The music entertainment industry

The Impact of Hip-Hop Music and Culture on Young People

The young generation has been impacted by the music entertainment business both favorably and unfavorably. The focus of this talk, hip-hop music and culture, has a significant impact on young people’s attitudes and behaviors, including sexuality, gender violence, drug abuse, and school dropouts because of early pregnancies. The book includes material from the source “Pimps out, hoes down” about a study on the impact of hip-hop culture and videos on young women’s daily lives. It also examines the paradoxical nature of women’s roles in the genre, which are characterized as ravenous and complex sex abuse of black women. The hip-hop culture stereotypes women as accessible, expendable, and accessible and does not say “no” to sexual abuse. In order to gain popularity, the music genre celebrities use women as objects.

The Normalization of Immorality in the Entertainment Industry

The use of erotic videos and commercial trafficking of images in the hip-hop culture have been made to appear normal in the entertainment industry; this has led to perpetuation of immorality within the involved group. For instance, by encouraging young women to work in sex tourism, cases of abuse of women have been experienced in Atlanta, Detroit and Chicago. Ironically, the celebrities involved in sexual abuse allegations are protected by law.

Thesis Statement

The essay discusses the impacts of adoption of the hip-hop culture on empowering and disempowering males and females and their involvement in activities that endow and disempower them. It also elaborates how hip-hop explicit lyrics and videos affect the youths. This paper also discusses on whether hip-hop should be banned from the public media. The study reveals that a higher consumption of the videos and imitation of the behaviors matches negatively with the moral on sex trafficking alcohol and other drug abuse, multiple sex partners, and sex before marriage for the youths (Sharpley).

The Influence of Hip-Hop Culture on Women’s Attitudes and Behavior

According to research conducted by Gretchen Cardiff, she reports that some hip-hop females have a view on sex as a transactional way to gain material things. She explains that in most of the cases women do this in order to content their material wants rather than basic needs. They do this to acquire new fashion seen in the videos and live luxurious lives as shown by the female celebrities in the videos. The hip-hop artists who seem not to mind about their sexuality negatively influence the youths to adopt some of the culture shown. The shift in behavior has led to generation change on the view of sex; most females are trying to copy from the celebrities who have more than on sex partner, the trend has been adopted by black women who even get married on contracts for a certain duration of time (essays).

The Adverse Effects of Explicit Lyrics and Slang

The explicit lyrics used in the hip-hop song also have an adverse impact. Some of the lyrics can be termed as ”dirty” as they teach bad morals to the young women mostly engaging in unprotected sex, prostitution and making money from the latter. Use of slangs in the hip-hop songs has also lead to the adoption of the same during their normal talks. Youths take this slangs as fashion and adopt them as their language. Words such as ‘hoes, bitches” and many other slang words have eroded respect for females. Also, the use of these terms creates a cheaper view and devaluing of females who are always ready to be misused by males and take it as if they have full control over the female gender. Dr. Gail a researcher based in Chicago says that ”for some hip hop girls that I see in therapy are raped as a rite of passage” this indicates the lack of respect for females in the control struggles and powers (Cundiff). The males also take full control of the females in their relationships which later leads to domestic violence in the homes; women experience physical battering from males since the males take women as their possession.

The Disempowering of Women in Hip-Hop Culture

Domestic violence has lowered the esteem of women. In this regard, women fail to support each other, and instead accuse each other of gossip. They also begin to suspect each other saying, ”She wants your man.” Through this mistrust, females also prefer not to share their personal life with other ladies, and instead prefer to suffer alone. This disunity and privacy renders the female gender weak, unlike the males who often share and discuss their life experiences with friends.

Society’s Perception of Women in Hip-Hop Culture

Sex weakens a female’s value, and denial of sex to men makes women to be termed as ”cold.” This is a depressing reality to the youths in the hip-hop culture, which leaves fresh women in an absurdity situation on where to be in order to gain and maintain reverence from their peers. In hip-hop females having more than one sexual partner tend to be more comfortable. They do this as a way of controlling their relationships and feelings. They also consider having a side man who can provide material things. This shift in behavior has affected the males since they feel that women are showing disrespect to themselves and devaluing their status (Cundiff).

The Negative Effects of Hip-Hop Culture on Gender Equality

The hip-hop culture has led to decrease in the gender equality, mostly to the low-income black youths terming women as ‘hood rats, hoes, and runners.” They engage in group sex and also hand over women to their friends to ”try out.” This sharing of women disempowers young black women. Negative attitude towards women has been experienced from hip-hop stars, where most songs are on objectification of women, power over women and violence.

The Influence of Hip-Hop Culture on Youth

According to related researches listening to explicit lyrics from the hip-hop genre changes the perception of the listeners in their own lives which later contributes to domestic violence. The lyrics from acquaintance of misogynic music serves as deceptive to sexual harassment, abuse towards women, the message in the lyrics increases hostility and aggressiveness in thoughts of males towards females. Women are the major targets of the music, which demotivates them as they are brought out as tools for male satisfaction. Women in hip-hop genre are expected to wear scantly, be curvy and submissive to men. Some of the artist are positive in the genre and prove to respect the female gender but still are criticized by other musicians in the same genre of not conforming with the expected nature of real hip hop; which is expressed with gangster like life styles and bad boys with bad girls, and the expression of power through sex and money (Blanchard).

The Influence of Hip-Hop Culture on Women’s Sexualization

The young generation takes artists as their mentors. They therefore, envy what they view in the videos, their luxurious cars, and mansions, groups of naked women, drug abuse and private cruise ships. Young women presented in the videos are perceived to be wealthy too, thus tempting them to get into prostitution and stripping businesses. In regions such as Miami; where the most hip-hop artist reside, stripping in clubs is a common business that is appreciated like any other business, hence degrading and devaluing women.

Conclusion

This essay depicts that hip culture devalues the status of women as well as lowering their self-esteem. This disempowering is brought about by the message in the lyrics. Violations of the rights mostly occur due to aggressiveness learned from the hip-hop videos. In this regard, sensitive videos which display naked women should be banned from public television. This is because they do not only lower the dignity of women but also teach bad morals to the younger generation. Consequently, songs with abusive lyrics should be deprived airplay because their language has a high probability of being adopted by the youths, and thus creating a negative perception of both genders. Laws on the abuse of black women should also be reviewed to impose heavy fines to the offenders. Also, business licenses especially for operating strip clubs should be set high in order to limit the number of the clubs which use young women as a way of attracting customers.

Works cited

Blanchard, Becky. ”The Social Significance of Rap & Hip-Hop Culture.“ (2013). .

Cundiff, Gretchen. ”The Influence of Rap and Hip-Hop Music.“ An Analysis on Audience Perceptions of Misogynistic Lyrics 4 (2013): 1-40. .

esseys, uk. ”Sexual Dominance In Hip Hop.“ (2015). 2017. .

Sharpley, T.Deneran. ”Pimps Up, Ho’s Down: Hip Hop’s Hold on Young Black Women.“ Vol. edtion 1. 1997. .