I really liked the reading by Carrie B Fried, Who's Afraid of Rap: Differential Reactions to Music Lyrics, because she makes a lot of really valid points that I most certainly had thought about before reading this article for class. Her argument centered around the public outcry against violent lyrics in rap songs. I thought it was really interesting that she compared rap lyrics with country lyrics. I never thought of country music as particularly violent until I read this for class. I agree that there is a subtle racism occurring against rap music. The "media" portrays young Black males as violent figures and this is transferred onto rap. My question is though, why music with violent lyrics made by young White males gets a pass by society? In high school, and I hate to admit this, I was one of those little scene queens full of teen angst (why I ask myself, why). I would listen to a type of music known as screamo and in all honesty it has way more violent lyrics than most rap songs. Violence in rap songs is centered around gang rivalries and "popping caps" in people, but the violence in screamo music is incredibly more graphic and quite frankly disturbing at times. A song that really exemplifies this is, "Welcome to Sludge City" by Annotations of an Autopsy. This songs lyrics, if you look them up, are insanely graphic and violent and yet there has been no public outcry against it. Warning if you listen to it, there are a lot of swears and horrible lyrics.( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hy_lgSzen_w ) Maybe the difference is that you can't understand what they're saying half the time? The way that Black males are framed within the media cause Black males who produce rap to be seen with racial bias.
Regardless of race, parents should really be aware of what their children are listening to. They shouldn't assume that a rap record is "bad" for their child just because the man on the cover is wearing gold chains and saggy pants. They should look into the content of all of the music that their child is consuming regardless of who produces it or what genre it falls into.
I couldn't agree more about the lyrics in metal music being as violent, if not more violent than rap lyrics. As an avid listener of metal I can say that I've heard my fair share of violent lyrics that could cause concern (I'm looking at you Black Dahlia Murder). However I feel that reason metal music gets over looked is due to who listens to it and how they act. Think of it like this, we tend to hear more stories about blacks committing crime on the news than whites and rap is more associated with blacks than whites. Thus I feel people see all these crimes on the news and think 'well they listen to rap, they commit crimes, thus rap made them do it' or something along those lines. I also believe that metal seems to more tied into bigger crimes and acts of violence. The most notable of which is the Columbine shooting. For a while metal music was almost solely blamed for that massacre, and thus became feared.
ReplyDeleteAbove all though, I feel as if people use music as an unfair scapegoat for the actions of some. Just because someone liked this genre of music of that artist and committed a crime doesn't mean you have to link the two. I believe that music shouldn't be judged as such and people really need to get off it's back from time to time.