Various critics have railed against the alleged harms of rap music. It is misogynistic and promotes violence (especially toward women), crass materialism, and street crime. Virtually all of the arguments about rap focus on its alleged effects—harmful or, occasionally, beneficial. Yet such arguments are difficult to prove. While not suggesting we abandon approaches like this, the focus on effects ignores another important moral argument—rap music is both assign of and contributes to a form of corruption of moral character.
Critics have alleges that rap music is harmful.
- It promotes violence;
- it enhances materialism;
- it increases criminal activities;
- it is contributes to corruption of moral character.
Morality is not simply about actions, consequences, and effects on others. It is also about oneself and the development of one’s own character. Being self-centred, cowardly, or weak-willed may not harm others, but we do judge such things in terms of morality. Who we are and the motives for our actions are important. Two people may do the same thing but for different reasons. We, justifiably, judge them differently. Two nephews may be attentive to their elderly aunt, taking her places, buying groceries, seeing to her welfare. If we judged them solely in terms of the consequences of their actions, there would be no difference between them. But maybe one nephew has no love for his aunt and helps her solely out of hope that he will benefit in her will. The other maybe helps her because he loves her and is concerned about her well-being. We judge their actions differently because of intent. Even the legal system considers motive and character. A person who pushes a man in front of a moving bus with the intent of killing him is judged differently than one who stumbles and pushes the man accidentally. Character is important in morally assessing ourselves and others.
Further: 1) rap music influences a person’s actions, consequences and effects on other people; 2) it also affects the development of a person’s character; 3) there are high chances that rap music may influence the motives behind people’s actions.
Rap both indicates and contributes to a corrupt personal character. Rap lyrics (and accompanying videos) are full of images of “hos” and pimps, guns, violence, the killing of cops, dissing and being dissed, dominance, and drug dealing. It is rife with jewellery-wearing thugs promoting crass materialism and hostile sexual stereotyping. Women are subjected to the crudest form of sexual subjugation—as merely the sexual playthings of violent men—to be used, pimped out, and discarded.
Rap videos and lyrics are full of images showing guns, pimps, killings, dissing language, and drug dealings; it portrays a lot materialistic things and thuggery; it categorize women as sex objects who are only supposed to be used by violent men and dumped.
The imagery is unrelenting. And it glorifies a world of misogyny, where crass materialism by any means, where violence as a primary means of settling disagreements, and where illegal activity—drug dealing, stealing, killing cops—are considered normal and desirable.
Rap music glorifies defiance and committing illegalities by all means necessary; it promotes violence as a means of solving disagreements; it portrays committing illegalities as normal behaviors.
People who choose to listen to and watch such material on a regular basis are saying something about their own moral character, about what they value, about who they are. They are endorsing the behaviours the genre exemplifies. Seeking out such material is like seeking out and choosing to watch portrayals of atrocities, such as rapes, executions, and real-life violence, all of which are available in our culture and on the Internet.
Watching rap music is a clear demonstration of once character and behaviors; those who watch such materials are actually telling the society who they are and what they value in life; such people are evil, violent, rapists and criminal in real life.
One could argue that people might listen to rap only for the music and not pay attention to the lyrics. In response, consider the following parallel. Imagine that a genre of music emerged that had interesting music but whose lyrics and accompanying videos were entirely devoted to the denigration of a particular race and the superiority of another. I doubt that we would believe that self-described nonracist people listened only for the artistry of the music and ignored the lyrics. But even if this was the case, we would likely still find a moral failing in that. Their failure to see and condemn the message of the lyrics would itself be a moral failing. Finally, even if some individuals failed to recognize the message of the lyrics that cannot be true of everyone who listens to the material. If it was simply the music and not the lyrics that was important, other lyrics would develop. This singular vision would not be as pervasive in the genre. Other genres are not as unrelenting and uniform in their vision of the world.
Those who listen and watch rap music do so to get the violent, materialism, drug dealing, and dissing messages framed in the lyrics; they like and love the immoral lyrics conveyed in rap music; that is why all rap music lyrics are the same all the times and full of immoral language.
The state cannot prevent us from corrupting our character, nor should it. However, that does not prevent me, as an individual, from deploring the corruption of character in rap. We make a decision when we choose to listen to music. The choice to persistently listen to a form of music that celebrates thugs, violence, drug dealing, crass materialism, and the denigration of women shows a corruption of character and deserves moral censure.
No law or legal framework can prevent people from being immoral; people must be let free to choose what they want to be in the society; at the same time those who feel bad about immorality depicted in rap music should talk about it openly; the violence, drug dealing, materialism, belittling women and all other immoral messages in rap lyrics should be censured by the society.
