The article I read today explained the correlation between two seemingly unrelated topics: music and domestic violence. The connection between the two however surprisingly made a lot of sense. Today’s music culture has definitely changed a lot over time, and I feel like it isn’t for the better. Profanity and crudeness can be observed in the lyrics of many rap songs; curse words and even made-up words are used a lot as well. People listen to this type of music and appreciate the beats and whatnot, but listening to these kinds of lyrics repeatedly can indirectly put ideas into a person’s head, and consequently change their behavior. Lyrics implying that domestic violence and other crimes are acceptable can negatively influence people by covering up the consequences of these types of acts. I listen to a lot of contemporary music and I can attest to this. The lyrics in many of my favorite songs are proof of this article’s argument, which is why I can identify with the article. I think Eminem is one of the best rappers not only because his music is amazing, but because his songs are about real life and although they include many swear words, they aren’t all about sex and drugs.
The article is definitely timely because of the booming rap culture today, relevant because college students are always listening to the latest hits, and compelling because the writing was clear and held my interest. I think there should be a movement for rap artists to promote only positive ideas through their music, even if people might think this is “lame” or “uncool”.
I really like Eminem too, but he has songs about spousal abuse. In my womens studies class we took a class or two and discussed music videos. We looked at some rap videos and analyzed them. Then we watched a clip called Dream Worlds III. It talked about how women are sexualized and objectified to body parts and sex slaves for men. They showed a clip from a riot (or something) in New York in 2010. They then went back and forth between this video of voilence and a music video. They looked exactly the same! It was really sad, but very interesting.
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