Is It Okay to Listen to Hip-Hop Music?

Editorial Opinion

Printable Version

Is it okay to listen to hip-hop music? What are the effects of listening to sexually explicit or 'booty-shaking' lyrics?

Everybody listens to hip-hop music, from little kids to parents to grandparents. Everybody's doing it, so it should be okay, right? Wrong.

Why is not okay to listen to this music? Think about it. What do you think guys are thinking when they hear lyrics telling some girl to 'bend over and touch their toes' (in Usher's 'Yeah')? They think it's okay to think of a girl as someone to have sex with. What do you think a girl is going to think when she hears lyrics about using what she's got to get what she wants? That it's okay to use her body to get what she wants from some guy.

Hip-hop music is cool, but it's misleading. Except for Mario's 'Let Me Love You', most of them don't talk about relationships, commitment or respect. It's all about one thing - getting the panties off or getting a guy to buy you something.

You want more than that, right? You want to be respected and treated well, without all the sex and without someone being after you for your money. How can you do this? By respecting yourself. By letting a guy or a girl know that you're not interested in them if this is all they want.

If you respect yourself, you will be respected. And, yeah, some girls might want a 'soldier' and some guys might want a 'freak-a-leak', but try playing some other music, too. Check out Mary Mary or Ricky Dillard to hear some positive, Christian music. Or, listen to Altared Lives to hear good gospel R&B and hip hop music.

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Rebuttal

Hmm where do I start? When I first read this article I was taken back. . .let me back up. I feel the article is very well written and valid. The quality of music our community accepts has a definitive misogynistic vulgar edge. My fault with the article lies within its incompleteness. The statement:

'Except for Mario's 'Let Me Love You', most of them don't talk about relationships, commitment or respect'

I submit for your approval the following:

Fabolous (Baby)

JadaKiss (Kiss me)

Lil Flip (Sunshine)

John Legend (Let's take it slow)

50 cent (21 Questions)

Usher (every other song on the album)

Jay Z (Bonnie and Clyde)

and so on. . .

My issue with the article is the absence of the positive side of today's music. The absence of the discussion on why there are women who still buy such tripe. The absence of the nature versus nurture argument on behalf of those who only know this lifestyle. The absence of how our churches, governments and fathers have exchanged their posts for luxury artifacts, therefore letting so many uncultivated minds grow even more desperate for a leader. The mothers who blindly buy adults-only CDs for their children.

I don't believe the blame should be laid upon the industry, the genre or even the artist. . . the blame is ours (the Believers). Our apathy and complacency only feeds the machine. How about a discussion on how the black woman has permitted such disgrace? Let's face it, it's our sistas shaking their behinds. It's our sistas that we have left to their own devices to survive and then the only enterprise we offer is video hoe, stripper or worse. . . but again that is a symptom to a deeper sickness. The main question is this, Why does this stuff sale? Because we buy it.

Eliminate the market you eliminate the product.


Ervin D. Fowlkes Jr.
IMT Studios
"Web Design with a Purpose"
313.215.2141 mobile
www.imtstudios.com