Throughout the past 30 years, there has been much speculation about how negative hip-hop music truly is, and how it actually affects the youth. The hip-hop music of recent years has been the foundation of many controversial issues and has been illustrated negatively by the media countless times. Issues such as gun and knife crime which has escalated heavily within younger age groups in the last 1 5 years, especially in the USA and UK and also drug abuse, the use of marijuana being used openly within the younger generations.
Hip-hop has been accused of influencing the youth to become more misogynistic towards women by constantly having explicit content, such as racist and sexist lyrics In their music. Hip-hip has always been stereotypically associated with violence and black crime. Due to this, older generations have always had an antagonistic outlook on the entire hip-hop genre of music. Although hip-hip music is considered negative in the eyes of many people, there is to consider various questions to have a better understanding and point of view on the controversial issue.
Today we speak, dress and drive what the stars do. Where we shop and eat even the types of homes we buy Is dictated by what we “hear” the celebrities are doing. That is a powerful influence over an individual adult but only Imagine what type of Influence this has over an Impressionable pre-teen. Due to the fact that hip-hop/rap music appeals to the thirteen to eighteen year old audiences and the artists performing come from very salary backgrounds of the listeners, rap music Is able to control the way that youth think.
Teens and pre-teens are using their part-time Job pay check to buy grills (a form of jewelry worn in the mouth) and other types of jewelry and even weapons such as knives and guns are seen as metaphorical fashion accessories for the youth, as these things are incorporated into the lyrics of hip-hop and rap music. What is hip-hop music? In order to understand the hip-hop phenomena one must first create a foundation of knowledge through learning its history. Hip-hop began from a mixture of spoken word poetry, Jazz drumming, and jazz instrumentation.
Hip-hop Is one of the most popular genres of music out today and has been steadily growing In popularity since Its rise In fame from the late sass. With the rise of MAT In the early sass, early hip-hop music was constantly being shown with TV shows such as Holy MAT raps’ and since then has been known to be one of music’s most being around, hip-hop has grown and matured and most importantly expanded from its origin of the south Bronx in New York, to worldwide. The genre and sub culture originated in the early sass when a Jamaican immigrant by the name of Clive Campbell aka DC Cool Here, first hit the scene in the Bronx.
Campbell started DC-ins his own parties, playing soul, funk as well as R&B records on his turntable set. Here also brought his know how of the sound system and the popular danceable/block party scene. Graffiti art had also begun to take shape in the subways of Philadelphia in the mid sass. A black teenager by the name of Cornbread began tagging the subways in hopes of attracting a girl he had found feelings for; from this form of youth expression came Graffiti. FAA 5 Freddy, one of the original Ads of Hip-hop, began an art from known as scratching and popularized Digging.
Hip-hop consists of four elements, ‘B-boning or also known as break dancing. ‘Digging’, ‘Emceeing, and street art or more commonly known as ‘graffiti’. Digging, also known as he first element of hip-hop began when disc Jockeys created beats on two turntables. The way Ads created their beats was simple yet revolutionary in an essence. The Ads would first find a portion of a song that emphasized a percussive pattern, and then looped a portion of the song to form a rhythmic pattern. This procedure is now more commonly known as sampling.
With the beat or instrumental now developed, the DC decided the music needed some accompaniment to the music such as singing or poetry. This procedure is known as rapping or Emceeing. From hip-hop spawned the sub-genre ‘Rap’ in the early sass. More and more artists became interested in the new form of music out of New York. In 1981, Rap gained a lot of exposure through popular shows such as 20/20 and Saturday night live. The sass saw even more change in the hip-hop industry. Early in the decade, artists fought for permission to sell their albums since most authorities deemed them ‘obscene’ due to the explicit content within the music.
A lot which expressed sexual references towards women and talked about the use of drugs. Hip-hop music also spoke strongly about politics and poverty, artists such as Outpace and Public Enemy spoke about such issues. In the sass the tension that had been gathering between the west coast ‘Gangs’ and the East coast artists has exploded and resulted in the shooting deaths of Christopher Wallace and Outpace Shaker. In the present day Hip-Hop is one of the largest and fastest growing sources of capital and has a great influence on its fans.
