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Jordan Futrell

Ms. Huizar

UWRT 1102

27 March 2017

EIP Process Draft #2

Shout-out to all of this ganja, blowin down trees like a new forest fire! I thought a

quote from my favorite hip hop group the Underachievers, would be an appropriate way to start

this off. Now what does this quote make you think of? Does it make you want to go do anything

in particular? Now hold your answer in your head, we will get back to it later. Are people today a

product of their own environment? Do the things that surround humans in media and

entertainment today, influence what we do in our own personal lives? In some instances, the

answer could be yes, like how we are influenced by the way our favorite entertainers dress or

how we perceive the correct way to eat and stay healthy is in the media today. But are there are

some instances, where the influences from societys favorite entertainers, can take a turn for the

worse in their own personal lives? Especially when those people are younger in age and more

susceptible to influences in their life around them, because they are not old enough to know any

better and their minds may be easily corrupted if not carefully monitored and watched by their

guardians. Organizations like the AAP (American Academy of Pediatrics) believe it is in

childrens best interest to listen to lyrics that are not violent, sexist, drug-oriented, or antisocial.

Even though they have no knowledge of any study or any link ever to the correlation of music

lyrics influencing and impacting the behavior of adolescents and pre-adolescents. When these
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children grow up, they are not going to have their parents there to hold their hands and keep

them away from all the harmful things, that can reach them and influence them in this world.

They are going to have even less of a chance to stay away from the bad influences and habits in

life, if they are not educated about them at an early age and taught about the effects and

consequences of what they are hearing and seeing in their favorite music and media. Adolescent

teens and pre adolescence should not be monitored and kept away from songs speaking drugs

and other bad habits because drug use in the United States has remained steady without spiking

for years now with minor exceptions, drug references in music have risen over the years,

education and legalization of some substances creates awareness for adolescence for that certain

substance, and there has never been one study ever that has been able to correlate music lyrics

and media content, to actual personal behavior.

Over the years there have been certain spikes in drugs around the United States. The only

real recent spike has been with heroin increasing 145% in use since the last statistics taken in

2007 and heroin is not a drug that rarely ever referenced in todays music, especially in hit,

popular songs. The most popular drug of choice is marijuana and the percent of adolescents

using the substance peaked around 1997-1999. It saw a steady decrease until 2007, and ever

since it has been on a slow but steady rise. The most popular drug of the 80s which was cocaine

has seen a steady decrease, since its peaking of popularity in the decade of the 80s. The rate of

use has fallen to just above 2% in all of United States teens. Other drugs have come into the

public spotlight over the years like Molly/MDMA, which saw an increase in use in the early

2010s, but has been declining in use ever since. In 2014 a study was done by the National

Survey on Drug Use and Health concluded that just 0.7% of adolescents between the ages on 12-

17 used molly in the past year. So, with the exception of marijuana, which has remained the
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consistent most popular drug among not just adolescents, but by the majority of people in the

world, most of drugs in todays society seem to be a running fad for a while and their popularity

and usage rate eventually falls, in a varied amount of time. The same things can be said about

hallucinogens, which peaked in the hippy age and have been in steady decline ever since or

methamphetamines/pain killers which have also been in a steady decline since its peak in the late

1990s.

Over the years music has increasingly become more and more graphic and personal as

time goes by. The world has come a long way since what was thought to be the new edgy music

of the day from artists like Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, and the Beatles. One big difference is the

most popular genre of music in todays day and age. In 2015 per Spotify, hip hop is now the

most listened to and popular genre in the entire world. Naturally this is going to lead to the

culture of hip hop being integrated into todays society among the youth, and the influences from

the genre to be prevalent in society today. But do the overwhelming references to substances use

hinder the adolescents of today, and does it influence their lives in a negative way? In a study

done by Denise Herd in 2008 illustrating the amount of drug references and uses in hip hop

between 1979-1997. The statistics in the rise of references having to do with drug use in hip hop

have been quite staggering. Between the years of 1979-1984 Heard recorded 11% of all hit

record songs in hip hop contained references to some type of substance. In 1985-1989, that

number rose steadily up to 19% of hit record hip hop songs, contained some reference in a way

or another to an illegal substance. By 1990-1993 that 19% had jumped to a substantial 45% of hit

record songs that had contained a reference to substance abuse. Between the years of 1993-1997

that number jumped to 69% of all hit record hip hop songs contained at least one type of

reference to substance abuse. So, in that 18-year span that Heard focused her study on, saw a
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68% rise in some type of drug reference in hip hop music. Not only has hip hop been on the rise

when it comes to drug references in its lyrics, it is also by far the genre in music that talks about

and references it the most. In a study done by the Office of National Drug Control Policy in

