Scheuerle 1

Bobby Scheuerle

Mr. Johnson

AP Seminar

15 Jan. 2021

Rap Music's Effect on Adolescent Mental Development Compared to Other Genres

In 2018, hip-hop and rap music accounted for 21.7 percent of total music consumption in

the United States according to the Statista Research Department’s publication in January 2021,

making it the most popular genre of the year. Rap music can be heard everywhere, and although

artists vary, violence, drugs, and other crimes are a common theme in rap music. It is important

to note how this genre of music affects the mental development of today’s adolescents, and how

it compares to other genres of music under scrutiny. There is no overwhelming evidence that

supports that rap is a positive or negative genre compared to other genres of problematic music.

Some popular rap songs of modern culture contain themes of violence, drugs, and sex

that could affected the mental development of adolescent listeners. Surveys among youth

populations have shown evidence that support the idea that rap has a negative effect on the

mental development of youth. Gina M. Wingood, the Director of Social and Behavioral Science

Core at the Emory Center for AIDS Research, and Ralph J. DiClemente, the Public Health and

Associate Director of the Emory Center for AIDS Research, found that after a 12-month follow

up of a survey of 522 participants who listened to rap over the course of a year, 37.6 percent of

the participants had contracted a new sexually transmitted disease; 4.8 percent had struck a

teacher; 12.1 percent reported being arrested; 14.8 percent had engaged in sexual intercourse

with someone other than their steady partner; 44.2 percent reported using drugs and 44.4 percent

consumed alcohol (Wingood and DiClemente 3). The survey conducted shows that over a twelve
 Scheuerle 2

month period of youth listening to rap music, a large portion of participants at least were

reported using drugs, consuming alcohol, and even contracting a new sexually transmitted

disease (Wingood and Diclemente 3). Other, severe behaviors were reported as well, albeit much

less frequently, such as being arrested and striking a teacher (Wingood and Diclemente 3). The

participants of this survey, who listened to rap music over a twelve-month period, have shown a

substantial increase in inappropriate behavior. Although rap music has been shown to directly

correlate to inappropriate behavior in adolescents (Wingood and Diclemente 3), there are also

other outside factors that can affect these results that go deeper than just music. “Rebellion, the

need for autonomy and independence is often associated with risky behavior. So something in

the whole adolescent developmental time period may be also be associated with these results

(Wingood and Diclemente 3).” Rap music is simply a newer media that may contribute to those

adverse effects (Wingood and Diclemente 4).

A study conducted by professor James H. Johnson Jr, lead of strategy and

entrepreneurship at North Carolina University, social and community psychology professor Lee

Anderson Jackson of North Carolina University, and environmental psychology professor Leslie

Gatto of North Carolina University conducted a study on 46 young African-American males

grades 6 through 10 assessing their responses to hypotheticals after listening to violent rap

music. There was a significant multivariate effect of video type on the attitudes toward the use of

violence (Johnson et al. 35), and planned comparisons indicated that there was greater

acceptance in the violent exposure condition than in the control condition (Johnson et al. 35), and

there was greater acceptance of the use of violence in the violent condition than in the nonviolent

condition (Johnson et al. 35). The study conducted by these professors showed that after listening

to violent rap music, there was a direct correlation between how the adolescents reacted to a
 Scheuerle 3

specific situation involving violence compared to the control group who did not listen to music

(Johnson et al. 35). Out of the three groups, those being violent music, positive music, and no

music, there was no difference between the positive music and no music groups, meanwhile the

violent music group showed substantially higher aggression in these hypotheticals (Johnson et al.

35).

Professor Julian Tanner and Professor Scot Wortly of the University of Toronto along

with Professor Mark Asbridge of Dalhousie University, using a self-administered questionnaire

surveyed 3,393 students ages 13 through 18 from 30 Metropolitan Toronto high schools, found

that “Our findings, with one notable exception, strongly confirm rap's reputation as protest

music. Controlling for other factors, for both white and especially black youth, being an Urban

Music Enthusiast is strongly related to feelings of social Injustice (Tanner et al. 708).” “Overall,

property and violent crime demonstrate strong independent effects on listening to rap music.

Individuals more involved in property crime and violent crime are more likely to be Urban

Music Enthusiasts than individuals with little or no criminal involvement (Tanner et al. 709).”

