7 Reasons Why Rap Music Has Been Considered Bad For Black Children

7 Reasons Why Rap Music Has Been Considered Bad For Black Children

Rap music has emerged from the slums and entered the mainstream of popular culture thanks to its bold lyrics and synthesized claps and pops. African-Americans have discovered a potent form of cultural expression in rap music: rap’s hip aesthetic and rhythmic shouts complement the branding of goods like shoes and soft beverages. Rap should be utilized to advertise items to youngsters and teenagers as they are the primary consumers of rap music.

Black children are more likely than soldiers in battle to experience violence in their schools and neighborhoods. Due to these dangerous living conditions, black children are developing calloused attitudes about life at extremely young ages.

Black boys experience more suspensions, expulsions, arrests, fights, and violent fatalities than any other race (Jackson). Why? Why are African American children’s lives in grave danger, and why are African American communities so violent? Rap music is given the media blame for it. Is all the violence, drug usage, promiscuity, and other undesirable features in African American society caused by rap music?

Not just black folks listen to rap music. Rap music overtook country music in 2000 to become the third most popular music genre, and in 2002 it brought in $1.6 billion in revenue. These strong sales prove that rap music is now popular among all urban youngsters, not just those of color. It now permeates every aspect of popular culture. 70% of the 81 million rap music CDs, cassettes, and albums sold in 1998 were bought by White people (Au, Wayne).

How come there is less violence in white areas, and white children’s lives are not in danger than those of black children if rap appeals to white audiences as well? It’s crucial to assess its effects.

Reasons Why Rap Music Is Considered Bad

Rap music’s early admirers were mostly Black and Latino, but in the 1980s, the genre’s appeal grew significantly. Artists like Run DMC, LL Cool J, Salt N’ Pepa, and the Beastie Boys were well-known among White teenagers who lived outside the inner cities in addition to urban African Americans and Latinos. Rap music has a message, just like all other art forms, and rappers utilize it to spread that message to audiences. Many rappers shifted to political statements as rap music gained popularity, addressing issues like gang violence, police brutality, poverty, and racism. Here’s why rap music is a bad influence;

1. Gets Criticism In The Media

Rap music frequently faces criticism in the media. According to some critics, rap is to blame for the destructive behavior that young people exhibit nowadays. The media criticize rap lyrics for being graphic and focusing only on sex, money, drugs, and violence as subjects. Many rappers fight with one another and frequently rhyme about wanting to use violence to silence their foes.

Rappers take satisfaction in resorting to violence to resolve their conflicts; 50 Cent rose to fame after being revealed that he had been shot nine times. He wrote raps about the incident, was viewed as a gangster and amassed millions of dollars throughout his career. His rap career has been marked by several kinds of beef, often known as grudges, with other rappers, including Ja Rule, Fat Joe, Jadakiss, The Game, and Kanye West.

Beef may also be detrimental to rap since most rappers will only emphasize the beef-related aspects of their lyrics while ignoring the social justice-related aspects of poetry, which is where rap started.

2. Disrespectful For Women

Rappers frequently discuss their wealth and the number of ladies they attract; beef is one of the reasons for these themes. Rappers frequently refer to “some individual” in their rhymes, reminding them that they are more wealthy and have access to more ladies than they do. Rap has come under fire for using its lyrics and music videos to denigrate women.

In music, insulting terms for women are frequently used, while most music videos feature half-naked women dancing sensually. Rap music is not the only genre to contain strong language and sexual content.

3. Framing

How does the media convince viewers that rap is harmful? One of the methods I stated above is ignoring the positive aspects of rap and concentrating exclusively on the downsides. Another method is through the framing process.

According to Amy Binder, frames and frameworks are “schemata of interpretation that enable individuals to locate, perceive, identify, and label” events they have experienced directly or indirectly. She wrote the article Constructing Racial Rhetoric: Media Depictions of Harm in Heavy Metal and Rap Music. Because they arrange events into identifiable patterns and assist people in understanding what actions they may next take in light of these events, frames assist receivers in making sense of social happenings.

The corruption frame, risk to society frame, generational gap frame, and threat to authority frame are a few examples of frameworks that the media frequently use. The media use these narratives to convince listeners that rap music is subpar.

For instance, the concept of the generation divide was utilized at the Senate hearing and after that to highlight how censorship, parental fear, and vulgarity are all age-old issues and how parental fury about music lyrics is indicative of this disparity.

4. Influence on Culture

Rap music’s lyrics can potentially promote a society of easy money, drugs, women, and violence. Rap music has a greater impact on African American men than any other group because, according to a study, they listen to it more often. According to research by Kuwahara, 29.7% of Black college students and 13.3% of them listen to rap often. Kuwahara also discovered that black males preferred it more than black women.

The media criticize rap music for bad influencing young people because most rap audiences are between 18 and 20. According to research by Teenage Research Unlimited, 58% of those under 18 and 59% of those between the ages of 18 and 20 enjoyed or appreciated rap.

The research also revealed that 12- to 19-year-olds thought various hip-hop-related fashion trends were “in.” Baggy clothing was deemed to be in by 78% of teenagers, pro sports gear by 76%, and hooded sweatshirts by 69%.

According to the author, rap has increased demand for White fashion houses like Tommy Hilfiger and DKNY. Additionally, Whites may now interact with Blacks through fashion without meeting them face to face.

5. All About Materialistic Things

Rappers frequently boast about their wealth in their music videos, where they may be seen driving flashy sports vehicles, wearing plenty of pricey jewelry, and living in huge houses.

Most of the young people who view these music videos live in underprivileged neighborhoods where violence is rampant, which is highly tempting to them. Who would want to attend a school where they had to walk through a metal detector every morning? They cannot attend because they are worried that a fight might start during class.

These young adults are surrounded by poverty, and most live with just their moms because their fathers were either absent or in prison when they were growing up. As they look at them, the only success they see is when males traffic in women or sell drugs.

6. Promotes Violence

When someone with nothing in their wallet observes how much money a drug dealer or a pimp is making and how quickly, they will also flourish for that lifestyle.

They only hear rappers glorifying gangsters and dealers when they listen to rap music, and most rappers claim that they were once pimps or dealers themselves. Since it is the only example of success to which those young adults are exposed, it seems they would desire that lifestyle. Because they are already terrified to enter their high schools due to violence, black young adults will never be able to envision attending college.

7. Negative

Most of these young people are so confident that they won’t be around to see the age of 23 that they don’t even consider it. Most rappers are born into these harsh living situations for young African Americans.

So, when they leave those situations and write the most horrific lyrics, are they just trying to send the world some negative, violent messages, or are they telling the stories of the many young African Americans living these horrible lives through the art of rap?

Even though it seems violent and depressing to us, to them, it’s simply another poem about another day in their lives. That kind of negative impact rap music has had on black children.

Final Word

Rap music features many violent scenes and often discusses drugs, but it is not its sole aspect. Rap music is an art; most instructors utilize it to teach literary strategies and advance students’ reading abilities.

Rap music undoubtedly has drawbacks, such as its denigration of women, which must be corrected. According to the NAACP, they reject any language, music, or visual representation that uses the most filthy obscenities and vulgarities to insult, demean, and belittle African-American women. We also denounce those who force budding African-American musicians and artists to utilize vulgar and offensive language in their works.