Perhaps American Culture is not so Debased After All

Just when I start to wonder if there is any redemption for our popular culture, I see a glimmer of hope on the horizon.

The turning point is hard to pinpoint. But after 30 years of growing popularity, rap music is now struggling with an alarming sales decline and growing criticism from within about the culture’s negative effect on society.

Could it be that we are finally coming to our collective senses and beginning to realize that songs that glorify drug dealing and street violence, and demean and over-sexualize women, are actually not so great for our psyche?

Rap insider Chuck Creekmur, who runs the leading Web site Allhiphop.com, says he got a message from a friend recently “asking me to hook her up with some Red Hot Chili Peppers because she said she’s through with rap. A lot of people are sick of rap … the negativity is just over the top now.”

Now? Well, better late than never with that realization, I suppose.

Though music sales are down overall, rap sales slid a whopping 21 percent from 2005 to 2006, and for the first time in 12 years no rap album was among the top 10 sellers of the year. A recent study by the Black Youth Project showed a majority of youth think rap has too many violent images. In a poll of black Americans by The Associated Press and AOL-Black Voices last year, 50 percent of respondents said hip-hop was a negative force in American society.

You can read the whole article here.

Speaking of hip-hop, I had a bizarre experience this afternoon. I was downloading a new ringtone for my cell phone and I clicked over to the Christian/Gospel category and saw a song by R. Kelly. It turns out he had a gospel album in 2004. Who’d've thunk it?

(Yes, I know that R. Kelly is technically R&B, not hip-hop.)

Since you’re no doubt dying to know, I ended up downloading the song “Run,” by Kutless. (You can see the video on You Tube or read the lyrics, if you’re interested.)