ReservoirAngel said:
Someone called me out on this today. I was listening to my old Dr. Dre album "2001" today around town and my headphones fell out of my iPod. Which led to the thing blasting a large part of Snoop Dogg's section of the song "The Next Episode" to blare out quite loudly until I noticed.
Right next to me was a woman with her young son (kid was about 7, maybe 8 at a guess) and she pretty much started having a go at me for it. According to her, hearing that sort of music is a bad influence on her son.
I proceeded to retort that I'd listened to this exact same stuff when I was about his age and I'm perfectly fine. I don't deck myself in more cheap bling than Mr. T, I don't treat women like crap, I reckon I got no problems from it at all. But she insisted it was a horrible influence.
I can see how it could be. I mean kids are impressionable little idiots, so hearing people singing about the kind of stuff hip-hop stereotypically talks about is obviously a problem for many people cause there's a chance they could pick that shit up.
So Escapists, do you think rap/hip-hop music is really that bad for kids to listen to? Yeah it's not appropriate, obviously, but I don't personally think it's "bad for them". But what do you think.
P.S: I feel I should mention this woman was probably the whitest person I've ever seen, excluding albinos. Just thought I'd throw that info out there.
P.S.S: Sorry if this has been done before. Don't hate me.
The musical styles are not inherantly bad, but the messages that are conveyed within those styles and the dominant culture that goes along with them is also extremely negative. You can "rap" or use the "hip hop" style to convey anything so disliking the styles of music as opposed to the messages inherant in it is wrong.
Now, I will say that I think the very fact that your trying to make a point about this, given the content that was probably present in what you were playing, does show that you have wound up pretty warped due to listening from that early age (if it's true) largely because you think there is nothing wrong with this.
To put things into perspective, a good portion of the rap and hip hop put out there carries at least the equivilent of a "PG" rating, and a lot, especially the work of guys like Snoop Dog carries the equivolent of an "R" rating, being for mature audiences only. While it's less of an issue right now, due to video games being the media boogie-man of choice, the lack of enforcement of the ratings on music being sold (ie kids getting music rated for an adult audience) is a fairly big issue that comes up from time to time.
The problem with what your doing is that you allowed this to be heard by children in a publically accessible place. That's not cool. Indeed it's things like that, which cause stupidity like the goverment wanting to be able to criminally enforce ratings violations.
The general defense that someone has the right to listen to whatever they want in their own home, doesn't apply in publically accessible areas. What's more giving people an attitude if they object in public, does nothing but fuel the fires of issues like this, because if people can't be reasoned with to exercise self control, they are going to increasingly support the authorities in taking way, or limiting free speech, so they can control you.
That's my thoughts on the subject at any rate, but also understand I say this from the perspective of someone who spends a lot of time argueing in favor of free speech and free expression rights, and keeping goverment control out of media. People who go out of their way to defend exposing material unsuitable for children TO children... irregardless of the format of that material, makes things far more difficult.
It's sort of like if I walked around with a portable flip-screen DVD player under a trenchcoat and used it to flash porn to kids at a playground. In the scope of this battle an "X" rated movie, and a mature-audience song, are the same basic thing.
If for some reason your privatly listening to music through headphones, and some accidently leaks because you don't turn it off properly when taking them down to listen to someone, the right thing to do is muffle it and apologize to those who might be offended or whose kids are exposed, NOT get in their face about it, because it was your goof.
I'll be honest too, this is a battle that has been brewing for a while, and has been hitting a lot of fronts. The quintessential "kids playing offensive music loudly on a boom box to get a rise out of people" is exactly the reason why the goverment is getting support from a scary number of people to limit free speech, even if the avenue of attack changes (right now it's largely video games). Your right, you DO have the right to free speech and expression right now, but push and those same sheeple your annoying have the power in great enough numbers to take that right way from you... and you know, all it takes is one solid victory against books, movies, music, or video games to get that slippery slope snowball rolling, as the simple precedent for the goverment to be involved in the direct regulation of speech and media (in any capacity) is going to be the springboard for them to go after it all, one issue at a time.
So as I said, it's "not cool". Messing with sheeple can be annoying, but remember it's not fun to get run over by a stampede, and we've been seeing the herd slowly gathering for decades now.
