How do our favorite artists lyrics impact us?
Music plays a huge part in the socialization of both adults and children, no matter what type you enjoy or how it influences your life. There is a large body of research that suggests music does things such as helping us form our identity, and deal with things such as loneliness or depression. If music has such a large positive impact on us, it is fair to wonder how explicit content in some of today’s music impacts us on the negative side. Can lyrical themes of misogynistic language and explicit sexual behavior have an impact on listeners?
To solve this we would want to see whether or not something like the trigger hypothesis could be involved in the way people consume music. The trigger hypothesis claims that exposure to sexually explicit material of any kind will provoke them to commit a sex crime of some kind.
More than two thirds of the songs featured in the Billboard top 100 in 2017 were songs with explicit lyrics. Since 2001 there has only been one year (2012) without at least one explicit being a chart topping hit. Even in 2012, there were chart toppers such as “Whistle” by Flo Rida that were sexually suggestive. The prevalence of these themes show us that this content is there to be consumed, it is only a matter of how it is consumed and by who.
Some people argue that music is purely for entertainment purposes, and that we do not actually listen to the lyrics in depth. However, studies have been done that refute these statements. Approximately 17% of males and 25% of females have said that they like their favorite songs because the lyrics were a reflection of their feelings. Even young listeners who may not understand everything that is being said are able to pick up on enough to notice the general message being portrayed by the artist.
Young adults between the age of 16 and 30 are the largest consumers of rap and hip hop music. The consistent listening to derogatory and sexual explicit ideals may lead to these young adults becoming desensitized to the messages. It also may lead to them becoming unaware of the harms.
We cannot draw any conclusions to how explicit lyrics could impact behavior, and I do not know that we ever will. Desensitizing people to such serious messages such as violence towards women, and explicit sexual behavior is nothing to be taken lightly. I agree that the trend of explicit lyrics can be unnecessary and over the top, and should not be seen as a good moral trend for the music industry. It is extremely difficult to draw a causal relationship between explicit music consumption and behavior, and I believe it is an issue that will continue to be debated. I cannot imagine that the use of this type of language can add anything beneficial to society, even if the benefits of music itself remain.
On the contrary, as an avid listener of hip hop music, I do not believe it has impacted me or my ability to realize the magnitude of these issues. In many settings hearing the words spoken by our favorite rappers would drop my jaw, but in a setting where they are flowing through my headphones they seem to not translate to my daily life. As much as these lyrics should not really be used, in music I believe they are okay. It is music after all, and is meant to be for entertainment, the same way video games and movies are. It is music and freedom of speech, and these rappers are allowed to lyricize how they please, but to what cost we may never know.
