IslandMix - Soca, Reggae, Zouk and Caribbean Entertainment

Does todays music have affect on todays youth? I know this question is old and has been asked and discussed on many different media outlets

Now i have always defended an artists right to make whatever music they want.
And i have always argued that music does not affect our behavior, its art immitating life not life immitating art...
But i have noticed a change in the last 8 years or so...

When i was a young teenie bopper around 13 or 14 years old, when Onyx was telling us to throw our gunz in the air, you didn't see masses of people at a party pullin out guns and trying to kill each other.. yea we would start wilin out when that song came on but never no shootin...
But you remember the incident last spring in that arcade on Times Square when that 50 cent song came on and there was this big shoot out...

Not only violence, but look at the admiration of the drug culture that our youth have and is reflected in hiphop songs, and the irresponsible sexual behavior that was espoused when little kim and foxy brown came out. It wasnt the music itself that was bad but the adoption by girls of this attitude and the people defending it by saying "why you hatin for, let them make their money."

I dunno, maybe its just me but i think the young of today are not smart enough to differentiate between music and reality and which behaviors are ok to immitate and which are not.
What are yall opinions??

i don't think the questions is whether or not todays youths are smart enough to different right and wrong behavior but that it was never taught to them to the point it was ingrained.

this question you posed made me think about personal influences...a lot of parents today are busy building careers and making a living to support the family that they rely on other influences to keep their children occupied (ie. tv, video games, music, etc) and don't take the time to try to censor what their children watch or listen to.

children do not get instilled thats necessarily right or wrong and how to handle problems they may encounter, since the parents are not around for the most part...but they learn from the influences they do have (ie, the music, the movies, tv, etc) and the famous role models they find there such as 50cent.

the ability to differentiate right from wrong, and how to deal with problems without resorting to violence are learned traits that needs constant reinforcement, especially when a child is young and impressionable. it can just be learned in school, it has to be backed up at home as well by parents, relatives, etc etc

I could not agree with you more.

I was necessarily blocked from anything, but I was taught right from wrong and that was beat into me everyday and night.. and I knew the repurcussions of wrong... It has affects yes.. so does other things that parents instill...

Music do affect u in various ways not only the youth but even the matured. It depends on your upbringing and how easily influenced you are, this will tell wheter you are affected or not by the music you listen too. :grabit We all have choices in life.

Agreeing with the valuable points u all made.

I was never an easily influenced person growing up. I made my own decisions. As someone mentioned, my mom and dad thought me the about making choices and consequences. I mean and looked around, always paid attention of what is going on around me and decided that I'm not getting involved in certain things.

Children these days look up to these people as role models. oh I wanna be like this person, oh I wanna be like that person. So they tend to start patterning their life after these people. There is no individualism among them these days. Peer pressure has a lot to do with what they do. The artist has the right to sing what they please, however is the choice of the person to choose if they wanna walk down that path. Some of these kids know the consequences of doing certain things, but they still make that choice to do wrong.

Till this day I don't listen to certain music. I think some of it is crap. Even our music, if the lyrics is shytty, I don't listen to it. I mean u can't stop children from listening to certain things, but u have to show them the reality of the situation, it's music, some of these people may have expereince that kind of life and survived that don't mean u will. I think parents should monitor what their kids watch, but then again the parents aren't even home. However if u develop a good communicating relationship with ur children from a young age, u may be able to save them from such a life style. But u have to be opened minded as a parent and mentor to the children

Anyway the bottom line is that society is set that way, for a certain group of people to fall and they just keep biting the bait.

