Rap and hip-hop music has had a tremendous impact on my life and millions of other

youth in the world. In the United States, rap has skyrocketed in popularity and cultural influence.
My question that I will be researching is how rap music has affected the youth culture in the
United States.
Over the last few decades, the rap and hip-hop industry has grown to be one of the largest
industries in music. For the first time ever, Hip-hop has surpassed rock to become the biggest
music genre in the U.S. in terms of total consumption. Streaming surged growing 43% with 400
billion streams total (compared with 252 billion in 2016). 19 songs surpassed 500 million
streams in 2017; of those, 17 came from the R&B/hip-hop genre. (Nielson Music).
For many youths, Hip-Hop ‘‘is a familiar media where they feel valued and validated and
most free to express themselves… It could be Hip-Hop music, graffiti murals, and street theatre,
but it could also be heavy metal, video, and newsletters’’ (Delgado and Staples). . Rap music
lyrics also capture principles of social justice and corresponding activism, along with
empowering themes that can promote individual and community health. The short history of
Hip-Hop culture and rap music was born of an environment that was at once both oppressive and
innovative. Present-day rap music shares these characteristics despite existing within a different
landscape. Now, rap music weaves throughout pop-culture. Rap music includes innovation from
environments of injustice and oppression as much as environments of wealth and prosperity.
Listeners of rap music do not fit neatly into stereotypical demographic genres (Iwamoto 2007).
Many people today say that rap music has a negative impact on youth culture. There are
many reasons people say this, but most of the adults saying it has a negative influence only hear
the parts of the songs that glamorize drugs, sex, and violence. What they don’t understand is the
message the artist is trying to make behind the lyrics.
Most artists today, even outside of rappers, write lyrics about drugs, sex, and violence. So, how
does just one music genre have such a negative impact on the youth? Today’s generation has
such a different outlook on life as opposed to the older generations. Today’s generation will learn
everything they learn in rap music, in their daily life, whether it be bad language, drugs,
violence, or sex​.​ They’re going to learn about it anyway no matter if it comes from rap music,
their peers, parents or just being out and noticing what is going on around them. (Haileigh
Hendricks).
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“The Evolution of Rap.” ​Harvard Political Review,​ 11 Apr. 2014,

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Hendricks, Haileigh. “Does Rap Music Negatively Impact the Youth Culture?” ​The GNA
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McNally, James. “Hip-Hop into the Video Age: New York Teenhood, Malcolm McLaren and

the British Eye.” ​Visual Culture in Britain​, vol. 20, no. 1, Mar. 2019, pp. 40–63.

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Mize, Cole, and About cole mizeindie rap artist. “History of Rap - The True Origins of Rap

Music.” ​ColeMizeStudios,​ 29 Oct. 2015, colemizestudios.com/how-did-rap-start/.

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Vaccaro, Valerie L. “‘The Evolution of Rap Music in the U.S.: From Reflexive Consumption to

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