According to a recent study, Hip-Hop music may be responsible for an increase in smoking amongst teens it was recently revealed.
Over 75% of the most popular Hip-Hop songs of 2005 contained some kind of explicit reference to using drugs, alcohol or tobacco, according to researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.
The Pittsburgh School of Medicine also found that 48 out of 62 rap songs studied as part of a larger look at music in general, contained one or more references to substance use.
The study examined Billboard’s 279 most popular songs of 2005, finding that a 41.6 % of those songs had a drug reference of some kind.
“Overall, 116 of the 279 unique songs had a substance use reference of any kind,” wrote the researchers. “Ninety-three songs (33.3%) contained explicit substance use references.”
“Only four songs contained explicit anti-use messages, and none portrayed substance abuse refusal,” the study also found. “Most songs with substance use (68%) portrayed more positive than negative consequences.”
The researchers found that the use of drugs and alcohol was associated with partying in 54% of the songs, followed by sex, violence and/or humor as the most popular associations.
It was most often motivated by peer or societal pressure and sex; with most of the positive consequences described being social, sexual, financial or emotional.
When the 279 song were broken down by genre, researchers did find a wide difference in the overall rate of references, finding one or more references to drugs in 77% of Hip-Hop songs, 36% of country songs, 20% of R&B songs, 14% of rock songs and 9% of pop songs.