Rap and Hip-Hop Culture Autoethnography Mid Unit Post

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My autoethnography is going to examine the belief that the listeners of rap and hip-hop music are all criminals and that the music itself inspires others to commit criminal like behavior. My research is on both ends of the spectrum covering people who believe it does do things of this nature and arguments that directly refute it. My explanations almost exclusively come from scholarly articles and studies done by sociologists on these topics specifically and I will be using a combination of these to really dive into the topic itself.

The research studies I found all focus on self reported studies of individual criminal behavior in youths. I plan on analyzing these results and methods used in conjunction with a couple of source in particular. The first being a study that went into the correlation of an individuals struggles and the role rap music plays in their life. Another is an article that in summary, states that it is not rap music that affects the environment but rather the other way around. With these sources I plan on trying to defeat the gross stereotype that all members of the rap community are thugs and hoodlums and that the violence they speak about it is not the origin of violence in these areas. Rather the violence they speak about is from inequality and discrimination as a whole and that in order to erase the violence in and caused by rap music one must eliminate the original violence that inspires it.