I brought this question to Imix after walking home from the supermarket one evening in my neighborhood and over heard these to youngins talkin... I didnt hear the whole conversation but one said to another "a n*gga don't need no job, a n*gga could hustle, he dont need no job" Now this is in a working class/middle class neighborhood where you have 2 car families... There is no need for the youth to feel that they have to hustle to survive... I think these spoiled ass kids listen to all the glorifications of the ills that exist black communities and want to live that life. Its kinda like when Gangsta rap started to become mainstream and you had these little white girls on the talkshows talkin how real it is in the ghetto....

so sad eh hornaman, they settling for less at such an early age. Some of them think that's what expected of them. There is no more to life. Like Ben Carson said in one of his books. Kids just wanna be into sports because they see them making money, and I guess the ganster rapping business. They have to realise they are alot more careers out there that u can make money from. But I guess such things r main stream these days.
The kids need role models, or get involved in a big brother and bigsister programs. Need more of that in our communities.

It's incredibly sad what's happening with the young teenagers today. Many of them are doing so well and are so positive, while there are others who are so obsessed with the bling, pimp and gangsta that the mainstream life is portraying. It's terrible that these youths have all the advantages that many of their parents didn't have and they are willing to throw it away just to be gully. Our parents worked so hard when they first cam eot the US/Canada/UK to make a life for themselves and for their children. Most of us are doing well with the opportunities that are available to us, while the younger generation is just portraying what they believe to be the good life. the questions is when did this gangsta life become so glorified? ( because me personally fraid it like hell.) I think the problem lies in the fact that many of them are growing up too fast and are too streetsmart for their own good. When I was younger my mother tried to shelter me from everything, whereas now the kids are raising themselves and judging life by the harsh realities that are in the streets and on the radio and tv.

I agree with everything being said here, with one modification: I think we're now into the 2nd generation of parents who are not doing their job. The parents of the late 60s, 70s, and early 80s spent so much time drilling into us the ideal that "we have all this opportunity now, you have to get your education so you can get a good job." Everything 20 years ago was imo about how we now had opportunity (i.e. gains of civil rights movement, our parents continued flight from the islands in search of opportuntiy), and you had to go and get yours. This was the start of me-me-me in my opinion.

They skewed us with that focus. It no longer became about better yourselves, the goal was always "do x, do y, do z, so you can get a job or make money or whatever. Add to that like was said how the parents were both working countless hours, and not home, for the 1st time ever in history, to constantly monitor and educate the youth. So, we started to slip from then.

Those kids are now today's parents, and so now it's only worse. People who are only all about the almighty dollar are bearing children who take that to the next level (children always do): the almighty dollar at all everliving costs, no matter the method. 'Just go to college to get a good job' is now replaced by 'make as much @!#@$@ money as you can'.

There could be holes in my theory, but I think that once money or the attainment of it became an end, instead of a means to an end, and particular, once me became the focus instead of we, that started us down a ugly horrble path ever since.

Where do we go from here?

Well said Pimptress. I could not have said it better.
D Bad Lad

What about the Pimp culture that's being embraced on music videos, tv shows, movies! I'm doing a Communications report on the effects of negative stereotype culture such as "Pimps n' Hoes" on society! My professor asked me why do I think it's getting positive feed back, and WHERE ARE THE PARENTS! I think it was Mystic R. who added about the decades, well as time went on, and family structures changed, both mother and father were working, or there we're single parent households and children had to stay home by themselves after school. It became the lost foundation for the child development! Think about it:
*this may not reflect everyone's family unit, but just an idea*
50's-60's family units were in most cases mother/father, kids come home, mommy is there making sure they're doing there homework! Or Granny was watchin allyuh!

60's--70's- the fallen soldiers, many went off to war, or were freedom fighters, protests, the free lifestyle! DRUGS were Rampant in the black community in these cases mothers were faced with holding down the fort!

70's-80's- *Drugs and Transmitted Diseases* ! Also it was the working Mother and Father, the Reaganomics/economy?!, who's was home with the kids?, so the name LATCH-KEY kid arised!

80's-90's- let's not even talk about the divorce rate!

So, I feel the family structure also plays a big part on why kids are getting influenced by the music! It's up to the parents, and we as the community to help build the future, JUST MORAL RESPONSIBILITY! I think as many families came to this country they forgot the village helped in raising the child! WHAT HAPPEN, it may not be the village or down the road, but it's still yours and my community?