Rap Music Influence On Society Analysis
Daniel Music and its Deception Year after year various artists release new music. With every new year comes more and more aggressive and provocative music than the previous year. In today’s culture and society we find youth rebelling, choosing a less successful route to pursue. In the blog “Music and the Influence on Society” by Kandi, she states that music doesn’t have a direct influence on today’s violence or teen behavior. Whether music is a direct or indirect factor, it is obvious that music is present in our everyday lives and it can influence us to some extent. But how much does it affect society? Specifically rap music, rap music’s influence on today’s society has a negative connation: it promotes negative behavior, violence
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and reckless attitudes. Music is inevitable, it is playing constantly at coffee shops, or clothing stores, and booming out of earphones. What type of music society listens to determines what kind of choices and behaviors they partake in. Music is not the only factor that has an influence on today’s culture, but the things we watch, the groups we hang around with (“HubPages”). All these things come in to play when we’re talking about what molded you to be the person you are today. But how much of an effect does music have on our lives? Very slim? Possibly, but it is evident that music is becoming more and more influential to teens as we progress as a society. Our culture today is confused and trying to find themselves in other peoples’ lives. Many teens seek their personal identity in things such as television, friends, and first and foremost, artists. One cannot fathom how easily accessible music is to everyone. A couple years ago people walked around with CD players, now a high number of people have a form of an MP3 player. Mainly the ones who have these devices are teens. The article “Under the Influence… of Music?” describes a study conducted about the influence of music. One of the outcomes of the study was that “nearly 9 out of 10 adolescents and teens have an MP3 player or a compact disc player in their bedrooms ”(Parker-Pope), when music is that accessible it’s easy for someone to become stuck in a rut and begin to be molded by music. When something is repeated to an individual, eventually that individual will begin to believe it. The teenagers that have this access to music can be molded and is being molded by what they listen to. Rap music is negative, when society thinks of rap the mental image that comes up is of a gangster, for lack of better terms. It would be subjective to say that every teen that has an MP3 player is influenced negatively, but what is evident is that there is a higher rate of teens being exposed to music that promotes drugs, alcohol, sex and violence as a norm.
The blog “Music and the influence on society” by Kandi, describes that parents and society are trying to blame music and its content for the negative behavior that their sons and daughters participate in. Kandi makes the point that society is wrong in doing so because the environment and the culture the teens grow up in play a role in the conduct of their children (“HubPages”). Music has a lot more influence than one wants to believe and admit. Rap Music can be destructive, yes rap music may have a comely beat to it and may want to make you move your head, but it can ultimately invade your morals and your very judgment on what is wrong and right. Society may not realize it, but propinquity to violence takes place in their lives when they listen to music with lyrics that promote this negative behavior. Lyrics such as:
“This is how we used to make the party start, We used to mix Hen ' with Bacardi Dark” -Eminem (Drug Ballard) Clearly show that the “good life” was back in the day when they would get drunk and mix drinks, promoting negative attitudes and behavior in teens. When teenagers indulge their thoughts in these types of lyrics they begin to want what the artist is doing or describing. Some teens try to find themselves in music and find comfort in lyrics. A lot of times teens can easily relate because the artist sings about something they may have gone through and quickly they adapt it to their lives. Teenagers begin to resolve their problems with the same behavior the artists participated in. It is easy to drink and indulge in this behavior; this behavior then can possibly lead to violence. Liquor is unpredictable because it affects people differently so much that it is linked to violence. Rap music has a catalyst effect on behavior that can lead to negative behavior.
Parker-Pope states in his article “Under the Influence of…Music?” that teens tend to spend at least two and a half hours of the day listening to music.
“One in three popular songs contains explicit references to drug or alcohol use, according to a new report in The Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine” (Paker-Pope), which means they are receiving about thirty-five references to substance use a hour (Parker-Pope). Of course that doesn’t mean that everyone is listening to music with foul language and references to drug and alcohol, but it does limit the amount of music that one can listen to that doesn’t have a reference to substance abuse. With that many references, it is nearly impossible for Kandi, Author of “Music and the Influence on Society”, to say that music has no influence on today’s culture. When it is evident in statistics that violence has increased in the last couple of years, now is music directly correlate to this? Maybe not but it may have an indirect effect that society turns a blind eye too. The longer a steak is marinated in the mixture of spices and sauces the more flavor it receives from the mixture, it begins to take on the aroma of the spices and flavor. The point of the analogy is that our brain acts like a sponge. Whatever we ‘marinate’ the brain with is what it will begin to unravel. If teenagers expose themselves to vulgar rap music then it will become a part of their thoughts, they will begin to give off the aroma of rap
music.
