Jordan Futrell

Ms. Huizar

UWRT 1102

11 February 2017

EIP Process Draft- Draft Essay

What really makes the words in a song so offensive to other people who hear it? Why does it

seems that words, which can be seem like a simple and harmless thing can end up setting people

off, like no other thing in this world can. When words that can be offensive to other people are

put into music, it can take things to a whole other level and set people off. But why is that? Why

do people get so mad when they hear when they hear something so simple? Something that

seems like it could be brushed off without a second thought and not affect again for another

single moment for the rest of your life. Some people will make the argument that profanity in

genres like hip-hop, needs to be censored more in this modern time, because of the way that it is

affecting not just our youths and how they look at the world, but how it affects the everyday

persons speech and how they look at life as well. Music has always been known to be very

influential with Bands like the Beatles or Pink Floyd, to the new modern age type of music,

where people like Kendrick Lamar and J Cole rule the music scene, and the music itself is still

seen as quite the influential figure in this world. Music does not affect people in such a negative

way though, that it should be dumbed down, just for the unwarranted pressure of a few that think

that it should be censored from some of the hard-hitting lyrics out there today. When you look at

the research done by someone Linda Hoffman, that shows that music, no matter what the lyrics

are can have a positive affect on a persons speech development, at a young age. She argues that
teaching reading and writing through music can help children with learning disabilities learn

reading and writing in a way that they could not learn, if it was just taught through traditional

writing techniques. On the other hand you have other people like Amy Morin, who argue that

young people who listen to expletive violent music, could lead them to a life of drugs,

unprotected sex, crime, and violence. Painting that broad of a brush, saying music can effect

people in such a negative way needs to be backed up with hard evidence. David Caldwell goes

though three pieces of hip hop to determine if there is any visible or underlying negative effects

on profanity and negative language in music. After all the research that he did, he came to the

conclusion that, there it was almost troubling that people want to omit expletive words from

music out of hip hop lyrics altogether.

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Strong Foundation, November 11, 2015 http://www.livestrong.com/article/1000832-can-music-

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33, Issue 2, Pages 173-191, April 1, 2005.

http://journals.sagepub.com.librarylink.uncc.edu/doi/pdf/10.1177/0305735605050650

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http://journals.sagepub.com.librarylink.uncc.edu/doi/abs/10.1177/87551233070250020103?journ

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D9459584945712FA8BC6F066D933.f02t04

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Since 1985, Best Tickets Blog, April 1, 2014 http://www.besttickets.com/blog/rap-profanity/

David Caldwell, To swear or not to swear: The challenge of hip-hop in the language

classroom, National Institute of Education, Singapore, 2012.

http://www.auamii.com/proceedings_phuket_2012/caldwell.pdf