Parenting Advice From Joy Berry: The Trouble with Rap Music
I should have suspected that something was up when the doors opened on a subway train that I was boarding and everyone except eight rowdy teens disembarked and scrambled into the neighboring car. But by the time I figured it out, the train was ready to leave the station. So I hopped onboard and took the first seat that I came to.
When the train started, rap music began to blast from a boom box and the eight teens started rapping at the top of their lungs.
Before that moment I had always dismissed criticism of rap to the proverbial generation gap. But that’s before I had an opportunity to actually listen to a rap song all the way through.
As I expected, the language was obscene by average standards. But much worse was the anger and hatred that was spewing forth from boom box as well as the eight teens. Any hope that the music would uplift and inspire was destroyed by the degrading lyrics that were seeping from every pore of each teen’s body.
I couldn’t help wonder, “What chance do these kids have of developing the positive attitudes that are imperative for building self-esteem and personal success when such negative thoughts are being drilled into their brains?”
And that’s when I decided to do something that I seldom do. I decided to judge another person’s creative work and deem it “bad for kids.”
That’s not to say that all rap music is bad because I am certain that some of it is acceptable, and maybe even positive.
But I can say without equivocation that rap music is something that parents need to screen before allowing their children to become engaged with it. This recommendation is based on the “garbage in, garbage out” theory in which negative thoughts and energy only beget negative beliefs and actions.
As I listened to those teens rapping all of those toxic lyrics, I wished that whoever wrote them could have somehow taken the amazing opportunity that he or she had been given to speak to young people and had used that opportunity for good. How wonderful to have heard those teens rapping messages that would have uplifted and inspired them instead of making them angry and hostile.
I realize that I was wishing for a lot. But then again, it was because I sincerely believe that there is no less at stake than the mental and psychological health and welfare of an entire generation of young people.
