hip hop. controversial music genera has been around since the 1980s but since then the music has been associated with degrating women and doing drugs. >> that is where the research is showing the clearest danger coming out. >> as the poetry become lost mt. profan -- lost in the profanity. is rap music rap music anymore? >> you are watching equal time exploring new issues each week giving equal time to competing points of view. hello from the campus of

san jose university and welcome to this edition of equal time. i'm your host journalism school director rob rutger. rap music is known for having a lot of vulgarity in it. how damaging can that be? there are two sides to this issue. hale begins our coverage with a look at how some studies show how rap lyrics could have a negative effect on children and their behavior. [ music ] >> kendrick lamar is entertaining an audience in oakland with his rap music. his words would be considered obscene in the classroom or on the street. but this crowd is with him all the way. audience members here are above 21. younger crowd could be adverse reeffected according to a study

in the journal of the american act of child and adolescent psychiatry. increased violence and aggressive behavior increased high risk waivers including alcohol and tobacco use and onset of sexual activities. hip hop has become one of the most popular music formats in the united states. but experts say that with popularity comes a price. the safety of children. the music is part of a culture of exhibiting violence and promoting gangs. a child care provider and parent in morgan hill says she has witnessed the ill effects. >> i have observed an increase in profanity just kind of rolling off the tongue. it's like whoa. do you even realize what you just said? >> nancy rodriguez says not rap music is not conducive to her mental growth.

>> i have my children listen to music that does something for them. whether it's spiritual or motivating and i don't see that with rap music. >> rodriguez says she notices a behavioral change in young children she watches in her child care business. she can tell the difference between students that listen to rap music and those that don't. >> they are exposed through it and comes through in language, comes through in play you know. in ideas. we will talk about themes. you definitely you see it. >>ed aless dent in child development professor at san jose state moreen smith says the role of parents is crucial. >> parents are open and talking and aware of the music. they are not dumb enough to say no. if they are open and say think about what this is. think about what this is cig. is this really how you want to live your house? then the teenager can listen to

the music. but if the parent is oblivious to the music. if the parent shuts down and doesn't want to talk about it if the parent doesn't share their values, it is in some way their responsibility because they are letting the teenager enter that world of music without guiding their experience with it. >> she also says the attitude toward women are directly related to the music. >> women are shown as sexual objects and victims of abuse and targeting and deserving victims and boy's attitudes about how to treat their girlfriends. >> with gender and race issues are not only concerns surrounding hip hop today. some veterans in the industry do not like where the music scene is going. a dj that has been involved in hip hop for over 40 years says technology has taken away from what the music is about. he spoke to this english class

at uc berkeley. >> it's making laziness. it makes you not want to dig for records because you find them on the internet. it makes you not want to communicate with your neighbors to see how good they are. >> it's important to remember that not all hip hop is violence. parents consent to their child's music or explain the lyrics should not be acted out. >> when we come back we will stir it up. when equal time returns.

welcome back. we have seen how rap music is taking the rap bringing a negative influence on children. but some rappers put a distance between education and hip hop to spreading the word about the music. we will see how that is done. once again. >> dj broadcasting at san jose state says hip hop saved his life. >> in 2009 i was involved in a pretty serious car accident and since the hospital i was staying in like six months did not have internet or tv or anything like that or tv worth watching. one of the ways i kind of coped

with the insane amount of boredom and pain and everything was listening to hip hop. >> the moody has become an interactive force in the community by producing a media team to bring new talent to the industry. one hip hop artist kendrick lamar says his music is about connection. >> you say something that goes on in the neighborhood and put it on the record and somebody can relate to it. >> hip hop duo from seattle says young minds are the most creative. the group formed its name as a play on the word blue collar and the lyrics direct attention between the gap of socioeconomic class and youth. >> the power of being youthful is something that never leaves you it has a lot to do with consciously making a decision to create your reality.

