Rap Music Glamorizes Drugs
Rap music has increasingly glamorized the use of illegal drugs, portraying marijuana, crack and cocaine as symbols of wealth and status.
At least that’s what a recent study by the journal Addiction Research & Theory wants you to believe.
Reuters reports,
The report found that rap artists had moved away from the lyrics of the early days of the genre when they often warned against the dangers of substance abuse.
“This study showed that in fact much early rap music either did not talk about drugs at all, or when it did had anti-drug messages,” said Denise Herd, of the University of California at Berkeley, who headed the research team.
“So intrinsically rap music is not necessarily associated with these themes,” she added.
After sampling 341 lyrics from rap music’s most popular hits between 1979 and 1997, the researchers found references to drugs had increased six-fold over that period.
Of the 38 most popular songs between 1979 and 1984, only four contained drug references. But by the late 1980s the incidence had increased to 19 percent, and after 1993 nearly 70 percent of rap songs mentioned drug use.
Lyrics describing drug use have not only became more frequent but the context changed from concern about the devastation of drugs to a more positive portrayal.
For example, Grandmaster Flash’s “White Lines,” recorded in 1983, warns cocaine does nothing except “killin’ your brain,” but more recent tunes by popular rappers such as 50 Cent’s “As the World Turns” refers to cocaine and heroin as positive things.
“This is an alarming trend, as rap artists are role models for the nation’s youth, especially in urban areas,” Herd said.
Music makes kids do drugs? Nah! I don’t think so. Lack of parenting and peer pressure, not music.
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I don’t think that lack of parenting and peer pressure is what makes kids do drugs. It certainly helps, but I think the fact that humans are impressionable people makes a huge difference. The fact that music makes drugs out to be perfectly normal, fun things to do, is certainly a part of the problem.