The evidence shown in the survey demonstrates a strong relationship between youth rap listeners

and property crime (Tanner et al. 709) Those who participated in property crime were more

likely to be fans of rap than those who were not involved (Tanner et al 709). Rap being described

as a “protest music” genre helps better explain the reasons behind high property crime rate and

urban music enthusiasts (Tanner et al 709).

Rap music is typically portrayed as a genre inspiring violence and crime. While there is

data supporting the idea that rap music causes deviant behavior, there is also data that debunks

the correlation.
 Scheuerle 4

Although there is evidence that suggests rap music is a catalyst for violent behavior

among adolescents, there is also a population of youth who feel that rap has a positive,

empowering, and connective effect on them.

A study conducted by Dr. Raphael Travis Jr, Associate Professor of Social Work at Texas

State University and his colleague Scott Wm. Bowman, an Associate Professor in the School of

Criminal Justice and Criminology at Texas State University demonstrates how adolescents are

positively impacted by rap music along with other studies by Dr. Raphael Travis Jr about how

rap music can be used as therapy for troubled youth. Risk and empowerment variables were

computed into high and low levels to better examine how these variables correlate within the

population (Travis and Bowman 466). High levels of both empowerment and risk were reported

from participants (Travis and Bowman 466). The largest percentage was related to individual

empowerment (46% reported that music facilitated individual empowerment), followed by

community empowerment (42%), community risk (36%), and lastly individual risk (25%)

(Travis and Bowman 466). When focusing solely on those reporting high music-influenced

empowerment, a much larger proportion reported low risk (76%) in contrast to high risk (24%)

(Travis and Bowman 466). The results of this study show that out of 128 highschool and

undergraduate students surveyed by the two researchers, over three-quarters of the surveyed

students reported that rap music has had a positive and empowering effect on themselves (Travis

and Bowman 466). Under a quarter of these students reported feeling risky and inappropriate

effects on themselves after listening to rap music (Travis and Bowman 466). This study could

help demonstrate that the violence that is theorized to stem mostly from rap music could simply

be a vocal minority compared to a much larger group of adolescents who use rap music to feel

connected and positively empowered.

 Scheuerle 5

A research paper by Shanice N. Armstrong, Counselor Education student at Texas A&M

University and Dr. Richard J. Ricard, professor of counseling and educational psychology at

Texas A&M University further assesses the work of Dr. Raphael Travis Jr. where he states “Rap

music, though frequently overgeneralized as promoting substance abuse, violent behavior, and

misogyny, ‘is rich with messages about life experiences, strategies for overcoming life obstacles,

and perspectives on how to prioritize these strategies’ (Travis, 2012, p. 148). Rap therapy

(Elligan, 2000) uses narrative themes in rap music to increase client reflection on beliefs and

emotions that connect with personal lyric interpretations heard in the music. Through mutual

exploration with clients, rap therapists facilitate awareness on how personal beliefs and emotions

underlie patterns of engagement in problematic behaviors and prospects for empowering positive

changes (Armstrong and Ricard 425).” Elaborate on and draw conclusions based on the

evidence): Dr. Raphael Travis Jr. explains how not all rap music is littered with suggestive and

violent themes, and it can also be used to help troubled teens by using the music genre to help

express therapeutic massages and getting past obstacles (Armstrong and Ricard 425). Teens can

much better understand and connect to positive messages with a counselor through personal lyric

interpretations to better understand themselves and problems that they have (Armstrong and

Ricard 425).

Jabari Mahiri, Professor of Education and the William and Mary Jane Brinton Family

Chair in Urban Teaching, along with teacher Erin Connor of Westwood schools in Northern

California helped research the relationship between violent rap messages and violent events

occuring on school grounds. During the second semester of the year, Conner and another teacher

developed a class for the two academic literacy classes that had a number of student activities

centered on rap and hip-hop (Mahiri and Connor 134). One project was for the students to create
 Scheuerle 6

their own rap albums and a chorus for one or more of the songs, and that students were told that

they could create whatever type of album they wanted (Mahiri and Connor 134). The album

assignments were complemented with student reflective writing, and all of the groups except one

created albums that critiqued rather than extended the negative discourse of rap (Mahiri and

Connor 134). This research is an excellent demonstration of not only rap being used as a form of

education and expression for adolescents, but also a way for youth to address the problems with

modern rap and critique them in a way that allows them to also express themselves. “Reflections

in the student journals often extended the critique of the albums like in the following example

that represented many that were handed in: ‘I think the music industry needs to change some of

their lyrics because they send negative thoughts to kids minds’ (Mahiri and Connor 135).”