The roles that Hip-Hop and Hip-Hop artist play in America require responsibility, however, many of the performers and labels take none. By using television and other various sorts of visual media Hip-Hop portrays less than positive stereotypes and all but influences the youth to accept Hess stereotypes as normal behavior. The detrimental effect that popular Hip-Hop and filled with violence, sex, and drugs. For example the song “Hate Being Sober” by Chief Kef condones the use of drugs at all times and gives the impression that it is k and cool. While many Hip-Hop songs contain messages about alcohol, tobacco and other drugs, few provide an accurate portrayal of the negative consequences of substance abuse” Negative accusations and harsh criticism has always been an issue for the hip-hop genre of music. Some of these accusations include how hip-hop influences the youth o become more misogynistic towards women by constantly having explicit content, such as racist and sexist lyrics in their music. Because of this, Hip-hop music has been criticized greatly by the media accusing the music of affecting the youth that sexism and other such forms of oppression are acceptable to society.
Although the media has a major impact on how Hip-hop is viewed by the masses, their is some people who view Hip-hop differently. Famous civil rights leader AY Sheraton was asked on what he believed on this particular issue and said, “The hip-hop culture is just like electricity, it can be used negatively or positively. The same electric current that lights up your house can also electrocute you. It is the misuse of hip-hop culture to attack our women and promote violence. We must encourage the proper use of hip-hop culture. We are all influenced by the hip-hop generation. (“Is hip-hop culture,” 2000) On a survey done to twenty-five people in the 17- 60 hrs of age range, twenty people know someone that is exposed to the Hip-hop culture and twenty-one of them believed that Hip-hop isn’t a negative art form. In Figures 1, 2, and 3 show the results from the survey done. On Figure 2, it shows that most of the people surveyed do believe that Hip-hop music has the most influence on the youth. Rap music generally depicts the lives and souls of many under privileged youths, citing depression and violence during upbringings.
The youth of today’s society and in the past, take this music as a way of expression, a way of overruling everything they believe is corrupt and in their own way become corrupt themselves by not caring about the rules. Rap music can be transparently seen as a striking negative influence on today’s youth Just by listening to certain songs which praise violence and he use of drugs. Take rapper Wiz Kalmia for instance. This artist is a prime example of being a huge negative influence to today’s society by the extensive amount of marijuana use, portrayed within his lyrics.
The artist mentions marijuana in his songs and speaks about it in a positive way, speaking about the stimulating effects it has on him and almost making the drug sound ‘cool’ to the younger generation, making them think that smoking this drug is cool and acceptable as rapper Wiz Kalmia openly smokes it and mentions it. The number of drug references in rap music has raised six fold since the genre evolutionists pop music. Researchers who analyses the lyrics of hundreds of songs say rap has been transformed from one which warned against the dangers of drug coded, many parents are unaware what their children are listening to.
Here a few quotes from Denies Herd who led this study: “Positive portrayals of drug use have increased over time, and drug references increased overall,” “This is an alarming trend as rap artists are role models for the nation’s youth, especially in urban areas”. “Many of these young people are already at risk and need to get positive messages from the media. ” DRP Herd looked for blatant and hidden references to drugs in 341 of the most popular rap songs released between 1979, when the genre was in its infancy, and 1997. Each song was categorized in terms of its attitudes towards drug use and consequences.
The number of drug references increased 600 per cent over that time, while the number glorifying drugs also increased. The study found that drugs were increasingly used to signify glamour, wealth and sociability. “This indicates a shift from cautionary songs, such as those that emphasized the dangers of cocaine and crack, to songs that glorify the use of marijuana and other rugs as part of a desirable hip-hop lifestyle,” said DRP Herd. ‘This is alarming because young children are exposed to these messages. I don’t think this is a story we as a society want them to absorb. One of the first to get mainstream radio airplay in Britain was White Lines (Don’t Do It), released in 1983 by Grandmaster Melee Mel and the Furious Five, which warned of the dangers of cocaine. But nine years later DRP Dress 1992 gangs rap album The Chronic – regarded as one of the most influential hip-hop records of all time – was littered with drug references. The title is slang for cannabis, while the cover pays image to a brand of cigarette paper. The mid-sass saw the promotion of codeine- laced cough medicine abuse in lyrics from the underground rap genre known as Screw Music.
She urged parents to monitor their children’s listening and to educate themselves on the terms being used in popular songs. An earlier study by DRP Herd using the same lyrics concluded that alcohol use was also increasingly glorified. The current study finds that, in more recent rap songs, illegal drug and alcohol use are often paired. Recent songs with drug references were three times more likely to have homes related to glamour and wealth than earlier titles, and seven times more likely to emphasis drug use as recreation or as an accompaniment to sex.
There is also a trend for more recent songs to emphasis drug use as part of a criminal lifestyle. Without the youth being able to distinguish fantasy from reality rap music has turned the youth more violent, utterly disrespectful and it is teaching them that it’s kill someone over a minor disagreement. This can be heard on hundreds of raps songs which then influence younger generations and they take these lifestyles and incorporate it into their own life’s.