Censorship Of Rap Music

Rap music has long influenced society, and teens more so. Young adults draw influence from these songs, which often glorify the wrong moral things. Whether it is drugs, violence, or just unethical decisions, rap music seems to cover all of those topics while encouraging it. This alarms many parents, giving reason to call for change. In order to create change, inappropriate music must be restricted from media outlets, giving the youth no chance to listen to it, thus want to idolize it. Furthermore, artists of the music need to come together to use their social influence to create music that matters, music that mirrors the importance of past black cultured music. Effectively changing the ideas of current hip hop, while still maintaining the catchy

Beginning from black roots, even white communities are beginning to submerge into rap music and culture, consequently surfacing more behavior that parallels to the inappropriate lyrics in rap. In the black community alone, “Reports indicate that 97 percent of Black youth like rap music and more than 50 percent buy [the music]” (Elligan). Given this statistic, it is alarming to many to know that in 97% of the ears of the black youth are, for the most part, lyrics that are impairing the moral compass of the listener. When this many adolescents find their way to hear this type of music, the content will inevitably permeate into their decisions, which is the effect of the music. What the public comes out to see are teenagers beginning to do drugs at an early age, abandon school for the wrong milieu, or other activities that some rap preaches. A reason so many inner city kids are attracted to this music is not only the catchy tunes the songs often have, but also rather the relatable stories they empathize to, given many rappers began an inner city kid themselves. These young people see similarities in themselves when they hear the music (Elligan). Therefore, relating to some of the struggles in the music gives young adults reason to also practice other activities spoken about, and this reason seems immutable. This cyclical idolatry to the idea of these rappers is what festers in the communities, giving off a general behavior

If certain music preaches for violent affairs in any way, it shouldn’t be permitted. Now, this isn’t taking a naïve approach and saying all music has to be hallow, it is just saying that songs glorifying terrible morals shouldn’t be allowed. When you have gangs preaching and spreading gang violence in music, it has an impact on listeners (Hoag). This, for example, encourages the idea of gangs in adolescence, something that cannot happen. In fact,

“Gangs are becoming more technologically sophisticated, using the Internet to extend their reach and social media to recruit members. Gangs also are no longer just a big-city scourge. They are turning up in smaller cities, suburbs and even rural areas, where they are committing the same kinds of violent acts traditionally confined to urban cores. And gangs are becoming harder for police to detect because some are shunning such traditional gang markers as distinctive clothing colors, tattoos and hand signals” (Hoag).

Therefore, a simple change like restricting the content of the music that is released to the main media sources and outlets will not be impalpable, but instead be a valid