Rap music has a bad influence on teenagers: bullshit or fact?
by Flip Schrameijer
Ask your grandparents how their parents reacted when they listened to jazz music when they were your age. They may tell you that the police beat the stuffing out of dear old Granddad when he attended a concert by Lionel Hampton in 1953.
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Lionel Who? Yes. But that was half a century ago!
Jazz. Yuck! That's really stuffy old music! you might say. Negro music it was called in the newspapers in those days. And that was considered very bad influence to young people.
Or, ask your parents. Maybe they will tell you about when they were beaten up by the coppers during a concert of the Rolling Stones.The Rolling Stones?! But Mick Jagger is Sir Mick now. Surely he didn't have a bad influence on my sweet Mom and Dad?
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Where was I during the 1964 Stones concert
So, what's new? Now it's rap and hip hop. A new generation of scientists is worried that their children will start having sex at thirteen because they listened to rap music. OK, some rappers don't beat about the bush. Sex is on their minds. And it may not be the kind that your parents and teachers feel easy about.But, does listening to rap, or to pop music in general, encourage young people to do things that may be bad for them? Let's lend science an ear.
Is rap music bad for your health?
Yes, say recent American studies, and in more ways than one. A team of researchers from Berkeley, California, investigated more than a thousand American college students between 15 and 26 years of age. Students who often listen to rap music, use more alcohol, more marijuana and more party drugs such as XTC.
It’s a health-risk in another way too, since rap-enthusiasts appear more aggressive as well: they are more often in fist fights and are more likely to threaten others with a knife or a gun. And risk being hurt by the way.
And it is rap music especially, the researchers say. Rock & Roll fans appear to be less aggressive, while Reggae-lovers use more marijuana – of course – but considerably less party drugs. Techno-fans use somewhat more XTC, but overall rap comes out ‘worst’.
Three years earlier, American researchers from Atlanta, Georgia, reported a study of more than 500 black girls, age 12 to 17. They interviewed the girls three times over a period of three years. They were so selected that at the first interview all of them were virgins. Of course, many of them had kissed, ‘made out’, or had engaged in more ‘advanced’ amorous activity. A year later, 17 percent had had sexual intercourse and another two years later 36 percent. Many others who hadn’t had intercourse, had gone further in other, more advanced activities.
The researchers found that girls who had watched rap videos for more than an hour a day were the most likely to have started sex early. They had had had multiple sexual partners two times more often than the ones who watched considerably less. Also, they were one and a half times more likely to have acquired a new sexually transmitted disease, and used drugs and alcohol. The statistics are very convincing on this point. (See for both articles the sources below.)
Do you believe it?
Research like this is about you and the behaviour of other young people. And it can easily be different from your own experiences. When rap music makes you and your friends feel happy, you immediately think someone who says rap leads to alcoholism must be mad. Moreover, when none of your rap loving friends ever used drugs or behaved aggressively, you will think researchers who say these things must be dreadfully out of touch with reality.
Maybe they are a horrible gang of elderly people who have no appreciation for your favorite music. Or old people who have forgotten that at one time they themselves loved Rock & Roll, or the Rolling Stones. Maybe they had quarrels with their parents about their music but totally forgot about them.
This may be your initial response: in fact questioning the motives of the researchers. But, sorry, it’s the wrong response, because it’s unscientific. We cannot ignore the outcome of research, simply because we don’t like it or haven’t experienced it ourselves. The motives or the age of the researchers is totally irrelevant! The only thing that counts is the quality of the research itself.
Cause, effect, or something else?
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The big question is: do these investigations indeed prove that watching rap videos or listening to rap is the cause for early sex, drug-taking, drinking or aggression. For instance: it could well be that girls who have sex at an early age are later attracted to rap videos that present sex as something fun, or even glamorous.
This possibility could be ruled out, however, because the researchers found that watching these videos happened before the increased sexual activity. That is why the girls were interviewed over a three year period.
In the first study about drinking, drug-taking and aggression however, the students were only interviewed once. So this possibility could not be ruled out, and the researchers indeed say exactly that. In other words: it could well be that students who like drinking, drug-taking and aggressive behaviour, start listening to rap music afterwards. Listening to rap music could be the effect and not the cause.
So, one thing could be the cause of the other, or the other way around. But it could well be that something else causes the two kinds of behaviour: drinking, aggression and premature sex on the one hand and listening to rap music and watching rap videos on the other.
This ‘something else’ could be all kinds of things and is called ‘third factors’. In the case of the black girls for instance, the researchers looked at the factor ‘parental guidance’. Girls who are often alone at home or whose parents often don’t know where they are, might have more opportunity to watch rap videos and engage in sex and drinking. Statistical analysis showed however that parental guidance was not such a ‘third factor’.
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In the study with the students and rap music the researchers give a lot of attention to possible ‘third factors’. They included ‘sensation seeking’ (such as going to wild parties, doing scary things, doing “crazy” things just for fun) in their analysis and find this to be important.
In other words: people who like certain ‘dangerous’ behaviour and who like drinking, fighting and/or drug-taking also tend to like to listen to rap music. It might well be, the researchers say, that when ‘sensation seeking’ is taken into account fully, there is no link at all between rap music and drinking, fighting or drug-taking.
The researchers add it might be something different altogether such as the lifestyle of these young people that might explain a preference for rap music, as well as for drinking, drug-taking and/or aggressive behaviour.
The trouble with these third factors is that all possible third factors have to be identified and taken into account. At the moment there is not enough research into this subject. We cannot rule out that there are yet unknown third factors behind the relationship between rap and different kinds of unhealthy behaviour.
Bullshit or something else?
So: is it bullshit to say rap is dangerous to young people?
Frankly: we don’t know. Until today the research cannot decide what's true and what's not. We cannot say the dangers of rap have been proven, nor have they been disproved.
What do you think?
With what you know now, you can make up your own mind. Let me give you some of my ideas.
I think the so called ‘third factors’ are really important. This simply means there is a reason why people who tend to engage in any of these behaviours: drinking, drug-taking, premature and dangerous (including unprotected) sex, or any combination of them, also listen more often than others to rap music, or watch rap video clips.
We do not believe that many young people who don't show these behaviours will start doing so just because they listen to, or watch rap. Of course there will always be some for whom rap music will be the last push.
When in doubt, it often helps to turn a question upside down. So you can ask yourself why listening and watching rap would not influence one’s behaviour, if only a little. It seems unlikely that watching rap stars for several hours a day having fun with certain things would leave no effect at all.
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Just think of this. Hard liquor used to be totally absent in the American rap-scene ten years ago, while today it is shown in most rap-videos. Nine out of ten rap-stars have since signed contracts with the liquor industry, according to Denise Herd of the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health. Listen to this radio interview.
Obviously the liquor industry believes that rap promotes drinking, or they would not invest large sums of money in making hard liquor look cool in rap videos.