Rap music has been shown to be a useful form of expressions and critique by adolescents

instead of a strictly violent form of media. Rap, however, is not the only genre of music that has

been seen as a bad influence and must be assessed.

Rap music has been shown to cause positive and negative effects to youth listeners. It is

also important to note, however, that rap music is not the first genre of music to come under

scrutiny for its effects on youth listeners. Specific to music, genres such as rap, techno, and

reggae were linked to increased alcohol and substance use (Chen et al. 2006). Other genres of

music can also be used to hurt youth, but also heal them. In a study conducted by Professor

Marco Susino, a music psychologist at Flinders University, and Doctor Emery Schubert, an

emotion and music researcher at UNSW Sydney, asked participants to listen to samples of music

from eight distinct music genres (fado, koto, heavy metal, hip hop, pop, samba, bolero and

Western classical) and report their first associations with the music (Susino and Schubert 3). The

same listeners were then asked to report the first associations with cultures assumed to be related
 Scheuerle 7

with these genres, which then corresponding words were observed between genres and their

cultures, lending support to STEM, and suggesting that emotion in music may be determined not

just by the music’s psychophysical cues and the listener’s experiences, but also by stereotyped

cultural cues (Susino and Schubert 3). Listeners less familiar with a music genre reported more

stereotypical emotional responses in comparison to those who were highly familiar with the

genre (Susino and Schubert 3). This information helps demonstrate the idea that people’s

perception of genres of music can be altered by stereotypical behaviors (Susino and Schubert 3).

Rap music, techno, and rock are seen as “problem music” (Susino and Schubert 3) so people

listening to the genre would lean more towards negativity and violence, as these genres can be

associated with inappropriate behavior (Susino and Schubert 3). The problem lies not with the

music itself, but with people’s preconceived notions of the culture surrounding the genre.

Doctor Kevin J. Took, an experienced child & adolescent psychiatrist graduating from

Saint Louis University School of Medicine, and David S. Weiss of Emory University School of

Medicine, a study of 88 adolescents (64% male, 36% female) was used to see if heavy metal and

rap music had a significant effect on childhood turmoil (Took and Weiss 1). 94% of heavy metal

and rap listeners needed counseling in elementary school for school problems 59% had below

average current grades, and 44% were suspended from junior high among other mischievous

activities (Took and Weiss 1). Upon realizing the large gender gap in the study, however, the

gender results were balanced (Took and Weiss 1). After this, much of the turmoil associated with

the heavy metal and rap listeners disappears, suggesting that gender plays an important role

(Took and Weiss 1). This study shows that the initial conclusion was an overwhelming amount

of evidence proving heavy metal and rap listeners had a higher amount of turmoil (Took and

Weiss 1). Upon balancing the results, it might have had nothing to do with the music the
 Scheuerle 8

adolescents were listening to, rather natural rebellious behaviors observed in teenage males

(Took and Weiss 1).

Registered music therapist Michelle Hines and Professor Katrina Skewes, a professor of

music therapy at the University of Melbourne interviewed 10 adult volunteers who listened to

metal music in their youth via email interviews. Around ten to fifteen e-mails were exchanged

with each volunteer, and questions ranged from what inspired them to listen to the genre and

what they had learned from it (Hines and Skewes 210). Once the data was collected from all 10

participants, the largest and most common themes were: a significant theme of learning about

other issues through metal, meeting new people through metal, finding positive energy through

metal, and finding self-acceptance through metal (Hines and Skewes 210). Metal music, much

like other genres, was used in this situation for adolescent listeners to learn about other issues,

meet new people, finding positive energy, and finding self-acceptance through metal (Hines and

Skewes 210). Other, individual themes include pushing metal as a misunderstood genre and

engaging emotions and feelings (Hines and Skewes 210). Metal music had a prominent effect on

the lives of adolescent listeners despite it being generally known as a misunderstood genre, even

being stated as a misnomer by a participant in the study (Hines and Skewes 210). Rap, being

compared to other genres such as heavy metal, is not much different. Rap is nothing special

compared to other controversial genres.

