentences on average 19.1 percent longer than similarly situated White male offenders. Regardless of the Civil rights Act, Stereotyping and statistics prove the inequality of America.

Today’s society is one in which the idea of male superiority dominates, one that Edwards et al. says fosters the idea that “rape ideologies emanate from a patriarchal system” (qtd. in Franiuk). The influences on modern American culture, what it idolizes and produces, are often times truly sickening. Popular television programs and other media present depictions of women that promote a society of rape culture. The rapper Eminem, just one of the famous rap artists who has a bad reputation, refers to women in very derogatory ways. His song “Kim” was released in 2000, and is believed to have been written about his then-wife, Kim Mathers. In it, the rapper says, “Sit down bitch/If you move again I'll beat the shit out of you,” among other things, and even goes on to describe other types of violence that he wants to commit against her (Bass). When taking into consideration Eminem’s subject matter, his popularity is alarming. His music, and thousands of other songs like his, is filling the ears of impressionable youth and naïve adults, permeating their minds with horrible ideas.

Music is an important part of everyday life, it not only brings you happiness, it expresses in a way no one can ever. The music in movies plays a particularly meaningful part. In the movie, “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2” the soundtrack “Come a little bit closer ” is very crucial because it sets the mood, makes Rocket and Yondu seem more heroic, and it distracts the audience from the violence.

From Eminem’s hardcore explicit lyrics, to Lil Kim’s outrageous outfits to the late Tupac Shakur’s “thug life” image, the rap subculture has been under a lot of speculation. Many rappers lyrics contain violent messages that parents fear are encouraging youth to become violent. The media has a field day covering protests against rappers, such as Eminem about their explicit lyrics towards gays, women and their promotion of violence. The main concern is how rap is influencing today, particularly towards the youth community, and the answer can be found in the media. There are a lot of articles, books, movies and documentaries written and produced each year with hip-hop being the main subject. This great plethora of media not only affects the