by Kwaku Person-Lynn, Ph.D.

In the adult population, from the age 40s on, many of us remember when blues, jazz, rhythm & blues and rock & roll started there was basically a public and parental outcry against those various forms of music. The most common objections were: “That’s devil music;” “That’s a bad influence on the young;” “It drives them to sex and drugs;” “It destroys the moral character of society.” The list is endless.

Well, guess what, most of us are still here and whatever bad things we were going to do, we were going to do anyway. Even more ironic, some of the same people who were critical listen to one or more of those same musical styles, and are telling the youth today, regarding rap/hip hop music, “That ain’t music. You don’t know what real music is;” a debate that may never see a conclusion. There will always be generational differences on various styles of music.

When rap first came on the scene in the late 1970s, out of Bronx, New York, it was a natural creative, musical eruption against disco music. The music industry was in a serious economic recession.

Printed in Volume 1 Issue 10