Rap Music vs. Movies

 Today in class, we listed out key characteristics of the Rap music we hear today. All of these features seemed to me to be accurate. When listening to Rap music, we hear about violence, police encounters, alcohol and drug use, hard knock lives, hustlin', etc. Then, as were discussing, these features, we came to the realization that a lot of these are the exact same things we hear about and learn about in movies and other forms of entertainment. So, why does Rap music get a bad rap for doing this? The question especially applies when we look deeper into the lyrics of a lot of Rap music and realize that the lyricists are actually criticizing these features.

I have two theories in mind. The first deals with the idea that perhaps, Rap music get blamed for negatively influencing our youth to a greater extent than other like forms of entertainment because of the concentration of the negativity in these works. With a lot of Rap music, it's not just a line here or a line there that has a some kind of negative connotation (especially for those just listening for the words, not the deeper meaning). Typically, every line or at least every other line has either bad language or a seeming bad message. This is different in movies or books where there may be scenes of negativity but there are usually other scenes depicting quite different messages. So, in a way, after listening to a particular Rap song (not all), there is no way of leaving without a sense of negativity just because of the concentration of certain words that may be present. I'm not sure how much I necessarily agree with this, but perhaps it can provide some kind of reasoning.

 Kind of going off of my first theory, or more specifically the fact that we often just pick up the words and not the deeper meaning behind the words, I would be certain to say that the beat has some influence on the fact that Rap music can be so influential. The beats of a lot of Rap songs are captivating and I'll listen to most Rap because of the beats. So, potentially people get locked into the song by the beat and then really only care to pick up on the words and not the deeper meaning because they're focused on the beat. Often times movies have quite captivating scenes but not in the same way that a beat can get you, pull you in and bring you back multiple times later. This could potentially play an effect on the bad name that Rap music gets because people are brought back to the music because they are hung on the beat and then they are  not picking up on the deeper meaning behind these words that they are hearing.

Next, it could be due to the amount of time we spend listening to music versus watching movies. I know I listen to a lot more music throughout the day and consequently it has more of an effect on my everyday actions than movies do (whatever effects may occur as a result, if any). If we spend a longer amount of time on any given thing, we become more attached or influenced by that thing, so maybe that is some of the reasoning behind it all.

So maybe these are a few reasons for why Rap music often gets a bad name (although some songs inarguably are just crude and uncalled for). Do you agree or do you think that maybe Rap music is just easy to blame because it, without further attention, seems to be quite crude? Doe you think there are other factors at play here?