the younger you are, typically the more inclined you are to want to see your dreams in reality. >> once you reach a certain age and become set in your ways. >> blue scholars say through youth and certainty society can progress. >> young people are the ones that are the least polluted by the lies that we all sort of believe to operate in these things we calling society. >> for rapper fredy in indiana music has been an outlet to talk about social issues while performing in the bay area he talked about oscar grant. the 23-year-old man that was funned down in oak -- that was gunned down in oakland by a police officer. >> we as citizens of this country and taxpayers and hire

this man to protect us. and they killing us. you know what i mean? you can act like it ain't a color thing if you want to but it is. >> it's a common theme in rap music to criticize the police. >> same stuff is still going on. we are still getting brutalized and still getting murdered in our own neighborhood. we are not getting ourselves straight from these police. >> music can be critical but successful. casey one of the youngest rappers to achieve status in the industry is able to support himself at 18 years old. >> shed me new opportunity -- showed me new opportunity. showed me you can go out and make something out of nothing.

it influences me. influenced me to be a go getter and be positive. >> some institutions even bridge the gap between hip hop and education. at uc berkeley one of the classes is hip hop. says the structure of hip hoplyrics is similar to poetry. he say there is is merit to setting hip -- merit to studying hip hop. >> that's where it deserves to be. it's an art form that deserves to be studied. there are elements in it that can be analyzed. it can be identified and it can be named. >> he says the music format is inspiring. he chose his career path because of the music and has high hopes for where it can go. >> there is a lot of room for improvement. it is an art form and it will keep growing and i don't think there is any limit to where it can go. >> in the 1970s when hip hop

was first introduced, it was considered dance music. since then it has picked up other things such as gangster rap highly sexual activities. >> when we come back we will sit down with a group of experts searching for solutions when equal time continues. welcome back to this edition of equal time.

our focus today is on hip hop. poetry or profanity? let's meet our guests. >> my name is -- i'm a child care director. i have been working in this field for 29 years. >> i'm a student senator at college in the student rights and services community. >> i'm de moan carter i'm a local mc and director of the future arts now after school program. >> my name is joseph also a local mc known as apocalypse and world history teacher. >> i'm hale the reporter for this story. >> i'm the old guy in the middle. we will try to make this work. i want to talk about hip hop and where this is at. you said something before about my era was disco era. we gave birth to this music. why? >> hip hop is first of all started in new york. you had a great melting pot of

different culture things that were happening. we had the punk movement and you also had disco. hip hop is kind of everything that was going on at that time and it kind of rose out of that culture that disco culture of being in the clubs. started with the dj. then the dj wanted to bring a guy along with him to say his name and that became the mc. >> hip hop is more than just music a lot of people tend to think it is it's very cultural. there is a lot of different cultural experiences with hip hop more than just the music. that's really what brings people to the table and become interested in hip hop is not just necessarily the music even though that is what some people hear and initially introduced to hip hop with. but getting the cultural understanding and seeing how it really brings people together there is a lot of benefits. there is a lot of benefits and a lot of cultural and community influences that can be found

within hip hop. >> let me bring in -- everything they are saying sounds interesting and nonthreatening. what is the problem? >> the difference between the hip hop that joseph grew up with and hip hop i brew up with was some difference. i think there was a lot of positive influences in joseph's life when he grew up with hip hop. i'm sure there was some negative influence with hip hop at that time too. when i grew up, i remember in my first few middle school dances i was listening to song like 50 cents in the candy shop. as much as we like to not have these kinds of aspects represent hip hop we have to acknowledge there is a significant way hip hop is marketed in today's society. we can't disregard that as a part of hip hop. it is. especially in the way the rest of society perceives it. as a kid, listening to this music and other kids listening to this type of music it definitely has an impact. in the way you act and the way

you perceive what is important. in society. and so i think especially when you're at that impressionable age, you will soak in anything you can get. >> i understand in our culture it can have a negative effect. >> exactly. i would start saying that you know after children growing up listening to hip hop and they did find i did not see any problem because i guess there was some controls at home. some limit setting at home. but being a child care director lately i am facing great difficulty with children using inappropriate language and gestures. as a child care specialist every time we see that we have to bring the families in and find out where it's coming from and certainly parents are now using those words. parents are now using that language at home. >> the first thing you said is that hip hop didn't have that