With all of the data compiled, there is no overwhelming evidence that shows rap music is

any more hazardous to the mental development of children compared to other problematic

genres. There is a large portion of evidence drawing relations between rap music and troubled

childhoods, while also being a wealth of evidence demonstrating the educational and therapeutic

uses of rap music, both canceling each other out much like other controversial genres of music
 Scheuerle 9

such as and heavy metal. Rap music, in one way or the other, does have a strong effect on

adolescents. It is important that the genre remains a way for individuals to express themselves.

Rap music is one of the most popular genres of music today, and it is important that we

understand how it affects our children’s development into adulthood.

 Scheuerle 10

Works Cited

Armstrong, Shanice N., and Richard J. Ricard. “Integrating Rap Music Into Counseling With
Adolescents in a Disciplinary Alternative Education Program.” Journal of Creativity in
Mental Health, vol. 11, no. 3–4, July 2016, pp. 423–435. EBSCOhost,
doi:10.1080/15401383.2016.1214656.

Calcaterra, Valeria, et al. “Music Benefits on Postoperative Distress and Pain in Pediatric Day
Care Surgery.” Pediatric Reports, vol. 6, no. 3, Sept. 2014, pp. 44–48. EBSCOhost,
doi:10.4081/pr.2014.5534.

Chen, M., et al., 2006. Music, substance use, and aggression. Journal of studies on alcohol, 67
(3), 373379.

Department, Published by Statista Research, and Jan 8. “Music Album Consumption in the U.S.
by Genre 2018.” ​Statista​, 8 Jan. 2021,
www.statista.com/statistics/310746/share-music-album-sales-us-genre/#:~:text=In%2020
18%2C%20hip%2Dhop%20and,U.S.%20in%202018%20was%20jazz.

Hines, Michelle, and Katrina Skewes McFerran. “Metal Made Me Who I Am: Seven Adult Men
Reflect on Their Engagement with Metal Music during Adolescence.” ​International
Journal of Community Music,​ vol. 7, no. 2, June 2014, pp. 205–222. ​EBSCOhost,​
doi:10.1386/ijcm.7.2.205_1.

Johnson, James D., et al. “Violent Attitudes and Deferred Academic Aspirations: Deleterious
Effects of Exposure to Rap Music.” ​Basic & Applied Social Psychology​, vol. 16, no. 1/2,
Feb. 1995, pp. 27–41. ​EBSCOhost​, doi:10.1080/01973533.1995.9646099.

McFerran, Katrina Skewes, et al. “Examining the Relationship between Self-Reported Mood
Management and Music Preferences of Australian Teenagers.” Nordic Journal of Music
Therapy, vol. 24, no. 3, July 2015, pp. 187–203. EBSCOhost,
doi:10.1080/08098131.2014.908942.

“New Research Explores Effects of Rap Music on Adolescents.” Brown University Child &
Adolescent Behavior Letter, vol. 19, no. 6, June 2003, p. 1. EBSCOhost,
search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=9836113&site=ehost-live&s
cope=site.

SUSINO, MARCO, and EMERY SCHUBERT. “Negative Emotion Responses to Heavy-Metal

and Hip-Hop Music with Positive Lyrics.” ​Empirical Musicology Review,​ vol. 14, no.
1/2, Jan. 2019, pp. 2–15. ​EBSCOhost,​ doi:10.18061/emr.v14i1-2.6376.

Tanner, Julian, et al. “Listening to Rap: Cultures of Crime, Cultures of Resistance.” ​Social
Forces,​ vol. 88, no. 2, Dec. 2009, pp. 693–722. ​EBSCOhost​, doi:10.1353/sof.0.0271.
 Scheuerle 11

Travis, Raphael, and ScottW. Bowman. “Ethnic Identity, Self-Esteem and Variability in
Perceptions of Rap Music’s Empowering and Risky Influences.” ​Journal of Youth
Studies,​ vol. 15, no. 4, June 2012, pp. 455–478. ​EBSCOhost,​
doi:10.1080/13676261.2012.663898.