I haven't stated that I want or think hip hop should be eliminated, hip hop was overwhelmingly positive for black culture in the 1980's until groups like N.W.A. made it near impossible to make it without promoting gangsterism.
That's true, you didn't. Some others here have suggested that it could theoretically improve the situation, or that if it had never happened we would be better off. I think both are ridiculous sentiments.
I don't know of Jay Z being a producer, you might be thinking of someone else or maybe I'm just ignorant to what he's doing - but my overall point is that rappers are selling ignorance to audiences in the overwhelming majority of cases and have been doing so since the 1990's while they themselves often actually live in more normal circumstances and I think that's sick.
Jay Z has his hands in everything, record studios and film production. He oversees a lot of shit, and while his name might not always show up as "producer" on the label, he's basically a de facto producer at this point.
When I said it's not about the music, I should have been more clear, what I meant was it is not the music on its own that is doing anything to anybody, which is why I think the metal comparison doesn't equate because lyrics alone do not do much to people - but rather the culture that surrounds the music, so in that case sure punk is a much better comparison except that most punks probably don't live in similar socio-economic situations with blacks in America.
Okay, but this is basically the same thing I've been saying. It's the culture, yes--by which I mean our culture, the entirety of it, because, as Dak mentioned, rap and hip hop sells just as widely among whites. American culture is also responsible for the kinds of social roles deemed appropriate for African Americans, which is why fiscally responsible African Americans recede into the background. I don't mean deemed in any intentional sense, this isn't going on behind closed doors. Have you seen the movie
Get Out? It deals with this topic really, really well. And it's a fucking good movie.
There's also so much good literature on this; the first thing that comes to mind is Claudia Rankine's
Citizen, in which she talks about Serena Williams's perceived image in popular American culture. Marketability influences how celebrities conduct themselves, and it also dictates what consumers (are allowed to) want.
Rap and hip hop are a part of culture, but they're not the primary reason for things like gang violence, even if it feeds into them to some minute degree.
Here's my main argument:
My original point was that you can't blame music for criminal activity, and that if we're going to isolate the causal factor to the music itself then it makes no more sense to say hip hop is responsible for crime than it does to say that metal is. You're defining hip hop more broadly, though, as a wider set of cultural behaviors/conditions. I would agree that those conditions give rise to criminal behavior, I just wouldn't call them "hip hop conditions," or something like that. I would say that those conditions preceded the emergence of hip hop and, in fact, gave rise to genres like hip hop and rap. Those genres are a cultural response to preexisting conditions, and eliminating the music won't eliminate the conditions, or even improve them (theoretically). There's absolutely no way to distinguish between gang members who got involved in crime because of hip hop and those who would have joined gangs anyway due to other social pressures; I'd say that the former group is probably so small as to be negligible.
In many cases, it's likely that hip hop actually serves as an outlet for troubled youth (like punk did). They might experience some pressure to commit crimes, or violent fantasies; but music gives them a way to vicariously exercise those fantasies without resorting to actual violence.
There's no doubt that hip hop is a powerful cultural force, but I'm doubtful that it's a larger causal factor for negative behavior than other social conditions.
