Can Rap Music Negatively Impact Personal Development?

[Pharaoh]

I'm a college aged male and much of the music I've listened to throughout my teenage years up until now has been rap. I've known for awhile that most rap is very shallow and materialistic, which are aspects of life I wish to distance myself from. However, I really enjoy the empowering feelings I get from listening to the overall product, not necessarily the content of the lyrics. I also find that much of my mental chatter consists of these songs that are stuck in my head. Do you think it's a good idea to stop listening to this genre?

Edited September 30, 2016 by Pharaoh

[ChimpBrain]

I guess it depends on exactly what rap you're listening to. There's nothing inherently wrong with rap, it's just that most of it is exactly what you described. Shallow, materialistic, violent, negative, etc. You might start with weeding out some of the artists you deem to be the worst offenders in that regard and replacing them with more positive ones. I'm hesitant to make suggestions because I don't listen to rap that much.

 

But yeah, in short, in my opinion it can definitely effect your state of mind. It's sort of like the saying "you are the average of your 5 closest friends." Your environment has a profound effect on you, try to make any aspect of it that you have control over be as positive as possible.

 

I grew up on heavy metal and came to this exact same conclusion about a large percentage of it, so I gave it up.

[Pharaoh]

@see_on_see Very insightful answer, thank you!

[Pharaoh]

@ChimpBrain Thank you for your answer, I think that weeding out certain artists will ultimately be the best decision for me here.

[ChimpBrain]

27 minutes ago, Pharaoh said:

@ChimpBrain Thank you for your answer, I think that weeding out certain artists will ultimately be the best decision for me here.

Run an experiment on yourself. Cut out all rap for a month and either replace it with some sort of more positive music or don't listen to music at all.  Take note of the changes in your inner dialogue, mood, interactions with people, etc and see what you notice. It might even help to keep an actual journal that you check into once a day and jot down a few notes. You have nothing to lose. Worst case scenario is you don't notice any improvements and decide to continue listening to the same stuff as always. Best case scenario is you notice a huge improvement in some aspect of life and decide to make some changes in music selection. It's only a month. 

 

I had mostly given up metal except for during my workouts. I liked listening to it during workouts for the added aggression but I noticed that everytime I left the gym I had this sort of background feeling of anger trying to bubble up, so I ran an experiment. For a month I stopped listening to metal during workouts and replaced it with EDM, which is still upbeat but much more positive. I noticed within 2-3 days that when I left the gym my moods were better, and after a week or 2 that my moods were better 24/7. So I just kept it up permanently.