Every so often, the media hype machine revisits an old favourite gets the hyperbole on and asks the public?
“Is it wrong to blame hip hop?”, “Do rappers glamorise violence?” are just some of the headlines we’ve seen in recent years.
Yet whilst some people are quick to condemn violent lyrics (David Cameron criticised BBC Radio 1 in 2006 for “encouraging people to carry guns and knives”), we rarely look at violent music within the larger context of music, or culture as a whole.
Would it be possible to agree that in many urban communities, rap music is essentially “the people’s music”? With a low barrier to entry, it’s an expressive form that gives an outlet for people to tell their stories, and sharing ones culture.
So what is it that is particularly upsetting for people about violent rap music? Is it that they are worried by someone telling a story of a murder, that they think people will be encouraged to go out and commit murders?
Take these lyrics for example:
“We will pinch him, we will prick him, we will stab him with a pin.
And the nurse shall hold the basin for the blood all to run in.”
So they pinched him, then they pricked him, then they stabbed him with a pin.
And the false nurse held the basin for the blood all to run in.
and
“I stabbed her with a dagger,
Which was a bloody knife,
I threw her in the river,
Which was a dreadful sight.”
which are not rap lyrics, but both from old traditional folk songs.
The first one – Long Lankin – talks about the brutal murder of a baby (and wife in some versions) by the baby’s nurse and Lankin whilst the father is away, and was written at least before 1882.
The second – Down in the Willow Garden – tells us, in the first person, how the murderer poisons her, stabs her and finally disposes of her body in a river dates back to sometime prior to 1927.
We’ve had years of exposure to these songs? Are they encouraging murders? Do people feel inspired when they listen to these songs? Or are listeners able to separate a song from reality?
I’ll leave you to work it out what you think. In the mean time, I’m off to the local rugby club to warn all those young players who get confused about whether they’re still on the pitch, and accidentally tackle the old lady about to pick up the melon in Aldi.
And after that, I need to find a re-enactment society – there’s a civil war that needs starting.