The Mycenaean

Over the past several decades, the type of music listened to has had an enormous impact on the teenagers of each generation.  

Elvis Presley, Madonna, Pink Floyd, Michael Jackson, and The Beetles are just a few of the most iconic music stars from the past. Their music was so popular then, and yet still is popular now. Teenagers nowadays still listen to some of these artists.

The modern music teenagers listen to now is nowhere near the same as it was 20 years ago. One of the most popular genres that teens love to blare from their cars is rap. Teens glorify artists such as Lil Yachty, Lil Uzi, Kodak Black, Migos, Gucci Mane, Wiz Khalifa, and Future.

Most rap songs consist of lyrics suggesting drinking, girls, drugs, and even jail. Although not all of them do so,  the most popular and commonly played ones do.

Rap music shouldn’t be as glorified as it is and here are the reasons why:

Most songs have a cuss word in every other lyric.

Songs that include almost every type of cuss word shouldn’t be something we love to listen to. The type of music we listen to influences us more than we think, so only listening to songs with a plethora of cuss words can’t be the best for us. Also, it doesn’t make you appear as a nice and classy young person when you’re driving through a neighborhood with small kids outside blaring a Migos song about getting “lit.”

Most songs are only about drinking, doing drugs, or partying.

Since most teenagers love to idolize rappers and their music, they tend to get the idea that partying all the time and doing all kinds of drugs is something that is normal or “cool” to do when in reality it is not. The lifestyle most rappers present in their songs and music videos is exactly what teenagers have been taught their entire life not to do. Also, some famous rappers even have been arrested for possession of drugs or doing some illegal activity. It truly is an awful influence on our younger generation.

What is the artist even saying/what do those lyrics even mean?

Even though some songs have a decent beat and lyrics that its audience understands, most songs consist of random mumbling that goes on for half the song. My question is, how is that considered good music? You can’t understand what the artist is saying half the time, and even when you do, the words they’re singing seem almost like a foreign language. They only enjoyable part of the song is the chorus, so throughout the entire song you’re waiting for the 15 second part that you actually enjoy.

Most songs and music videos are extremely demeaning to women.

This is one of my biggest problems I have with rap music. They objectify women in almost all of their songs, and accompanying music videos show women in scandalous outfits. They rarely refer to women as anything other than derogatory terms such as the “b-word” and “hoe.” The consistent use of these terms by rappers normalizes the objectifying of women to young boys.

The young rapper, Kodak Black, was in jail for alleged rape of a girl and yet teenagers were still tweet “free Kodak.” This goes to show how wrong it is that we glorify such people.

Overall, I believe that rap music and rappers shouldn’t be glorified as much as they are. Although dancing to rap songs may seem fun and harmless, they are the exact opposite of positive influences and are only negativity impacting our youth.