Rap culture influence on youth

What’s the rap culture influence on the youth? It goes both ways either a good or a bad one. The fact is rap has changed from the past years to recently. There’s rappers who give a good message behind their lyrics and others don’t. Rappers like J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar,Joey Badass, Logic etc. rap about their struggles and what they went through to get here with their success. Present rappers now mumble rap and talk mostly more about drugs and guns and the use of them. Old school rappers used to rap about it too but having a deeper meaning to it and now just talking about it more is the new wave.

For example J.cole’s album called KOD has different meanings to it like King OverDose, Kids on Drugs and Kill Our Demons. This album talks about these things and also has the flow of what new rappers are doing now. On the album cover has a small text above that says “ This album is in no way intended to glorify addiction”. According to Genius.com, when J.Cole said “Life can bring much pain, There are many ways to deal with this pain(right), Choose wisely(right). He ends the song with retrospect, asking the listener to choose their way of dealing with their pain wisely – he indirectly implores us to choose wisely, against drugs and alcohol.

A rapper who has had a big success is Lil Pump, he raps about flexing clothes, jewelry, drugs, women. One song from Lil pump that’s called ‘Gucci Gang” gives lyrics about that because that's what the youth are into now. Nothing wrong with music with those kind of lyrics, just what kids get influenced in. I interviewed a friend Jeremy he said “ rap isn’t like the old days, throughout each year things would change because of trends and what the youth are into and aware of what’s popular. Some kids would be influenced on what rappers are doing like doing drugs”.

Sadly a rapper called Lil Peep died by overdose on xanax on November 15, 2017, showing what drugs can do. Rap would keep changing throughout the years and change isn’t bad, just aware what message and influence is being put out there.