impact on your children because they were controlled at home. let's say if we had a magical wand and we could scrub away every negative aspect of hip hop and went back to the happy go lucky type of stuff that we are more accustomed to when we were growing up, there would be some other influence that infiltrate a parent that doesn't know how to set the proper boundaries. are we talking about hip hop or a lack of parental control? i think a lot of times when we jump on hip hop it's really a broader context in terms of parental control. parents that let their kids dress too young and do things like that. >> i would like to interject. is that parental control? of course that is true. i think media is playing an important role is that they are fantasiesing. and that is why the children are getting attracted to it earlier and earlier. if you look add the fashion styles.

the fashion they are copying and even the mannerism how they walk. >> at what age do you think it's appropriate to listen to music with rappers? >> it just depends on the child. some children like i said my children they started listening to it at an earlier stage but i never saw that in them copying of imitating. >> it's usual unusual for young people to try to mimic or copy the cultural music of the time. i had a white suit. i don't feel about it. but there was nothing threatening about that suit. >> but there was. if you want to go back and look how people reacted to elvis presley. how people reacted to jazz. these things were universal recognized as this is a double influence. this is a negative influence on teens. what it really comes back to a lot for me is how we are interpreting these images. you talk about music throughout the different ages. you can look back to the history of these art.

you can see profanity and poetry has been inclusive. you see that play out. you mention nwa earlier and ice cube if you look back at that music, it wasn't profanity for profanity sake. the problem with modern music what we are seeing the evolution of it hip hop used to be yes there was profanity in it but it was mixed in with a larger picture. you could zoom out from it and look at it from a bigger perspective. i think today what you are seeing profanity for profanity stake. >> i think it goes back to the point that we made earlier. that media is behind this. we're talking about music that is in the mainstream. being that it's in the mainstream tells you you've had billion dollar corporations. you have media moguls. you have people that know

advertisement. people that understand psychology. people that understand the way that certain communities and then individuals react to messages. you need to go back and ask the questions is it rap music? is it hip hop? or because it's in the mainstream and we're hearing these messages 60-70 times a day that maybe there is other forces behind this that makes it more accessible to us. for some reason or another, for the last 30 years, hip hop and rap music have become mainstream society. it's become embraced by mainstream society. >> how do you define mainstream? i'm still part of society even though i don't have hair anymore. quite frankly some hip hop i like but most of it i don't. i'll tell you why and feel free to agree or disagree. i do think young people are impressionable. they always have been. they do pick up from stars. they pick up on a lot of things. the language but also the dress issues.

i'm embarrassed for young men today in the way they are dressing. largely because of hip hop. i think it looks like garbage. maybe i'm talking the words my parents taught me. you just mentioned something about parental guidance. if that came back they may not like you what are doing. >> i make a good point about mainstream. hip hop and i think a lot of what we are talking about is mainly just rap. rap is the most direct form of musical communication. and rap you don't have to talk in an extended metaphor or do a double to get your things across. you're saying i want to make money. you don't have to make up a metaphor for that. it's very direct. as such it's easy to fill anything. i turn on the tv i see images i don't want my daughters to emulate that have nothing to do with hip hop. i don't want my daughters to emulate these teen debby taunt or have a show on one of the channels where it's the five-

year-old princesses in tiaras or whatever. horriblely distorted images of womanhood. i don't say it to defend it. it's there. it's a male dominated form hip hop is all aspects and there will always be a threat of ma sole judge any there. what you you are talking about is what has happened. we placed a magnifying not we but the media. the powers that be that control the images on your television sets or coming out your radios. they placed a magnifying glass on the worst part of our culture. >> the reason they are doing that they know that image itself and has been selling. isn't that a frightening thought? our children are consuming these at a faster and faster pace. >> it's selling something. >> it's selling we don't want sold. i don't want my child any group using the n word. your generation thinks it can change its meaning change its