1999, it displayed that hip hop talked about drug use, more than any other genre by a wide

margin. In the study sample that they took, 63% of all the hip-hop songs that they listened to

contained a drug reference somewhere in the song. The top three genres after that were the Top

100 which contained 11% of drug references, Alternative which contained 11%, and Heavy

Metal which contained 9% of drug references in its songs. Now a regular person would think

since the most popular music genre in the world has such a heavy undertone of drug references

in its music, then it would be an easy influence in the adolescents of todays day and age. Well as

already stated, that is incorrect and the usage rate of drug use among adolescents has remained

steady and not spiked, even with the spike in drug references in their most popular music genre.

With organizations like the AAP so worried about the potential effects of what todays

adolescents are listening to, one would assume there has been a study done, that shows a possible

correlation between music/media and adolescent behavior. Well I will save the time for you to go

and try to find one because there is not a single study out there that proves there is any

correlation whatsoever between what adolescents are watching and listening to and how they

behave in their own personal lives. The AAP specifically states themselves that there has ever

done a study done, that has proven there is any relationship between the two things, but they feel

that more research needs to be done to make sure. In a study done by the Office of National Drug

Control policy in 1999, there was not enough evidence shown in the study that was done to prove

that anything in song lyrics had any certain influences on the adolescences in the study. They did
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conclude the certain things in music videos or in TV might have in influence but there was still

not enough evidence to make a conclusive answer.

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Work Cited

Denise Herd, "Changes in drug use prevalence in rap music songs, 19791997",

Addiction Research and Theory, Vol. 16, Issue 2, Pg. 167-180, April 2008.

http://web.b.ebscohost.com.librarylink.uncc.edu/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=d2712b

6d-c1ab-4524-904b-a190b407ac35%40sessionmgr103

Donald F. Roberts, Lisa Henriksen, and Peter G. Christenson, "Substance Use in Popular

Movies and Music", Office of National Drug Control Policy, Washington, D.C. : The Office

1999. http://uncc.worldcat.org/title/substance-use-in-popular-movies-and-

music/oclc/41674919&referer=brief_results

John Market, Sing a Song of Drug Use-Abuse: Four Decades of Drug Lyrics in Popular

Music-From the Sixties through the Nineties, Sociological Inquiry, Vol. 72, Issue 2, Pg. 194-

220, April 2001. http://uncc.worldcat.org/title/sing-a-song-of-drug-use-abuse-four-decades-of-

drug-lyrics-in-popular-music-from-the-sixties-through-the-

nineties/oclc/5156734121&referer=brief_results

Stewart, Pearl, Whos Playin Whom?, Black Issues in High Education, Vol. 21, Issue

5, Pg. 26-29, April 22, 2004.

http://web.b.ebscohost.com.librarylink.uncc.edu/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=0857a019-cb42-

448d-8749

f3f445d0dd7a%40sessionmgr102&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db

=ehh&AN=13087628
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Christopher M. Redker, Bryan Gibson, Music as an Unconditioned Stimulus: Positive

and Negative Effects of Country Music on Implicit Attitudes, Explicit Attitudes, and Brand

Choice., Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Vol. 39, Issue 11, Pages 2689-2705, November

2009. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.librarylink.uncc.edu/doi/10.1111/j.1559-

1816.2009.00544.x/epdf

American Academy of Pediatrics, Impact of Music Lyrics and Music Videos on

Children and Youth, Australian Federation for the Family, Pediatrics, Vol. 98, Issue 6, Pg.

1219-1221, December 1996. http://www.ausfamily.org/resources/media-influence/115-impact-

of-music-lyrics-and-music-videos-on-children-and-youth.html

Sarah Yang, "New study finds glamorization of drugs in rap music jumped dramatically

over two decades", UC Berkley News, April 1st, 2008.

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2008/04/01_rapmusic.shtml

Ben Carter, "Drugs in Hip Hop: A 30 year Analysis", Genius, 2015.

https://genius.com/a/drugs-in-hip-hop-a-30-year-analysis