“Come Along and Ride on a Fantastic Voyage”1: My Journey Through Rap Music Lyrics

Music lyrics have undergone dramatic changes since the introduction of rock music more than 40 years ago. This is an issue of vital interest and concern for parents and pediatricians. During the past four decades, rock music lyrics have become increasingly explicit—particularly with reference to sex, drugs, and violence. Recently, heavy metal and "gangsta rap" music lyrics have elicited the greatest concern. In some cases lyrics communicate potentially harmful health messages. Such lyrics are of special concern in today's environment, which poses unprecedented threats to the health and well-being of adolescents. Pregnancy, drug use, acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (and other sexually transmitted diseases), injuries, homicide, and suicide have all become part of the landscape of everyday life for many American teens. At the same time, music is important to teenagers' identity and helps them define important social and subcultural boundaries. The results of one survey of 2760 14-to 16-year-olds in 10 different southeastern cities showed that that they listened to music an average of 40 hours per week. One Swedish study found that adolescents who developed an early interest in rock music were more likely to be influenced by their peers and less influenced by their parents than older adolescents. To date, no studies have documented a cause-and-effect relationship between sexually explicit or violent lyrics and adverse behavioral effects. A possible explanation for this lack of finding is that teenagers often do not know the lyrics or fully comprehend their meaning. For example, in one study only 30% of teenagers knew the lyrics to their favorite songs, and their comprehension varied greatly.

Download Full-text

The Influence of Sexually Violent Rap Music on Attitudes of Men with Little Prior Exposure

Psychology of Women Quarterly ◽

10.1111/j.1471-6402.1997.tb00127.x ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 21 (4) ◽

pp. 497-508 ◽

Cited By ~ 34

Author(s):

Stephen R. Wester ◽

Cynthia L. Crown ◽

Gerald L. Quatman ◽

Martin Heesacker

Keyword(s):

Rap Music ◽

Attitudes Toward Women ◽

Prior Exposure ◽

Treatment Control ◽

Negative Attitudes ◽

Gangsta Rap ◽

Sexual Beliefs ◽

Sexually Violent ◽

Attitude Measures ◽

Music Lyrics

This article is among the first to focus on commercially available, sexually violent rap music, so-called “gangsta” rap (GR) and its influence on attitudes toward women. Collegiate males with little experience with GR were exposed to GR music, lyrics, both, or neither. Thus the effect of GR music and lyrics were isolated from each other and from acculturation to GR. Collapsing across all attitude measures, neither lyrics alone nor lyrics with music resulted in significantly more negative attitudes toward women than music-only or no-treatment control conditions. Participants in the lyrics conditions had significantly greater adversarial sexual beliefs than no-lyrics participants, however.

Download Full-text

Explorative Visual Analysis of Rap Music

Information ◽

10.3390/info13010010 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (1) ◽

pp. 10

Author(s):

Christofer Meinecke ◽

Ahmad Dawar Hakimi ◽

Stefan Jänicke

Keyword(s):

Rap Music ◽

Visual Analysis ◽

Word Embedding ◽

Visualization System ◽

Domain Specific ◽

Abstract Level ◽

Support Domain ◽

Music Lyrics ◽

Rap Artists

Detecting references and similarities in music lyrics can be a difficult task. Crowdsourced knowledge platforms such as Genius. can help in this process through user-annotated information about the artist and the song but fail to include visualizations to help users find similarities and structures on a higher and more abstract level. We propose a prototype to compute similarities between rap artists based on word embedding of their lyrics crawled from Genius. Furthermore, the artists and their lyrics can be analyzed using an explorative visualization system applying multiple visualization methods to support domain-specific tasks.

