Whenever we listen to rap music, we tend to
think of the rapper as African American. One reason we see it in this way is
because of the media that portrayed it. A lot of people think that African
American has a superior music talent over other people because they can rap and
create rhythm through different sounds. After reading the article Who’s Afraid of Rap: Differential Reactions
to Music Lyrics by Carrie B. Fried, I realized that there is significant
bias when choosing from rap music or country music by their reactions on the
music lyrics. As stayed in the article, Binder (1993) noted that “more
specifically, the press has focused primarily on rap music being harmful to
society and being responsible for increased rates of murder and violent crime”.
From this statement, I can conclude that the press is the key component that
leads the audience to think why rap music has such an affect to them. Even though,
listening to rap music may increased the audiences’ believes that it has a
negative effect, it presented an alternative type of music to the public. Moreover,
the study by Fried also gives a validate research answer to show that there are
biases between different types of music. Even though, violent themes happened
among all types of music, rap music appeared the most while focusing on violence. My last question regarding about this issue is how do we determine if
a certain song affect on our daily life in terms of different genre of music?
That's a great question. I often find myself wondering why the rap genre specifically gets targeted for so much controversy regarding lyrical content when rock n' roll artists have been using music as a method of free speech and protest since the 1960s. I think this pertains to what we talked about in class: music with extensive history has become socially accepted which means controversial content may be overlooked. Since rap, though not a new form, has become mainstream much after classic rock and folk, members of society may perceive it to be an art form going against societal norms with a historic background, thus, making people more inclined to criticize it.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Matt that some contents may be overlooked in terms of listening to different types of music. I think rap music has much controversy because of the lyrics within the song and how it is being portrayed by the media. Even though different biases come from different types of music, it deeply takes a part in people's perception as to see if the song is education or not. As the trend of music keeps changing, our judgement also changes easily and to understand which music affect our daily life. To some people, music plays an important role in their life and it is crucial for them to understand the lyric and how to take a part of it.
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