Rap Music’s influence on teens is much more common than people would like to admit. In today’s culture it is socially acceptable to speak recklessly and get involved in alcohol consumption at such a young age. It is also acceptable to rebel and become “independent”. Many teens misinterpret what songs mean and end up twisting it to mean what they want to hear. The song called “The motto” by Drake is a clear example of this. In this song the rapper Drake raps about living your life at a young age and having no regrets:
“You only live once: that 's the motto, nigga, YOLO And we bout it every day, every day, every day Like we sittin on the bench, nigga, we don 't really play Every day, every day, f* what anybody say Can 't see 'em cause the money in the way, real nigga, what 's up?”.
-Drake (“The Motto”)
This song was extremely popular to teens and had this song on a constant replay. As it blasted from earphone to earphone the teens repeated it and cited it. “Every day, every day, every day” (Drake), why is this phrase repeated? To flow with the beat of the song? Perhaps but the effect it has on teenagers is that this reckless attitude becomes an everyday thing. This song was used time in and time out to justify reckless behavior. Teens would quickly recite the lyrics, they would twist the words around an use it to their own benefit. The term “YOLO”, stands for You Only Live Once, now to teens this meant do something reckless, because there is a limited time in our life. Throughout Drake’s song, he promotes a life of self indulgence and reckless behavior. The part of the song that says “F* what anybody say…” provokes a life of not caring and doing whatever comes to mind. But truly what effect does it have? Teens look up to this artist because they pick up this music at a young age and a lot of the time they want a role model. Drake isn’t the ideal role model, but since he is successful they adapt his life to theirs and assume they will be like him if they walk and talk like this man. Music has an extreme influence on adolescents and their behavior. Rap music has an effect on how kids perceive the world. Since many of these artists have a high position and are in the media quite often, young adults find it easy to follow what they do or say. Kandi, author of the blog “Music and the Influence on society”, states that rappers rap about what they’ve been through, but if that was true then most of their raps would be in past tense, but like Drake many rappers, rap as if they are doing it or going to do it. Kandi claims that society cannot blame music because “rap music doesn’t influence bad actions, but reflects it”(“HubPages”). That may be so but ultimately they are role models to a large portion of the teen population. Rap is not the only genre of music that exploits these themes of ‘bad actions’, it can vary from rap to rock. Rock in its nature is aggressive, and can also be seen as “negative music” because of what it promotes. With these vast genres, that together cover a larger portion of the population, one can classify teens. In almost every social setting you’ll find “cliques”. Cliques that are formed by what type of music you listen to, says Kandi. I agree with that statement and with these classifications come certain behaviors that can cause tension between cliques. It is not very often that you find the rap kids mixing with the rock kids, but what you do fine is a certain level of disrespect between these two groups. The music that each group listens to promotes this behavior by causing the listener to feel more elevated than other people. Or this can be translated to a reckless attitude.
Music is everywhere and no one can escape it. Everyone chooses what type of music to listen to,and everyone has created that favorite playlist to listen to on the way to work or school. Or that gym playlist that pumps us up, even a playlist to do homework. But the majority of the time we listen to the popular music that is mainstream. The new album from Kendrick Lamar, a rising and influential rapper, was released and everyone jumps on it and quickly adapts the lyrics to their life as if they have used them before. It is so easy to relate to music because a lot of the time artists incorporate topics into their music that their fans can relate to. When people can relate to things that’s when there is an impact, and the listener then can easily be influenced. A sense of kinship grows and they begin to bob their heads to the beat and soon they are reciting the lyrics. It is more than just reciting the lyrics, the listener begins to apply the artists thoughts and mistaken the artists thoughts for theirs.
“The study authors noted that music represents a pervasive source of exposure to positive images of substance use” (Parker-Pope) that can lead to confusion. Teens today are more confused than ever. They grow up seeing a pop-culture full of abnormalities, and take it for a norm. Teens take in these images at a young age and reveal them at a later age. The reason for this is because at a young age adolescents are still under the rules of their parents, but as they age these rules disintegrate and the parents become liberal. Parents become liberal in the sense that they begin to allow the teens to make their own choices. The parents no longer check their iPods or phone and stop caring about what their children are exposed to. They no longer take the initiative to tell their children to not listen to certain artists. When this happens the teenager get a mixed message, they become even more confused. At one point in their lives their parents monitor what they are exposed to and tell them what is acceptable and what is not. Then a couple of years later they stop worrying and the children are now listening to music with negative conations.
