Tales From the Mic: A Content Analysis of 10 Years of Hip-Hop Lyrics

• In Event: Hip-Hop-Based Pedagogy as Culturally Responsive Curriculum: Whose Culture Is It Really?

Abstract

One of the contentions made by advocates of hip-hop pedagogy is that the “negative” lyrics to which so much attention is paid is a very small portion of hip-hop. Emdin (2010) provides a good example, “While I do not support or condone the gratuitously violent or hateful lyrics that are in some rap lyrics, it is important to recognize that these lyrics only provide a thin slice of hip-hop and an even thinner slice of hip-hop culture” (p. 5). Our intention with this study is to provide an empirical basis from which conclusions can be drawn about the prevalence of “positive” or “negative” messages in hip-hop lyrics.
We used Billboard Magazine as a source database. From January 2003 through June 2012, Billboard has maintained a weekly list of the top 10 rap songs. Our database included all songs on the Billboard list in that 9½ year period. This gave us a total listing of 4,900 entries. From this list we randomly selected 49 weeks. We then randomly selected one song from each of those 49 weeks. This left us with 49 as the total number of songs analyzed. Song lyrics were printed from popular lyrics websites and provided to raters to ensure commonality. Raters developed categories for codes by reading and categorizing lyrics from sample songs independently of one another. Once raters reached a point of redundancy, they stopped generating codes and discussed discrepant codes. A total of 10 categories/codes (violence, misogyny, hypersexuality, drinking/drug use, vulgarity, race-hatred, socio-political consciousness, brotherhood/sisterhood, familial love, and race responsibility) were generated by the raters. The unit of analysis within a given song is what a rater determines to be a complete and independent thought or idea. Raters discussed discrepant code until they arrived at consensus. The codes for each song were then organized into ratios such that each category is presented as a ratio of the total number of codes for that song.
Findings indicated that the lyrics reviewed were skewed more heavily towards those codes that could be deemed “negative” such as misogyny, vulgarity or race-hatred and reflected fewer of those codes that could be considered “positive” such as familial love or race responsibility. Findings also suggest that this pattern has not shifted over the time period covered by the study. We are in the process of extending this study in two ways. First, we are recruiting high school and college age students who are self-described “hip-hop youth” to serve as raters. We feel this may help to mitigate any age bias. Second, we are working to identify a second sample of songs from a time period preceding 2003. This may help us to better identify shifting patterns in lyrical content.

Authors

• Jomo W. Mutegi, Indiana University - IUPUI

• Vanessa R. Pitts Bannister, University of South Florida