Download Full-text

Changes in the Prevalence of Alcohol in Rap Music Lyrics 1979–2009

Substance Use & Misuse ◽

10.3109/10826084.2013.840003 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 49 (3) ◽

pp. 333-342 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Denise Herd

Keyword(s):

Rap Music ◽

Music Lyrics

Download Full-text

Changing images of violence in Rap music lyrics: 1979–1997

Journal of Public Health Policy ◽

10.1057/jphp.2009.36 ◽

2009 ◽

Vol 30 (4) ◽

pp. 395-406 ◽

Cited By ~ 21

Author(s):

Denise Herd

Keyword(s):

Rap Music ◽

Music Lyrics

Download Full-text

Phat Lines

Written Language & Literacy ◽

10.1075/wll.4.1.05oli ◽

2001 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

pp. 67-85 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Warren Olivo

Keyword(s):

African American ◽

Hip Hop ◽

Rap Music ◽

African American Vernacular English ◽

Hip Hop Culture ◽

Vernacular English ◽

Syntactic Features ◽

Public Consumption ◽

American Vernacular ◽

Music Lyrics

This paper focuses on the spelling conventions used in a corpus of written rap music lyrics intended for public consumption. The non-standard spellings evident in this corpus are used deliberately for various purposes, one of which is to graphically represent the phonological and syntactic features of African American Vernacular English (AAVE). This use of non-standard orthography can be seen as a way for the writer to demonstrate a positive evaluation of the non-standard speech forms that characterize rap music performances. Other non-standard spellings bear no relation to the grammar or phonology of AAVE. However, through the use of processes such as “inversion”, these non-standard spellings invoke alternative meanings while simultaneously calling attention to the arbitrariness of dominant spelling conventions. It is argued that, overall, the non-standard spelling conventions employed in rap music lyrics function to create and sustain hip-hop culture as an “anti-society”.

Download Full-text

Sexually Degrading Music Videos and Lyrics

Journal of Media Psychology Theories Methods and Applications ◽

10.1027/1864-1105/a000060 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 24 (1) ◽

pp. 31-39 ◽

Cited By ~ 11

Author(s):

Eric L. Sprankle ◽

Christian M. End ◽

Miranda N. Bretz

Keyword(s):

Undergraduate Students ◽

Rape Myths ◽

Music Videos ◽

Sexual Content ◽

Sexual Stereotypes ◽

Male Undergraduate ◽

The Media ◽

The Many ◽

Sexually Degrading ◽

Music Lyrics

Utilizing a 2 (lyrics: present or absent) × 2 (images: present or absent) design, this study examined the unique effects of sexually degrading music videos and music lyrics on males’ aggressive behavior toward women, as well as males’ endorsement of rape myths and sexual stereotypes. Under the guise of a media memory study, 187 male undergraduate students were randomly assigned to one of four conditions. Despite the many psychological theories predicting an effect, the presentation of sexually degrading content in a visual or auditory medium (or combination thereof) did not significantly alter the participants’ aggression and self-reported endorsement of rape myths and sexual stereotypes. The null findings challenge the many corporate and governmental restrictions placed on sexual content in the media over concern for harmful effects.

Download Full-text

Contribution of Demographics, Sociological Factors, and Media Usage to Verbal Aggressiveness

Journal of Media Psychology Theories Methods and Applications ◽

10.1027/1864-1105/a000115 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 26 (2) ◽

pp. 92-102 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Jack Glascock

Keyword(s):

Emerging Adults ◽

Peer Influence ◽

Video Game ◽

Rap Music ◽

Verbal Aggression ◽

Hierarchical Regression ◽

Music Listening ◽

Verbal Aggressiveness ◽

Media Usage ◽

Sociological Factors

Given the increasing relevance of verbal aggression in today’s society, the goal of this study was to assess the relative contributions of potential demographic and sociological factors. Emerging adults were surveyed, and the data were analyzed using correlations and hierarchical regression. While television viewing, video game playing, and music listening were positively correlated with verbal aggression, only (rap) music listening remained significant when demographic and other sociological influences were factored in. Overall, the hierarchical regression analysis found religiosity, parental and peer influence, quality of neighborhood, sex, and media usage (listening to rap music) to be significant contributors to verbal aggression among emerging adults. Male participants reported more verbally aggressive behavior than women, and African Americans reported more verbal aggression than White respondents. While media usage seems to play a significant, but relatively small role, other demographic and sociological factors such as gender, neighborhood, religion, peers, and parents appear to be major contributors in the development of verbal aggression among emerging adults.

Download Full-text