Once the teens grow into their own personalities they show their ‘true’ colors, or the colors of the artists and music they listen to. Then society looks down at this class of kids because they are the ‘problem’, when really they are not to blame. The musicians are to blame for allowing that type of music to be released, they are aware of what they put in their lyrics. Music is progressively becoming more aggressive and raw. In the last decade alone so much has happened that society cannot blame the individual for the code of conduct. But better yet society should recognize that we are all to blame. Society accepts this music as well and allows young children to listen to it and soon they are regretting it.
This phenomenon of music changing ones attitude seemed elusive, so I conducted an informal study. My study was composed of interviews with various ASU students. My first interviewee was Allie Olson. I asked her
Me: “Does rap music have a negative effect on your attitude?”
“Before ASU I never listened to rap or used foul language. Now I listen to it daily and have found myself using foul language in my every day conversations. So yea, rap has changed my attitude now that I think about it.”- Allie Olson.
I decided to ask two more students asking the same question, “Does rap music have a negative effect on your attitude?”
“I have listened to rap all my life, as a result I can honestly say that I am reckless and have disrespectful use of words. But in all honesty I don’t really care.” –Jake Hyde.
“Rap music isn’t that big of a deal for me, but I do see how rap music can have a bad influence. Like rappers are so raw and sometimes can be a bit to raw that they expose teens to things that they shouldn’t have. Maybe they would have been exposed to that regardless but the thing is their music is what exposed them to it.” – Dustin Lacy
These three students admitted to rap music having an influence on behavior. Two of them admitted that rap music affected them directly and Lacy stated that he can see how it can effect teens.
Pop-culture has evolved to become influential to all ages. People from all ages are having more accessibility to music. Music is much more convenient to obtain, and it is up to each individual to choose what style of music to listen to. Even if one decides to not listen to rap there are other ways to get exposed to aggressive music. Rap music is the backbone to the reckless behavior that teenagers are indulging in today. It is a disease that is incurable because of its tenacity to expose teenagers to negative behavior. Music is one of the biggest industries in the world, everyone listens to music and what they listen to matters. Teens will continue to listen to rap music and be molded by it. Whether society likes it or not it will continue to happen and it is a growing problem in this generation, a problem that will cause future generations to become vulgar and disruptive to society.
Bibliography
"Music and the Influnce on Society." HubPages. N.p., 2009. Web. 3 Nov. 2013. .
Parker-Pope, Tara. "Under the influence...of Music?." New York Times 05 02 2005, n. pag. Print. .
Eminem. Drug Ballard. Eight Mile style music, 2001. CD.
Drake, The Motto. T-Minus, 2012. CD.
and reckless attitudes. Music is inevitable, it is playing constantly at coffee shops, or clothing stores, and booming out of earphones. What type of music society listens to determines what kind of choices and behaviors they partake in. Music is not the only factor that has an influence on today’s culture, but the things we watch, the groups we hang around with (“HubPages”). All these things come in to play when we’re talking about what molded you to be the person you are today. But how much of an effect does music have on our lives? Very slim? Possibly, but it is evident that music is becoming more and more influential to teens as we progress as a society. Our culture today is confused and trying to find themselves in other peoples’ lives. Many teens seek their personal identity in things such as television, friends, and first and foremost, artists. One cannot fathom how easily accessible music is to everyone. A couple years ago people walked around with CD players, now a high number of people have a form of an MP3 player. Mainly the ones who have these devices are teens. The article “Under the Influence… of Music?” describes a study conducted about the influence of music. One of the outcomes of the study was that “nearly 9 out of 10 adolescents and teens have an MP3 player or a compact disc player in their bedrooms ”(Parker-Pope), when music is that accessible it’s easy for someone to become stuck in a rut and begin to be molded by music. When something is repeated to an individual, eventually that individual will begin to believe it. The teenagers that have this access to music can be molded and is being molded by what they listen to. Rap music is negative, when society thinks of rap the mental image that comes up is of a gangster, for lack of better terms. It would be subjective to say that every teen that has an MP3 player is influenced negatively, but what is evident is that there is a higher rate of teens being exposed to music that promotes drugs, alcohol, sex and violence as a norm.