Topic: Rap and Moral Character
Issue: Is rap music harmful and corrupting moral character of people
Position: Rap music is harmful, and promotes violence, materialism, drug dealings, crimes and dissing of women thus, it should be censured or discarded.
- “It is misogynistic and promotes violence (especially toward women), crass materialism, and street crime.” Note: this statement presumes that all types of music is supposed to promote good moral characters in the society. This is very vague and has not concrete justification.
- “Rap music is both assign of and contributes to a form of corruption of moral character.” Note: the word “assign” can mean so many things like allocate, give, set, designate, and set apart; its importance and meaning in this statement is ambiguous.
- “Morality is not simply about actions, consequences, and effects on others. It is also about oneself and the development of one’s own character.” Note: there is no link or justification on how rap music contributes to the development of a person, or the behavior of a person.
- “Rap lyrics (and accompanying videos) are full of images of “hos” and pimps, guns, violence, the killing of cops, dissing and being dissed, dominance, and drug dealing.” Note: What is the extent of this full, or how full is this full? This is a vague statement and does not quantify empirically how rap music is full of immoral images.
- “It glorifies a world of misogyny.” Note: Very subjective and uses normative moral criteria claim in selecting what is legal or illegal.
- “People who choose to listen to and watch such material on a regular basis are saying something about their own moral character.” Note: Very subjective and also uses normative moral criteria to presuppose some standard of judgment on what actions are morally good or bad in the society.
- “I doubt that we would believe that self-described nonracist people listened only for the artistry of the music and ignored the lyrics.” Note: This statement is vague and very subjective because it is difficult to tell why some people listen to certain music. It is like trying to push the narrative that while others who listen to other music do so due to the artistry of the music, the same is not true for those who listen to rap music.
- “If it was simply the music and not the lyrics that was important, other lyrics would develop.” Note: This claim is very abstract and its truth can only be ascertained through analysis of several rap music from different artists.
- “The state cannot prevent us from corrupting our character, nor should it.” Note: The words “state” and “us” in this statement are ambiguous, who is the state and who are us?
- “The choice to persistently listen to a form of music that celebrates thugs, violence, drug dealing, crass materialism, and the denigration of women shows a corruption of character and deserves moral censure.” Note: The statement is using normative moral criteria to pass judgement and classify rap music immoral and should be condemned.
Rap music should be censured because:
- it promotes violence and crime, enhances materialism, and contributes to corruption of moral character;
- images and videos displayed in rap music elevates killings, dissing language, drug dealings, thuggery and categorize women as sex objects;
- watching or listening to rap music is like revealing your immoral character to the society.
Arguments 1, 2, and 6 depict all rap music as immoral because everything about them including images displayed, lyrics, and people who watch or listen to them are indecent, and so it should be censured by society. This sounds invalid because the claims are not grounded in any sound empirical evidence but are based on conceptual claims which require deep analysis of the word immoral.
Arguments 1, 3, 4, 5, and 7 portrays rap music as a promoter of violence, crimes, materialism and only meant to corrupt the moral characters of people. These arguments confine rap music to only immorality and nothing good or no moral information can be passed from such music. It cannot be true that all rap music only promotes immorality in society, there are some which are decent and which promote good societal values. The arguments are weak assumptions with no justifications.
Music is universal and is meant for recreational purposes and artistic expression. People listen to them to raise their mood, get them excited, or make them calm and relaxed. Listening to music allows humans to feel nearly or possibly all emotions that they experience in their lives. In most cases, the melody of the music draws audiences and fans from different cultures and races to love particular music without even understanding the message or information it conveys.
The theme of music in most cases follows the cultures of a particular people in the world, the way they behave, their language, what they consider moral, and their styles of doing things. It is important to note that some cultures may not resonate well with some people and as a result, they may not love music associated with such cultures. This is the case with rap music which can trace its origin from the richness of African American and diasporic cultures (Dingle and Sharman, 2015). The mixing of vocal methods and storytelling heritage from those customs, and the fluidity and simplicity with which prior rap musicians moved among musical varieties.
Considering the stereotypes and discriminations against Black Americans which still exist to date. It could have informed the classification and association of rap music with violence, crimes, and other things considered by contemporary society as immoral (Dingle and Sharman, 2015). The arguments against rap music on the basis of promoting or corrupting the moral characters of people are vague and not based on any sound empirical evidence but subjective perceptions and opinions of some people. There is no scientific evidence to justify the claims that rap music does influence listeners to act violent or commit crimes, it is all to do with the stereotype that all rappers are violent.
Reference
Dingle, G., and Sharman, L. (2015). Getting a bad rap: why problem music isn’t really a problem. The Conversation. Web.