Is Hip-Hop Culture Harming Our Youth?

Jet, Dec 4, 2000

Hip-hop culture is everywhere. The culture, which encompasses rapping, deejaying, break-dancing and graffiti-writing, has become so popular that it has entered mainstream fashion and modern language.

It doesn't stop there. The culture permeates everything from TV commercials to toys to video games. Currently, there is even a hip-hop exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. You name it, and hip hop is there representing.

However, hip hop's most potent form is its rap music--embraced by urban Blacks and suburban Whites alike. It is raw self-expression that sometimes features profane lyrics, misogyny and violence.

The music, along with rap videos that often present a disturbing mix of rap, hip-hop dance styles, fashion and language, leave many people asking: Is hip-hop culture harming our youth?

"The hip-hop culture is just like electricity," civil rights leader the Rev. Al Sharpton told JET. "It can be used negatively or positively. The same electric current that lights up your house can also electrocute you. It is the misuse of hip-hop culture to attack our women and promote violence. We must encourage the proper use of hip-hop culture. We are all influenced by the hip-hop generation."

Sharpton, who recently hosted a special summit on social responsibility in the hip-hop industry, labeled gangsta rappers "well-paid slaves."

"Don't let some record executive tell you that cursing out your mama is in style. Anytime you perpetuate a slave mentality that desecrates women and that desecrates our race in the name of a record.... I consider you a well-paid slave."

Sharpton labeled the fashion of these rappers--loose-fitting pants and sneakers without shoelaces--prison clothes.

Sharpton was joined at the summit by some of the industry's superstars, including Master P, Sean "Puffy" Combs, Chuck D and RZA.

No Limit Records' CEO-rapper Master P apologetically admitted that some of his lyrics might be offensive to women.

"Everything that came from me like that came out of ignorance. I hope to edit myself in the future," he reportedly said during the event.

However, he asserted, "I don't believe any form of entertainment is harming our youth. It is up to parents to raise their own children and teach them. Blaming entertainment is a scapegoat."

Dr. C. DeLores Tucker, chair of the National Political Congress of Black Women, Inc., who has been a strong critic of hip-hop culture for more than a decade, continues to cite its reported negative influence over our youth.

"The glorification of pornography, wanton disregard for civil authority, misogynistic disrespect for women and a penchant for violence are the unintended impact of hip-hop culture on today's youth," the activist revealed. "I say unintended, because hip hop ... was intended to celebrate the revival of the age-old rhymed recitations of life's problems and aspirations set to music.

"Unfortunately, somewhere along the way, some unscrupulous elements hijacked this influential conduit to our youth and loaded it with the evil and debasing, hate-driven messages in the lyrics we now know as gangsta rap. Hence the artistry of the rappers in the streets is used by the gangstas in the suites to spread cultural garbage among our youth."

Hip-hop music mogul Russell Simmons, who dubs himself the "grandfather of hip hop," says the culture has been helpful in allowing others to understand Blacks' inner-city plight.

"Seventy-five percent of [the hip-hop] audience is non-Black. Now you have kids in Beverly Hills who are sensitive to situations in Compton [CA]," Simmons once explained to JET. "Rap has taken a lot of Black culture and put it in the forefront, in the mainstream. It's a globalization of the Black culture. [The artists] are showing an honest representation of their feelings. So as long as the mainstream doesn't accept that, then it makes it more appealing to the youth."

Actress Jada Pinkett Smith, wife of hip-hop superstar and actor Will Smith, also believes some of the music can have a negative impact on today's youth.

"What are you going to do?" she told US Weekly. "People say that kids can't understand what lyrics mean. Yeah, but they understand the tone. They understand the whole energy that comes with it. It's the same with watching TV images of weed-smoking, alcohol-drinking and booty-shaking being etched on the brains of our children."

Former rap star-turned-minister Mase moved away from hip-hop music while he was at the top of his game as a recording star. He says that the music he once recorded was leading souls to hell, but now he's leading people to God by preaching about salvation. "I learned that my gift wasn't in rapping. My gift was that I have a way with words and I was using them for the wrong instructions ... People get behind all this negative stuff Why not get behind something positive? I've decided to dedicate my whole life to this ministry and do what God is calling me to do. Blessing is not always money."

Superstar rapper LL Cool J told JET the key is not in the music or in the culture, but in what parents teach their children. "The thing that is going to make your child do or feel negative things is a lack of good parenting. Now, if you try to let BET or MTV raise your child, then you are going to have a problem."