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Comment by joemazerino | Hacker News Reader

Hip-hop's genesis really was revolutionary. Stealing power from lines to power DJ equipment. Bringing entire blocks together to dance and have fun, in the NYC of the 70s no less.

It is too bad the 90s gave rise to Gangster Rap and the music became less about empowerment, community and positivity. Instead full of attacks against other artists, gloating about law breaking or outright disrespecting the police. We now have drill rap which is widely considered to be the most lyrically and image violent [1] rendition of hip-hop to exist, convincing youths worldwide that killing each other and showing it on Snapchat is a lifestyle worth living.

1: https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/the-curious-ca...

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The conclusion of the above link is, as might be expected:

    But ultimately, evidence-based science should play an important role in informing public policy on these issues.

    “At this point in time, to the best of our knowledge, there is no publicly available empirical evidence that drill music language incites violent crime,” Kleinberg and McFarlane conclude.

It seems to be more a case of art imitating life with very few cases that can be shown to incite and instigate violence.

I'll be honest.. Being black i genuinely think drill is the worst thing to ever happen in black music. It does in fact lead to violence and retaliation for things said on a song. How would someone even conduct that study. Listen to the music and be a part of the community then you'll understand. You cannot draw any significant conclusion from the comfort of a high rise. That kind of music contributes to a very negative cultural aspect. It celebrates evil, straight up celebrates it.

> Listen to the music and be a part of the community then you'll understand.

We have drill here, it's not just the US or the UK.

> It does in fact lead to violence and retaliation for things said on a song.

It's closely tied to violence to be sure. If it were removed would the violence go away though? Would groups with a history of violence find other ways to provoke each other?

> How would someone even conduct that study.

Whether it's a good method or a bad method the link above goes into detail about how they looked into the linkage.

> You cannot draw any significant conclusion from the comfort of a high rise.

Good thing I don't live in a high rise then.

> That kind of music contributes to a very negative cultural aspect.

Yeah, it's straight up thuggish chest beating come at me posturing. Weirdly that doesn't always have to lead to violence and can in some circumstances lead to an afternoon of heavy haka with everybody going home afterwards. Or not.

It's complicated.

> It's closely tied to violence to be sure. If it were removed would the violence go away though? Would groups with a history of violence find other ways to provoke each other?

I think you might be onto something here.

Reminded me of my middle school history teacher, who tried pretty much imprint into us the difference between triggers and reasons for events. Which I found to be pretty helpful, as people tend to often confuse those and use then interchangeably. A specific example of triggers vs reasons: start of WW1 was triggered by the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, but it was not the reason for the war. There were plenty of reasons that would've pretty much led to the war regardless of Archduke being assassinated.

So I agree with you. Drill music is tied to violence, but it isn't the reason for it or a direct cause, it is more of a trigger. And you cannot eliminate the problem by just eliminating a trigger, you gotta address the reasons for it first.

Because they can make money making songs about killing people which will get more listeners if you actually do it. I'm not sure why you guys don't get the connection here. If you want to address poverty, histories of gang violence and say that's the root cause sure. Trust me when I tell you this, that music is making those people money and further warping a culture that's already has massive problems. Just take a look at the statistics of youth homocide for black children and the rise of drill music. If there are no corollaries Ill shut up.

There is a distinct gap between people who read studies to understand something and people who live it in the day-to-day.

My original point was the hip hop of yesteryear, with its positive lyrics and upbeat vibe, has given way to drill rap -- not surprisingly, the youth are following what's cool.

Agreed

> If there are no corollaries Ill shut up.

Of course there are corollaries, that's acknowledged in both the study linked by joemazerino and in both comments by myself.

You might want to take a beat before rushing to judgement about who's a guy and who's lived what day to day.

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