Does Rap Music Influence Teens or Merely Mirror the Culture That Our Society Has Created?

Today’s rap music is filled with lyrical themes involving explicit male power fantasies of wealth, sexual dominance, and killings. This poses a major question that I would like to ask my readers. Does rap music influence teens or merely mirror the culture that our society has created?

It is an incredibly difficult subject to answer, as both are engaged in a vicious cycle.  Both youth and hip hop feed each other equally. Our music as a people has always been a reflection of what we were experiencing in our lives. We created Gospel music in order to give us HOPE in a time of Hopelessness. It allowed us to spiritually release our problems to a perceived higher power. We created the Blues so that our pain and suffering could be shared with others in order to find comfort and understanding during turbulent times. During the sixties and early seventies we started to experience a conscious awakening and it was reflected in our music. Our voice was becoming strong and confidant. No longer were we singing about depression or our downtrodden state. We began to sing about pride, identity and social awareness.

The hottest songs on the charts were the likes of, “Say it loud-I’m Black and I’m Proud” by James Brown and “Makes me Wanna Holler” by Marvin Gaye. This NEW direction of power through music did not go unnoticed by those who would seek to see us docile and weak. Ironically, Heroin was immediately introduced to Urban communities across the country and with lightning speed, our collective conscious movement abruptly ended. The negative intent and outcome was purely strategic. Our music then began to change once more as it reflected our Heroin based realities. The new sound was Funky and Exploitive. Our once socially conscious and political sound was replaced by the sounds of what was being experienced on the streets once the dope was introduced to us as we began to embrace our new drug culture.

In essence, our music has always been our voice and our expression of survival. Twenty years after heroin had literally devastated the urban community and the black family, our fatherless youth began to wake up and find their voices once more. The new voice of the youth came in the form of Hip Hop. In its origin, Hip Hop promoted social and political awareness as well as unity which mirrored the confidence and pride of the sounds of the late sixties. I can proudly say that I was a part of that movement… but once again, our social awakening was halted by massive amounts of drugs being flooded into our communities, this time in the form of Rock Cocaine (Crack).

Hip hop was quickly replaced by Dope Boy / Gangster rap which embraced materialism, the degradation of our women and the exploitation of our weak. I can regretfully say that I was also a part of this movement as well. This form of music has been the reflection of what has taken place in the urban community for the past twenty plus years. Much of the current Rap music lacks accountability and responsibility because it is simply a reflection of the current state of our youth. What we are currently hearing in the form of urban music is the product of at least two generations of fatherless youth. Years ago, a young gang banger (HK from IFG Bloods) once told me that there is no right or wrong way to survive…. His profound statement still strikes a nerve with me to this day because it forces me to not look at the negative aspects of our music but to really analyze where the music is coming from and why so many of our youth gravitate to it. If you really listen, there is a subtle hopelessness in every materialistic or self degrading verse that you hear.

Most of today’s fatherless youth simply want to survive or mask the pain that the struggles of society has placed in front of them. If the Public School system has failed them, if the Judicial/ Prison system has had their fathers, if the government assistance system has their mothers and the Church system has their grandmothers…. That leaves today’s youth lost, disenfranchised and only seeking INSTANT gratification. A drug addict simply wants to escape reality and be happy . A Dope Boy simply wants to escape poverty and be happy. A gang banger simply wants to find unity and brotherhood and be happy. All of the previously mentioned are simply products of a desperate culture. Why are we so quick to judge the music of today’s youth without addressing the current state of the urban community? We are quick to place blame on the Racist record labels for promoting negative imagery and stereotypes but we are slow to reflect upon ourselves and how we are failing the youth by our inactions. The harsh reality is that black people are a lost nation within a nation.

It is hard for our youth to view themselves from their proper cultural perspective because their would-be teachers have been strategically taken away. Our youth are forced to view themselves as they might be ‘perceived’ by the very system which has strategically placed them in their negative condition. Pop culture/ Mass Media has chosen to uplift all that would serve to destroy the Black family structure in opposed to uplifting it. Promiscuous, money hungry, (I don’t need a man) images of our women are spoon fed to our poverty stricken daughters while criminality and violence are forced fed to our ghetto sons in reality as well as through music. We are in no position as a community to sit back and pass judgment on the Youth of today and shake our heads in disgust at what we perceive as unconscious and uncaring youth… for they are only a product of a failed generation that preceded them. This is why we as a conscious community must combine our efforts on all levels to combat this lower vibration that many of our youth are currently operating on.

The quietest kept secret is that…OUR youth possess the power to change the world.

The youth of TODAY are our HOPE for TOMORROW.

Imagine the possibilities

I am but one strong tree, may the winds of my ancestors allow me to spread seeds of knowledge far and wide.

This is my Brave Heart… These are my Brave Words

Warmest Regards,
BraveHeart101

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Twenty4Seven Magazine Twenty4Seven Magazine is a monthly digital and quarterly print publication founded in 2009. Though we cover a little bit of everything, our primary focus is urban entertainment and lifestyle.

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