June 15th, 2008Is Rap Music The Problem?
The Chicago Tribune recently ran an article discounting a position held by long-time comedian-turned-sociologist Bill Cosby that rap music and hip-hop culture is partly to blame for the “moral breakdown of the family” unit. Associate Professor at the Chicago State University, Yan Dominic Searcy, cuts right to the chase in the piece and, oddly enough, his position almost mirrors my own when it comes to the validity of Cosby’s recent book, “Come On People: On the Path From Victims to Victors,” co-authored by Alvin Poussaint.
I read this book a few weeks after it was published and, after just a few dozen pages, I was left scratching my head over the content. I’ve read dozens of sociology books on the subject of racial poverty in various countries, and to say that rap music is to blame for the state of America is about as insightful as saying cream cheese is responsible for America’s obesity epidemic. Sure, people who listen to rap music might go out and commit the same type of crimes they hear about in music or engage in various sexual activities with others, but most people won’t. Why not? Because the average person is smarter than this.
I’ve been listening to rap music since the early 90’s. I remember a time when LL Cool J sent ripples through the industry by saying “I don’t give a damn” in his hit Let Your Backbone Slide. We’ve come a long way since then, with artists like Eminem saying “I don’t give a fuck,” and 50 Cent talking about how “suckin’ his dick is the real career move.” But does such explicit language really corrupt today’s listeners?
In a word: no.
Twenty years of hip-hop has given me, a typical lower-class white man, some insight into another lifestyle in an entertaining and creative way. I’m not going to grab a gun, round up a posse and settle a score. I’m not going to go club-hopping to pick up sexually over-charged women who think it’s better to get through life on their back than with their brains. I’m not even going to flaunt any wealth I might acquire in an attempt to impress others or inspire envy. Though the music certainly “speaks to me,” it doesn’t control me.
Music Reflects Reality
Eminem said it best in Sing for the Moment that “music is a reflection of self” and “we just explain it, and then we get our checks in the mail.” Rap and hip-hop doesn’t alter reality, it reflects reality.
Many of the truly talented artists grew up in adversity. Violence. Police harassment. Poverty. Drugs. Sex. We’ve all heard time again that if we really want to excel in something, talk about something we know. Well, guess what, Bill? These people are talking about what they’ve been through and what’s still going on in communities all over the world. Eminem, Snoop Dogg, Xzibit and Dr. Dre would not have gotten anywhere singing about responsibility, education, or building self-esteem with some lyrically twisted version of John Lennon-esque communal enlightenment. If the communities affected by violence, crime and excessive youthful promiscuity really want to change rap music, they need to change reality.
Of course, this is not something easily done, and would require a whole lot more than just a change in the lyrical lexicon.
Leave Sociology to the Sociologists
Societies have had problems since their inception billions of years ago, and are not limited to human societies alone. That said, the view Cosby and Poussaint portray is not one that should be published in books. Before reaching the halfway point of Cosby’s cynical compilation of condescendingly colourless crap, I was wondering why this was published in a book rather than on a blog. The statistical numbers that are quoted are so obviously tweaked to make it sound as though teen pregnancy, murders, and drug consumption is at an all-time high that you’d have to be daft to take it at face value. As Searcy points out, these issues have been on the decline since the 1970’s … an era that both Mr. Cosby and Poussaint should remember well.
Social ills are so complex and difficult to categorize that it cannot be solved with one grand solution. I completely understand that both Cosby and Poussaint want to see poverty-stricken individuals, regardless of ‘race’, make something better of themselves. But to put the blame on one subject, while ignoring the bigger picture, is an insult to every person that has read their book or lives in the ghetto. I’m a semi-educated white male who has never had to live through these conditions, but even I can see music is not the sole culprit, if one at all.
Sociology should be left to the sociologists. If the rest of us have an opinion, it should be said online rather than paper. There are just too many opinions and not enough fact making it into print recently, which only cheapens the value of books.
I don’t know how much if any rap music contributes to social ills. However,regarding your statement,
“and to say that rap music is to blame for the state of America is about as insightful as saying cream cheese is responsible for America’s obesity epidemic.”
I don’t think Cosby or anyomne else states that rap is responsible for society’s ills. They feel it is just one of many issues that contribute to problems in the community.
I listened to hard core rap when I was younger and I did not go out raping and pillaging. However, I do feel that people are constantly hearing music or watching movies and video games about violence, that they become desensitized to it. And this can lead to someone more willing to accept or engage in violence or criminal behavior.
I agree with what you said about music being a reflection of reality and not a shaping force for it, but at the same time I also think that people who listen to that kind of stuff on a regular basis would be more likely to engage in those acts. However, are they more likely to engage in those acts because they listen to the music or do they listen to the music because they are the type of person that would engage in those acts? For example: Are people more likely to become cowboys and buy a tractor because they listen to country music or do they listen to country music because they ride horses and drive tractors?
While I think there are some who would fall into the category of the former, my guess would be that the majority would fall into the latter category.
Even if in some cases rap music (or violent video games, or whatever…) influenced some criminal act, it’s more likely than not the person who carried out the act had some underlying problems that were not created by the music.
People who seek to assign blame regarding causes in the so-called breakdown of society will always miss the point; societies get broken down and they get built back up. Such has always been the way. And people like Cosby have always been around to point the finger. This was the point of ‘No Country For Old Men,’ by Cormac McCarthy; Some get older and grow tired of trying to understand, adapt, and fit into a changing society, so they reach a point and say, “Hey, the world’s going to hell, man! Things just aint the way they used to be. When I was young, people knew what was right and what was wrong.” It’s as if they want to absolve themselves of any responsibility for having become feeble and just seek out the best scapegoats possible: youth and youth culture.
I think Cosby was probably expecting that the book would fire up the market that is full people who want to be angry at something.
After all, in the end you’d get a bunch of angry people trying to fight your fight and you’d sell more books in the end.
People liked to surprised and usually horrible news does that.