Media’s Influence on Rap and Hip-Hop Music
Communication Metrics
5/6/2020
Avery Berry
Introduction
Hip-hop is one of the most prominent genres of music on the pop culture scene today.
The influence of hip-hop on mainstream culture can be seen in popular styles of dress, speech
patterns, and cultural values. In many ways, hip-hop is this generation’s answer to rock and roll
in the 1950s and 60s or jazz in the 1920s and 30s. This is music made by young people for young
people, drawing a proverbial line in the sand between the younger and older segments of our
society. With this idea in mind, the mainstream media’s coverage of this music and culture is an
indication of how the dominant culture will view this phenomenon. News frames are being set by
a generation of mostly older whites not connected to this musical genre or its creators, who are
predominantly young Blacks and Latinos. This research chronicles the stories being told about
hip-hop by the mainstream media to the dominant culture, exposing what information is provided
to viewers of such publications. The importance of identifying these stories is to locate patterns
of information that frame hip-hop and those associated with hip-hop in a particular way. If viable
patterns emerge, they can be utilized to draw wider conclusions and generalizations about the
mainstream public sentime​nt of hip-hop ar​tists and culture. My goal for this paper is to look into
the deeper message of hip-hop music, and the complexity of the genre.
Literature Review
History of Hip-hop
Hip-hop artists use storytelling to explore the prejudices established and maintained by
the media. In 1988, under the leadership of producer Andre (Dr. Dre) Young, a group called
N.W.A. released “Straight Outta Compton,” an album that spoke in explicit terms about ghetto
street life and urban angst. No one had ever used profanity so extensively. No one had ever said
so many derogatory things about so many different people at one time. The album had a Parental
Advisory label before such warnings were mandated by the record industry. One track from the
record, “Fuck The Police,” caught the attention of the FBI, who opened a file on N.W.A. The
group parted ways a couple of years later, with members O’ Shea (Ice Cube) Jackson and Eric
(Eazy-E) Wright each releasing solo efforts to lukewarm responses by mainstream audiences. In
1992, Dr. Dre released his first solo album, “The Chronic,” and it went multi-platinum, with a
majority of the buyers being suburban, adolescent white children “who’ve deposed heavy metal
and elevated hip-hop to the crown of Music Most Likely To Infuriate My Parents” (Chideya
1997). It was the mainstream breakthrough of the sub-genre of hip-hop known as “gangsta rap.”
Along with protégé Snoop Doggy Dogg, Dre related tales of drug dealing, gunplay, and
misogyny over smoothed-out funk beats. Critics attacked the album as another example of what
was wrong with the recording industry.
Hip-hop’s relevance to the young black community and to society, in general, is
sometimes overlooked by those in the media not regularly associated with it. Hip-hop researcher
Tricia Rose sees hip-hop music as a diverse and dynamic art form, calling it the central cultural
vehicle for open social reflection on poverty, fear of adulthood, the desire for absent fathers,
frustrations about black male sexism, female sexual desires, daily rituals of life as an
unemployed teen hustler, safe sex, raw anger, violence, and childhood memories. It is also the
home of innovative uses of style and language, hilariously funny carnivalesque and
chitlin-circuit-inspired skits, and ribald storytelling. In short, (hip-hop) is black America’s most
dynamic contemporary popular cultural, intellectual, and spiritual vessel. (1994) Hip-hop music
has become contemporary youth culture’s most popular and most important outlet for creative
expression and individuality. Media coverage of people involved in the hip-hop scene shapes the
mainstream culture’s vision of hip-hop and focuses it on particular occurrences. Coverage has
steadily grown along with the culture, and this study is a critical analysis of national hip-hop
coverage.
Media’s Influence on Hip-Hop
Every genre of music has its fair share of songs with derogatory messages or ideas such
as sexism, misogyny, sex, money, or drugs. Unfortunately, rap and hip-hop music seem to be an
easy target when the topic arises in the music scene and media outlets. But why is rap music
anymore susceptible to criticism than other genres that are guilty of the same thing? Rap music
seems to be seen in a more negative light. According to Bill O’Reilly, an American television
host, rap is “hurting America’s children”(Fox News). Some could argue that rap and hip-hop
music has more misogynistic and “harmful” songs than any other genre, and they may be right.
Why is it that artists of the rap scene are constantly criticized for doing or saying the wrong
things? Artists of different genres such as rock and pop should be equally liable to the same
criticism. But why aren’t they? How could one say that one type of misogyny in music is worse
than others? I believe there are many factors that are involved in the hatred towards hip-hop, and
they all stem from the media.
In recent history, there have been dozens of non-rap artists who have had “run-ins with
the police” and yet the journalistic community at large does not choose to frame their reports
with crime discourse. For example, in 1990 lead singer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Anthony
Kiedis, was convicted of sexual battery. Additionally, Axl Rose of Guns and Roses has been
convicted of various crimes over the years including, inciting a riot and assaulting a neighbor. In
1994 his ex-wife filed a lawsuit alleging assault. However, recent news reports on these artists
seldom make a note of any of these criminal acts (Chideya, 1995, p. 150). News stories about
rap artists rarely leave out any past indiscretions. Consequently, media reporting on rap
music and rap artists is overwhelmingly negative.