PUBLISHED BY AMANDA MESTER

A new study out of the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) is turning a common misconception about what fans of Rap want to hear on its head. Generally speaking, the radio and the industry at large are often criticized for promoting music with negative messages, ones drenched in violence, drug use, misogyny, and the like. Record labels in particular are blamed for perpetuating negative stereotypes by signing, marketing, and distributing rappers whose content does nothing to uplift or educate the masses. However, as the study in question suggests, Hip-Hop lyrics with “pro-social messages” are what the people really want.

Published in The Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media, “A Comparative Content Analysis of Anti- and Prosocial Rap Lyrical Themes Found on Traditional and New Media Outlets” is a study in which researchers examined Rap lyrics shared on Facebook by 600 Hip-Hop Heads. These lyrics were then compared to those in songs on the Billboard Top 11 list, from artists with “traditional record-company backing and promotion.” According to a press release announcing the study’s findings, “songs shared on Facebook contained more “pro-social” lyrics, that more frequently espoused positive themes such as gratitude, expressions of faith and spirituality, messages of community building, the power of education and support for political engagement.”

As such, it’s been assessed that “traditional music companies have yet to realize the full financial and cultural potential of Hip-Hop and Rap. When it comes to the type of artists that get signed, recorded and heavily promoted, the big record labels often overlook what researchers call ‘pro-social’ themes.” Rather than focus on whether Rap music contains more “antisocial” lyrics than other genres, the researches in this particular study were more interested in what the social-media behavior of Hip-Hop fans says about what they’re listening to versus what’s being promoted by record labels.

Avriel C. Epps a UCLA studen and Travis L. Dixon, her professor, are responsible for conducting the study. They write in their report “[p]revious studies investigated the content of Rap music within the context of traditional media and found that Rap often contains antisocial themes associated with negative effects. The current content analysis investigates whether Rap’s lyrical themes consumed and shared online are more diverse and less anti-social than Rap aired on traditional outlets.” In what is likely to be no surprise to listeners of Hip-Hop, the lyrics to songs topping Billboard charts were “less varied in tone and skewed more ‘antisocial’ – including such themes as aggression, criminal activity, derogatory language about women, references to illegal drug use and materialism.”

In total, researchers analyzed 213 songs that were either popular on Billboard charts or shared on Facebook by those 600 users. According to the study, the songs popular on the charts featured “antisocial themes” 47% more frequently than the songs being shared on the social-media platform. Furthermore, for the songs more popular on Facebook, “pro-social themes” appeared 16.5% more frequently than in the songs popular on the charts. Researchers relied on previously generated data in other studies as well as Genius.com to analyze lyrics.

These findings support the notion that music consumers are far from passive and actively make conscious decisions about what kinds of messages they not only want to hear in Hip-Hop, but also share with friends. As Epps explains, “[t]hey may also be resisting negative messages that are being promoted by media corporations and using the autonomy offered by social media to find more positive alternatives. Ultimately, I believe this suggests that music labels are leaving money on the table by not investing in pro-social artists, which consumers are actively searching for.”

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