Mainstream media has repeatedly suggested that hip-hop music and culture contributes to, if not directly causes, a myriad of social ills including violent crime, misogyny, low interest in education and anti-social behavior.  Hip-hop, the most studied musical genre in the history of musical genres, was again under the microscope in the November 6, 2007 New York Times article entitled “For Clues on Teenage Sex, Experts Look to Hip-Hop.”   No one would suggest that we as a society should not try to learn how teens make decisions regarding when and how they engage in sexual activity with the purpose of helping them make better decisions.   However, the framing of the question itself yet again misses the real point to be discussed.  Discussions that begin with the presumption that hip-hop is the problem to be solved, “scapegoat studies” as I call them, bring us no closer to solving any of the important issues that hip-hop allegedly exacerbates.

The November 6, 2007 New York Times article “For Clues on Teenage Sex, Experts Look to Hip-Hop” describes a study published by the journal Pediatrics and performed by the RAND Corporation which suggested that exposure to the “degrading lyrics” found in many hip-hop songs caused increased sexual activity in teens.  According to the study, those teens who were exposed to the highest levels of “degrading lyrics,” lyrics defined as “those that portrayed women as sexual objects, men as insatiable and sex as inconsequential,” were twice as likely to have had sex by the end of the study than those not exposed to such lyrics.  In other words, according to the RAND Corporation, some hip-hop music makes teens have sex.  On its face, the suggestion that when correcting for all other factors, music by rapper Ja Rule confounds a teen’s moral compass twice as powerfully as music by the pop crooners 98 Degrees, two artists explicitly mentioned in the RAND study, seems ludicrous.  I am sure Ludacris would agree.  This is not to suggest that all of the lyrics of hip-hop songs are easily defensible as art or even as decent expression.  However, one must wonder how well our society is served by studies that isolate hip-hop, though it is only one of the dozens of cultural influences to which a teen may be exposed, as a significant driver of teen decision making.

If one believes the conclusion of the RAND study, the logical next step would be to ban “degrading lyrics” in music or, at the very least, make this music much more difficult for a teenager to consume.  Currently, the objectionable music cited in the RAND study is marked with a Parental Advisory Label (PAL) and cannot be legally purchased in record stores by those under the age of 17.  Additionally, some retailers, including Wal-Mart, the largest seller of music in the country, will not sell any music affixed with the PAL.  Further, those who would consume these songs “by accident” on free radio or cable television stations like MTV or BET do not actually hear the unfiltered versions of these songs.  Granted, the “clean” versions of these songs are profanity-free lyrically but certainly not free of profane intent.   Nevertheless, those teens who consume music with “degrading lyrics” are doing so intentionally and after scaling the barriers currently erected to deter them.   Yet perhaps the positive impact of such a ban, like a decrease in teen sexual activity as claimed by the RAND study, would more than compensate for any cost incurred enforcing such a ban.  Problem solved?  Not so fast!  We’d better wait for the results of the Tony Soprano study before we spend too much time, effort and money banning hip-hop music. 

What?  You have not heard of the Tony Soprano study?  You have not missed anything because such a study does not exist.   The Sopranos, of course, was the hugely popular HBO series that ended its six season run in May.  In The Sopranos, the fictional New Jersey crime boss Tony Soprano, played by James Gandolfini, was an extremely profane, bigoted, murdering, serial adulterer who operated a strip club as a front for his illegal businesses.  The Sopranos featured countless instances of the language the RAND study defined as “degrading” and, as a TV program, was able to burn corresponding visual images into impressionable minds in a way that music cannot.  Undoubtedly, teens found it just as easy to view episodes of The Sopranos as to gain access to music marked with the PAL.  Yet, protests imploring HBO to stop airing its top-rated show have been non-existent while hip-hop music has been the target of many a protest.  Clearly, TV gangsters do not invoke the same wringing of hands and gnashing of teeth as do musical gangstas.

In fact, The Sopranos, as evidenced by the profuse acclaim the show received, was embraced wholeheartedly by the public and the television industry alike.  The show is the highest rated cable series of all-time.  It recognized with 16 Emmy awards during its six season run and dozens of other Emmy nominations.  TV Guide named The Sopranos the fifth best TV show of all-time.  Acceptance of The Sopranos was so complete that U.S. senator Hillary Clinton, in a short film also featuring former President Clinton, starred in a takeoff of the series finale episode of The Sopranos designed to help launch her U.S. Presidential campaign.  One of the most profane, violent and misogynistic shows in the history of American television was seen as innocuous enough and mainstream enough for a Presidential candidate to seek to be associated with it.  And hip-hop is the problem?  Hmmm.

The Sopranos, of course, is not the only show to receive the “societal impact pass” that hip-hop has yet to earn.   When was the last time an actor had to defend his or her fictional characters as rap acts like 2 Live Crew, Ice-T or Enimem have had to defend the content of their lyrics?  Rarely is an actor criticized for the potential deleterious impact on society of a role that he or she has played.   In fact, the bullet train to Hollywood accolades often goes through depravity.  Of the last six winners of the Best Actor Academy Award beginning with Denzel Washington in 2001, only Adrien Brody in The Pianist played a character whose moral character was not either questionable or unquestionably bad.  Denzel Washington was not widely accused of glamorizing crime or eroding the public’s trust in authority for his Oscar award winning portrayal the fictional dirty cop Alonzo Harris in movie Training Day.  Rightly, Denzel is considered by most to be a skilled practitioner of his craft, someone worthy of emulation.  Rapper Christopher Wallace, however, even in his Life After Death, must defend his character, the Notorious B.I.G.  Do we really believe that rappers are more dangerous Svengalis to impressionable teenaged minds than are actors?  Perhaps there is a different belief that drives some of the negative attention that hip-hop receives.