Rap_Music...Does_It_Cause_Violence_

Rap Music...Does It Cause Violence' Music is prominent in adolescents’ lives. Teenagers spend between four and five hours a day listening to music and watching music videos. They name music as their preferred non-school activity (www.mediascope.org). “It forms the background of car rides and social gatherings, and it also informs the adolescent about the adult world through the lens of artists’ lives, language and role modeling” (Brown University Child and Adolescent Behavior Letter 2003). No longer are rock stars the ones that young people look up to. Rather they have been replaced by young hip-hop stars and rappers who drive fast cars, wear expensive jewelry, date beautiful women, and fight amongst themselves to see who can come out on top. The lyrics in their songs are harsh. They speak of gang life, life in the ghetto, gunfights, drug use, and they often degrade women. Yet wherever one turns these songs and being played over and over again on the radio and the music videos are being show on TV. As harsh as they may be they are in fact the real lives of many of these stars. Susan Buttross, MD, FAAP, chief of child development and the University of Mississippi Medical Center and spokeswoman for music, rap, young, violent, lyrics, women, videos, people, says, one, life, behavior, artists, violence, study, rappers, aggressive, about, songs, men, et, been, al, over, out, however, child, popular, percent, effect, drug, black, 1996, words, university