Gangsta Misogyny: A Content Analysis Essay

To understand what factors drive and influence the messages conveyed in gangsta rap lyrics, one must look to the environmental influences of the artist themselves. Kubrin examines the motivating factors represented in gangsta rap lyrics through the analysis of a sampling of music from 1993 to 2000. Kubrin's analysis excludes music produced after 2000 as she notes that 2000 marks a turning point in rap music industry "whereby production values more clearly addressed commercial competition, pushing cultural production and reproduction aside" (Kubrin, 367). Kubrin notes that gangsta rap differentiates itself from other types of rap as it is a musical expression of ghettocentricity," which engages "black youth cultural imagination that cultivated varying ways of interpreting, representing, and understanding the shifting contours of ghetto dislocation" (361). Kubrin identifies "the extreme, concentrated disadvantage and isolation of black inner-city communities coupled with the quantity and potency of drugs and availability of guns" as social-structural community characteristics that form the "code of the street" that influences the behaviors of individuals and emerges in the lyrics of gangsta rappers (363). Kubrin contends that street code can be viewed as a source or inspiration for rap lyrics and therefore can be understood to be a reflection of black urban youth culture (365). Rap lyrics offer insight into a culture in which violence is both appropriate and acceptable. These lyrics provide explicitly detailed "instructions for how to interpret violence, degrading conduct and…create possibilities for social identity in relation to violence (366). Violent behavior cannot be attributed to the violence described in the lyrics of gangsta rap music. Because music can be interpreted in a myriad of ways, rap and the genre's lyrics are "appropriated and embedded into specific individual, familial, and community fields of reference" (366). Both street codes and rap music lyrics do not incite action, rather provide "an accountability structure or interpretive source" which people can reference to better understand violent identity and conduct (366).To better understand the role of the street code in rap lyrics, Kubrin analyzed 130 albums (approximately 1,922 songs), sampling 632 songs. This sample was further analyzed to determine the role of various street code elements such as respect, willingness to fight or use violence, material wealth, violent retaliation, objectification of women, and nihilism. The percentage of references to the above themes is as follows: respect-68%, violence-65%, material wealth-58%, violent retaliation-35%, nihilism-25%, and objectification of women-22%. Contrary to the popular belief that rap music lyrics are rife with misogynistic references, this study, as well as Armstrong's study, reveal that misogynistic references do not pervade rap music lyrics (369).

Much like "Eminem's Construction of Authenticity," also by Armstrong, and "Ambivalent Sexism and Misogynistic Rap Music: Does Exposure to Eminem Increase Sexism?" By Michael D. Cobb & William a. Boettcher III, the articles by Armstrong and Kubrin take an analytical approach to the influence of gangsta rap music, both on the individual and society, finding that major contributions to the genre are motivated by commercialism, as well as, the environment in which the rappers live. Contrary to popular belief, both the studies of violent and misogynistic lyrical content, each covering two distinct time periods, finds that only 22% of the two samples analyzed make reference to violence and misogyny and the issues raised within the lyrics are interpreted by the individual based on personal experiences. Exposure to violent lyrics has been made possible by the popularity garnered upon Eminem and reflects his influence upon the gangsta rap genre that he has helped to redefine.

Works Cited

Armstrong, Edward G. "Eminem's Construction of Authenticity." Popular Music and Society

27.3 (2004): 335-355. Print.

Armstrong, Edward G. "Gangsta Misogyny: A Content Analysis of the Portrayals of Violence

Against Women in Rap Music, 1987-1993." Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture.....