history change its impact. that is just my opinion. there are many people out in society that don't like the culture style because we don't think you understand what you're saying. >> there will always be that cultural shift when the things that you know my mom thought were cool my grandma didn't think were cool. and the things i thought were cool, my mom didn't think were cool and you know you kids don't know anything. now i'm 35 and i catch myself saying things like that too. but in terms of hip hopping i'm glad you brought -- hip hop and i'm glad you brought up the n word specifically. in terms of rebranding the n word it will always have its legacy. i'm an african american that works in primary latino and asian communities here in san jose working with the youth who the word for them is a currency and a term of endearment. you can say it's not and you children don't understand years

of presentation but they don't. hip hop has given them a way to rebrand that word and use it as a term of endearment and that is just one of the things hip hop does. we take trash -- >> congratulations. you sound just like that media television group you talked about. you decided that can be done. >> it can be done. >> one of the challenges we use in school is how many people nail their children hitler. why don't you rebrand that name? you can't. it's one of those words, one of those names you just don't touch. >> the n word is more valuable. >> both are valuable. >> you want to talk about your generation. look at richard pryer. we didn't pick up these images and threats from nowhere. >> i'm saying our generation didn't give you anything. i think we were much more cautious about certain words. go for it. >> let's talkn't the influence hip hop has on specific communities all together right. we've had the n word.

and we talked about images that hip hop has sold to the separate communities. i think the n word has become something that is way popular. it could not have been done through hip hop today. that was something that was sold and now part of our society. and if you look back 30 years would someone have thought that could would have been part of society? if we look 30 years in the future who would say these images of women in hip hop that is the extreme who is to say that doesn't come -- >> what is funny about that. i go back to the comment you made about the disco era. women were being objectified in that era as well. 1970s was a huge time period of sexual liberation and freedom coming from the 1960s. and if you look at it what women were wearing in the 1970s that were in the disco clubs who were on the posters who were later the poster girls in the 1980s for the rock and roll and heavy metal bands that were

talking about sex, drug, and rock and roll before you heard any hip hop artist talking about that. that era also had that element. >> do you think that today's music objectified women more because now the b word is becoming an appropriate term to use for a girl. did that come from hip hop? >> no. i'll tell you this much. it's funny because i could turn on the cable network and hear the b word thrown around so openly on cable network and television more so than i even hear it in hip hop and rap songs i listen to. on a regular basis. >> let's take an example of the word slut that was used recently. if you take any rapper or mc today that uses that word there would not be as much repercussion from that. i think because it's accepted

in hip hop culture. that's just what they do. i think it's far more accepted in hip hop these days. you need to reform it so everyone is on the same level. somewhere just because you are part of a cable show doesn't mean you can get more whiplash for saying the word. >> it's funny how people -- there is people like rush limbaugh that got in trouble for talking about the college student and that whole situation. he used some terminology he said well rappers use it all the time. so we even have rush limbaugh now. it gives certain people a license to do and say things that they might not do. but it just speaks to the overall power of it. and it's how do we harness that power? >> isn't that a dangerous power? shouldn't it be used responsiblely? >> hip hop will always be that thing that exposes nasty truth. the b word and the n word don't catch on like hitler can't catch on because hip hop speaks

some almost mental, fundamental truth about this society. people connected. that's why people like it. >> we know there is a great cognitive development for their skills for their emotional intelligence. i remember 25 years ago we used to play radio. we were allowed to use radio. now we have the policy we cannot turn on the radio because if you give the children a choice what station they are going to choose. >> you want to point out 5,078- cent and big and every negative rapper. they are literally a pawn in the game when you think about these mega media conglomerates that control the media. we can spit 20 rappers that have a positive message that have something worthwhile to say that is nowhere on the map. >> we needed to hear that song.

creative energy and creative license still has to flourish and we have to go. i'm sorry our time is up. thank you. this was i almost mating and i -- illuminating and i learned a lot. we hope you come back for another edition of equal time.