The Mainstreaming Of Rappers

The recent controversy over the entertainer chosen for this year’s Super Bowl halftime show highlights the influence rappers and their “music” continue to have on American culture. The rap artist known as “Bad Bunny” made it clear on a recent Saturday Night Live broadcast that if we don’t like his rapping in Spanish, we have a few months to learn it before his Super Bowl performance. So much for assimilation, eh? 

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that in the 50 or so years since rap entered the scene in our country, the corresponding cultural decline has been evident for any fair-minded person to see. Rap music should get a well-deserved bad rap (pun intended) for its oftentimes nasty, violent, and self-indulgent lyrics. We have rappers to thank for the “language of the hood” becoming part of everyday vernacular. However, rap has struck an undeniable chord with millions of disaffected youths for the same reasons crazy political movements have – the expression of victimhood, grievance, and contempt for a system that has done them wrong. For most rappers, their lyrics are a reflection of who they are, and their grievances expressed are real – at least to them.

As rap’s popularity soared during the 1980s, conservatives reacted negatively about the rap lyrics and the rappers’ lifestyles. Granted, some rappers and rap groups, such as the notorious 2 Live Crew, gave us plenty to complain about, given their vulgar, obscene lyrics, and even some on the liberal side of the aisle expressed outrage. By the time Bill Clinton was president, rap had achieved such a foothold among youths that then Vice-President Gore’s wife Tipper demanded that warning labels be placed on every rap CD that contained nasty lyrics – and there were plenty of them. Her demands resulted in Congressional action to do just that. How much good these warnings did is questionable, but they at least alerted parents who were paying attention. 

Even in the midst of bad, however, God can work through anything. A rapper named MC Hammer professed Christianity and kept his lyrics G-rated. Observing Hammer’s popularity, other Christian musicians started creating rap songs as well. Was this cultural expropriation on the part of the Christian artists, or simply pandering to teenage preferences? Let the listeners decide.

What motivated this article, as much as the Bad Bunny controversy, is the mainstreaming of rap stars into modern entertainment. One of the most recognizable faces because of his ubiquitous presence on our televisions is the rapper called Snoop Dogg. Snoop is all over the place, on numerous commercials, TV shows, and movies. Inconvenient facts about Snoop the person are either swept under the rug or glorified, depending on where he is and the audience he’s playing to. For example, he’s a pot user and advocate who’s in the same league as Cheech and Chong, and in his rapping prime, he was the king of so-called “gangsta rap.” Others, such as LL Cool J and Ice-T, have found homes as good guys on crime-solving shows after edgy careers as rappers. It’s kind of ironic, seeing Ice-T play a cop on a long-running series years after making a rap song titled “Cop Killer.”

Tipper Gore’s high-visibility outrage aside, there should have been a lot more pushback from everyday Americans on rap’s destructive tendencies – not just from preachers and bishops. As those who were parents of teenagers during rap’s rise to massive popularity, we needed to take a firmer stand overall than what we did. However, nagging a teen about such things runs the risk of escalating an already bad situation. From a personal perspective, I know that convincing a teen to get rid of their nasty rap albums may require some thinking “outside the box” and the involvement of others to achieve the desired result.

What is it, then, that’s allowed edgy rap artists like Snoop Dogg to become so popular that he’s one of the most recognizable entertainers on the planet? I would submit that the underlying 11^th commandment of our time – “Thou shalt not judge!” – has a lot to do with it. There’s an admittedly fine line between judging the person and judging their behavior. All I ask, when it comes to rappers, is for us to be clear-eyed about what their messages are, for the sake of our children and grandchildren. This means avoiding the instant judgment that they must be evil demons by default, but it also means that just because they’re popular, they should not get a free pass for objectionable behavior. 

To say that Bad Bunny is a bad choice for Super Bowl entertainment, we should base that on what he says and what he stands for, which is not good overall (hence the name “Bad”). Given the betting scandals being uncovered in professional basketball and numerous inexplicable officiating calls in the National Football League (NFL) these days, the NFL is not in a great position to ride with this particular entertainer at this time. 

The alternative halftime show sponsored by Turning Point USA is a welcome alternative.