Good Essay On Effects Of The Lyrics Of Rap Music On American Society

Rap music is the hallmark of popular American culture. Most American youths can identify with rap music and rap musicians with considerable ease. Questions have therefore arisen on the extent to which the lyrics of rap music influence the American society. From the face of it, one can conclude, without a second thought, that rap music influences the Americans in a great way. Bu this, if not supported by concrete research findings is nothing more than an opinion. I am going to look at the work of two researchers, Gretchen Cundiff and Anthony Giavacchini on this topic.
Giavacchini, in his paper titled The Negative Influence of Gangster Rap and What Can Be Done About It, explores the effects that rap music has had on the American society since the 1980s when that genre of music sprung to popularity in the United States. He writes that rap music was molded around negative themes that corrupted and eroded societal morals in many ways. He writes that the lyrics written and sang by such artists as Schooly D and rap group N.W.A contained themes such as violence, gangs, guns and sexism (Giavacchini 1). Though this type of music, which was also perfected by Dr. Dre, Snoop Dog and Tupac Shakur, was an instant hit with the youths, they contributed immensely to the increase of violence and other social ills in the society as the youths were inspired by their lyrics.
Gretchen also makes similar findings in his paper The Influence of Rap and Hip-Hop Music: An Analysis on Audience Perceptions of Misogynistic Lyrics. He submits that misogynistic content of rap music immensely influences the attitude of American youths, including how they treat women (Gretchen 44).
The two writers therefore make the common conclusion that rap music lyrics have had adverse effects on the American society.

Work Cited

Giavacchini, Anthony, The Negative Influence of Gangster Rap And What Can Be Done About It. EDGE, 1999. Retrieved from https://web.stanford.edu/class/e297c/poverty_prejudice/
mediarace/negative.htm on 25th March 2015.
Cundiff, Gretchen, “The Influence of Rap and Hip-Hop Music: An Analysis on Audience Perceptions of Misogynistic Lyrics” Elon Journal of Undergraduate Research in Communications, 2013, Vol. 4 No. 1