The blog “Music and the influence on society” by Kandi, describes that parents and society are trying to blame music and its content for the negative behavior that their sons and daughters participate in. Kandi makes the point that society is wrong in doing so because the environment and the culture the teens grow up in play a role in the conduct of their children (“HubPages”). Music has a lot more influence than one wants to believe and admit. Rap Music can be destructive, yes rap music may have a comely beat to it and may want to make you move your head, but it can ultimately invade your morals and your very judgment on what is wrong and right. Society may not realize it, but propinquity to violence takes place in their lives when they listen to music with lyrics that promote this negative behavior. Lyrics such as:
“This is how we used to make the party start, We used to mix Hen ' with Bacardi Dark” -Eminem (Drug Ballard) Clearly show that the “good life” was back in the day when they would get drunk and mix drinks, promoting negative attitudes and behavior in teens. When teenagers indulge their thoughts in these types of lyrics they begin to want what the artist is doing or describing. Some teens try to find themselves in music and find comfort in lyrics. A lot of times teens can easily relate because the artist sings about something they may have gone through and quickly they adapt it to their lives. Teenagers begin to resolve their problems with the same behavior the artists participated in. It is easy to drink and indulge in this behavior; this behavior then can possibly lead to violence. Liquor is unpredictable because it affects people differently so much that it is linked to violence. Rap music has a catalyst effect on behavior that can lead to negative behavior.
Parker-Pope states in his article “Under the Influence of…Music?” that teens tend to spend at least two and a half hours of the day listening to music.
“One in three popular songs contains explicit references to drug or alcohol use, according to a new report in The Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine” (Paker-Pope), which means they are receiving about thirty-five references to substance use a hour (Parker-Pope). Of course that doesn’t mean that everyone is listening to music with foul language and references to drug and alcohol, but it does limit the amount of music that one can listen to that doesn’t have a reference to substance abuse. With that many references, it is nearly impossible for Kandi, Author of “Music and the Influence on Society”, to say that music has no influence on today’s culture. When it is evident in statistics that violence has increased in the last couple of years, now is music directly correlate to this? Maybe not but it may have an indirect effect that society turns a blind eye too. The longer a steak is marinated in the mixture of spices and sauces the more flavor it receives from the mixture, it begins to take on the aroma of the spices and flavor. The point of the analogy is that our brain acts like a sponge. Whatever we ‘marinate’ the brain with is what it will begin to unravel. If teenagers expose themselves to vulgar rap music then it will become a part of their thoughts, they will begin to give off the aroma of rap
music.
Rap Music’s influence on teens is much more common than people would like to admit. In today’s culture it is socially acceptable to speak recklessly and get involved in alcohol consumption at such a young age. It is also acceptable to rebel and become “independent”. Many teens misinterpret what songs mean and end up twisting it to mean what they want to hear. The song called “The motto” by Drake is a clear example of this. In this song the rapper Drake raps about living your life at a young age and having no regrets:
“You only live once: that 's the motto, nigga, YOLO And we bout it every day, every day, every day Like we sittin on the bench, nigga, we don 't really play Every day, every day, f* what anybody say Can 't see 'em cause the money in the way, real nigga, what 's up?”.
-Drake (“The Motto”)
This song was extremely popular to teens and had this song on a constant replay. As it blasted from earphone to earphone the teens repeated it and cited it. “Every day, every day, every day” (Drake), why is this phrase repeated? To flow with the beat of the song? Perhaps but the effect it has on teenagers is that this reckless attitude becomes an everyday thing. This song was used time in and time out to justify reckless behavior. Teens would quickly recite the lyrics, they would twist the words around an use it to their own benefit. The term “YOLO”, stands for You Only Live Once, now to teens this meant do something reckless, because there is a limited time in our life. Throughout Drake’s song, he promotes a life of self indulgence and reckless behavior. The part of the song that says “F* what anybody say…” provokes a life of not caring and doing whatever comes to mind. But truly what effect does it have? Teens look up to this artist because they pick up this music at a young age and a lot of the time they want a role model. Drake isn’t the ideal role model, but since he is successful they adapt his life to theirs and assume they will be like him if they walk and talk like this man. Music has an extreme influence on adolescents and their behavior. Rap music has an effect on how kids perceive the world. Since many of these artists have a high position and are in the media quite often, young adults find it easy to follow what they do or say. Kandi, author of the blog “Music and the Influence on society”, states that rappers rap about what they’ve been through, but if that was true then most of their raps would be in past tense, but like Drake many rappers, rap as if they are doing it or going to do it. Kandi claims that society cannot blame music because “rap music doesn’t influence bad actions, but reflects it”(“HubPages”). That may be so but ultimately they are role models to a large portion of the teen population. Rap is not the only genre of music that exploits these themes of ‘bad actions’, it can vary from rap to rock. Rock in its nature is aggressive, and can also be seen as “negative music” because of what it promotes. With these vast genres, that together cover a larger portion of the population, one can classify teens. In almost every social setting you’ll find “cliques”. Cliques that are formed by what type of music you listen to, says Kandi. I agree with that statement and with these classifications come certain behaviors that can cause tension between cliques. It is not very often that you find the rap kids mixing with the rock kids, but what you do fine is a certain level of disrespect between these two groups. The music that each group listens to promotes this behavior by causing the listener to feel more elevated than other people. Or this can be translated to a reckless attitude.
