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Comment by EGreg | Hacker News Reader

Why can’t both be true?

There is an argument to be made that gangsta rap made a generation of impressionable kids much more rough around the edges, as it defined the new “cool” for them. Even though it wasn’t “supposed to be for them”, they knew all the words, which are loaded with expletives and misogynistic lyrics, and sowing distrust of the police etc.

Maybe I am just a social conservative but I agree with this lady who tried, in vain, to fight against the capitalist machine that is ths music industry: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Pr6gb1w72xA

Kids are impressionable — the Merchants of Cool documentary clearly shows how capitalist industries exploit that to sell more stuff: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/showscool/

It also helped shape a rift, in my opinion, between the Black and the White youth that grew up now, which had been closing thanks to Liberalism and efforts to move past it.

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Please let's not point fingers at hip hop as if there are not lots of examples of violence in rock, pop, and country. If you suggested "Janie's Got A Gun", "Pumped Up Kicks", and "Goodbye Earl" were making kids more violent, you would be laughed out of the room, Karen.

Music is a reflection of culture, and when there is violence in culture, artists make art out of it to cope. If black music seems more violent to you than white music, please meditate on how much more violence black people experience than white people, and why someone would presume one genre is reactive and another genre is causative.

Yes but the violence was only in select pockets of inner city culture. The gangsta culture was exported to kids living in perfectly fine neighborhoods. Their parents were away working for corporations (more corporatism) while the kids who were raised by public schools and the street were most susceptible.

If you want to hear the arguments against gangsta rap and the exploitative music industry (exploiting externalities just like any capitalist industry)

Listen to me do it in rap form, from 2015 … and please comment

https://m.soundcloud.com/gregory-magarshak/gangsta-rap

Or the countless songs in the Punk genera about burning down buildings and causing general havoc (like giving someone the wrong time). The set of people who actually commit domestic terrorism (or say no to tea) is much smaller than the set of people who listen to the Sex Pistols for instance. If anything, there's no compelling reason to think they it's the music causing the violence, rather than people who are into that lifestyle selecting an art form that reflects what they already believe.

Punk didn't have nearly the distribution, but yes punk rock is the closest I can think of to an analogue for exporting violence to non-Black youth. The other being Italian mafioso movies, creating a stereotype for some to "look up to". If you grew up around Bay Ridge in Brooklyn around those times, you'd see the effect. It isn't a race thing, it's a culture thing where the worst elements are being purposely amplified and distributed to everyone by a movie/music industry.

Why has Blaxploitation became not ok but gangsta rap is still considered “just art” with misogynistic and violent lyrics portraying Blacks self describing themselves as materialistic thugs, they were role models “poppin bottles”? Are women not 50% of the population, why is it OK? Why is it OK to have lyrics about mistreatinf Black women etc. as “just art” and Ice Cube who uses B’s and H words about women in his music comes on to Bill Maher’s show to lecture him about how using the N word even about yourself in a joking way is “not cool”? Yet it is cool to be a non-woman and using slurs against women? I think both are uncool.

You make a good point that hiphop has a misogyny problem, (it also suffers from misogyny's sibling disease, homophobia,) but why keep that issue focused on black music when all music has a misogyny problem[1]. Is Kanye worse than Robin Thicke or The Nails?

[1]https://www.flavorwire.com/489278/25-of-musics-most-obnoxiou...

Edit: Thanks for your Soundcloud link. I like your flow. You make fair points, but I see no evidence that any of the issues you raise are worse in hiphop than any other genre. (Or that hiphop's issues are internally generated, and not amplified by an exploitative industry that makes bank off stereotypes.)

I can believe gangsta rap culture may (nevertheless I would require evidence to believe it does) affect kids characters an undesirable way but I can't believe violent computer games can make mentally healthy kids enjoying them to want doing violence in real life. I and many people I knew were such a kids enjoying violent computer games and preferring as much virtual blood and dismembering as possible but doing violence in the real world never ever came into my mind and apparently nobody of the classmates did any either. I also enjoyed crazy and violent driving in Carmageddon and GTA2 but in real life I don't even drive as I believe driving is dangerous.

Why is it obvious fictional music crime inspires more real crime than fictional game crime? Just like games, one could come up with random examples of fans doing real world violence, but the vast majority of the suburban kids that prop up the industry are just looking for escapist thrills.

I rarely see games significantly affecting the way how do people look and behave in the real world beyond cosplay events. At the same time it is very common for fans of particular music style to dress and behave a specific way so it in fact does affect their behavior at least in some extent, it may also affect what kind of people do they hang out with. Music also usually has a huge degree of influence on the listener's mood and attitude. Games probably have too but apparently in a much less degree. I don't insist any music style is inherently harmful (let alone for everybody) nevertheless I believe music has more potential to be dangerous than games.

I think you have cause and effect inverted. Gangsta Rap was a response to racial tension and distrust of police.

Or maybe I’m wrong, maybe NWA caused the LAPD to brutalize Rodney King.

> There is an argument to be made

Ok, then make the argument. There must be a mountain of evidence if this is true.

How do you feel about cowboy movies?

There’s an argument to be made that political austerity causes social segregation and people to die in poverty of preventable problems.

Why don’t we set aside the rap battle and Mathematica concerns and focus on well known human society features failing people.

Cut the crap with the pearl clutching “there’s an argument to made other peoples behavior did…” and consider yours as a member of an implicitly caste based society.

Treat yourself like the subject of study instead of abstractly focusing on the flock, dad.

Western psychotherapy role play is the worst personality trait.

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