Gangs and the music industry - Research Paper Example

Gangs and the Music Industry Source Dave, Miranda and Claes, Michael, 2004. “Rap music genres and deviant behaviours in French-Canadian adolescents”, Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 33(2): 113 This source investigates four different kinds of rap music and their impact on adolescent behaviour. The findings in the study showed that rap music as a whole was linked to deviant behaviours. The study also showed however, that the nature of the relation between the deviant behaviour and the music differed according to the genres.

This study could therefore be useful in establishing the link between the music industry and youth gangs. It could help to show how the music functions as an encouragement to adolescents to engage in violent behaviour by making it a socially acceptable form of violence. Source 2: Mahiri, Jabari, 1996. “Street scripts: African American youth writing about crime and violence”, Social Justice, 23(40:56 This is a commentary on various scenes, involving a rapper being arrested for selling his tapes on the streets.

It explains the underlying psychological reasons behind the production of rap. The criticism of white supremacy underlying the development of rap is clear in this article, which could thus be useful in linking the music to the criminal tendencies arising out of the hatred of supremacy of the white race. It could help explain why rap music is so popular among minority races, because it is in effect, an expression of animosity against the superior white race. Source 3: Richardson, Jeanita W and Scott, Kim A, 2002.

“Rap music and its violent progeny: America’s culture of violence in context”, The Journal of Negro Education, 71(3): 175-192 This source points out how rap lyrics are generally violent and the language in them is offensive. The article argues that dismissing rap artists as perpetrators of socially deviant behaviour is simplistic. Rather, it argues that rap music is a creative expression of America’s well established culture of violence. This source could be useful in exploring the more complex links between rap music and socially deviant behaviour.

It could be useful in explaining how the need to suppress internal violent tendencies emerges externally as rap music. It could also explain why it is so popular among adolescents, as a means of expression of freedom from the social and economic limitations of their lives. Source 4: Forman, Murray, 2000. “Represent”: race, space and place in rap music”, Popular Music, 19(1):65-90 This article introduces a spatial analysis into the examination of hip hop culture. The importance of spaces, i.e., the urban background within which rap and hip hop music are produced is underlined.

The article serves to clearly show how the music functions as a tool to liberate African American and Latino youth from the constraining social circumstances of their lives. This article could therefore be very useful in substantiating the thesis of the proposed paper, that rap music and its attendant deviant behaviour is a way for adolescents to cope with the restraining circumstances of their lives.