Music is everywhere and no one can escape it. Everyone chooses what type of music to listen to,and everyone has created that favorite playlist to listen to on the way to work or school. Or that gym playlist that pumps us up, even a playlist to do homework. But the majority of the time we listen to the popular music that is mainstream. The new album from Kendrick Lamar, a rising and influential rapper, was released and everyone jumps on it and quickly adapts the lyrics to their life as if they have used them before. It is so easy to relate to music because a lot of the time artists incorporate topics into their music that their fans can relate to. When people can relate to things that’s when there is an impact, and the listener then can easily be influenced. A sense of kinship grows and they begin to bob their heads to the beat and soon they are reciting the lyrics. It is more than just reciting the lyrics, the listener begins to apply the artists thoughts and mistaken the artists thoughts for theirs.
“The study authors noted that music represents a pervasive source of exposure to positive images of substance use” (Parker-Pope) that can lead to confusion. Teens today are more confused than ever. They grow up seeing a pop-culture full of abnormalities, and take it for a norm. Teens take in these images at a young age and reveal them at a later age. The reason for this is because at a young age adolescents are still under the rules of their parents, but as they age these rules disintegrate and the parents become liberal. Parents become liberal in the sense that they begin to allow the teens to make their own choices. The parents no longer check their iPods or phone and stop caring about what their children are exposed to. They no longer take the initiative to tell their children to not listen to certain artists. When this happens the teenager get a mixed message, they become even more confused. At one point in their lives their parents monitor what they are exposed to and tell them what is acceptable and what is not. Then a couple of years later they stop worrying and the children are now listening to music with negative conations.
Once the teens grow into their own personalities they show their ‘true’ colors, or the colors of the artists and music they listen to. Then society looks down at this class of kids because they are the ‘problem’, when really they are not to blame. The musicians are to blame for allowing that type of music to be released, they are aware of what they put in their lyrics. Music is progressively becoming more aggressive and raw. In the last decade alone so much has happened that society cannot blame the individual for the code of conduct. But better yet society should recognize that we are all to blame. Society accepts this music as well and allows young children to listen to it and soon they are regretting it.
This phenomenon of music changing ones attitude seemed elusive, so I conducted an informal study. My study was composed of interviews with various ASU students. My first interviewee was Allie Olson. I asked her
Me: “Does rap music have a negative effect on your attitude?”
“Before ASU I never listened to rap or used foul language. Now I listen to it daily and have found myself using foul language in my every day conversations. So yea, rap has changed my attitude now that I think about it.”- Allie Olson.
I decided to ask two more students asking the same question, “Does rap music have a negative effect on your attitude?”
“I have listened to rap all my life, as a result I can honestly say that I am reckless and have disrespectful use of words. But in all honesty I don’t really care.” –Jake Hyde.
“Rap music isn’t that big of a deal for me, but I do see how rap music can have a bad influence. Like rappers are so raw and sometimes can be a bit to raw that they expose teens to things that they shouldn’t have. Maybe they would have been exposed to that regardless but the thing is their music is what exposed them to it.” – Dustin Lacy
These three students admitted to rap music having an influence on behavior. Two of them admitted that rap music affected them directly and Lacy stated that he can see how it can effect teens.
Pop-culture has evolved to become influential to all ages. People from all ages are having more accessibility to music. Music is much more convenient to obtain, and it is up to each individual to choose what style of music to listen to. Even if one decides to not listen to rap there are other ways to get exposed to aggressive music. Rap music is the backbone to the reckless behavior that teenagers are indulging in today. It is a disease that is incurable because of its tenacity to expose teenagers to negative behavior. Music is one of the biggest industries in the world, everyone listens to music and what they listen to matters. Teens will continue to listen to rap music and be molded by it. Whether society likes it or not it will continue to happen and it is a growing problem in this generation, a problem that will cause future generations to become vulgar and disruptive to society.
Bibliography
"Music and the Influnce on Society." HubPages. N.p., 2009. Web. 3 Nov. 2013. .
Parker-Pope, Tara. "Under the influence...of Music?." New York Times 05 02 2005, n. pag. Print. .
Eminem. Drug Ballard. Eight Mile style music, 2001. CD.
Drake, The Motto. T-Minus, 2012. CD.