Top 10 Worst Things About Rap Music

Rap music is amazing in its influence and popularity. Far more than just a musical style, rap and the sub-genres of rap have created distinct cultures with specific expectations, status symbols, and norms.

But while some rap artists have worked to buck the trend, much of rap music seems to be heading down a scary path of intolerance, self-destruction, and violence. This list seeks to identify the worst things about those forms of rap music that do more harm to society than good.
The Top Ten
1 Egotism

How many rap songs can be boiled down to "I'm the best, toughest, and hardest. Don't agree with me, I'll prove it"?

You really have nothing better to talk about than yourself? And how convinced am I supposed to be of your superiority that you feel you have to shoot someone in the face if they say something negative about you? No self-confident person would need to do that. In fact, the more you talk about how great you are, the more I begin to wonder who you are trying to convince, me or you.

The scary thing is that this mentality seems to be contagious. When combined with the glorification of violence, we have people murdering other people for inconsequential slights. We've gone from "words will never hurt me" to "sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will cause me to get a bunch of friends, drive by your house, pepper it with bullets, kill you, maim your girlfriend, kill the little girl playing out front, and get myself imprisoned throughout the formative years of my adult life, destroying whatever opportunities my life may have held."

2 Sexism

I'm a freshman in high school, and I love jazz. I'm a huge fan of John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, Pharoah Sanders, Albert Ayler, Ornette Coleman, Duke Ellington, and several more. Songs like "Naima" by John Coltrane talk about their love for that special woman in their lives.

Women inspire people, they encourage people, and they change people (hopefully in a good way). But the way rap "artists" talk about women is just disgusting! They don't see someone they want to spend the rest of their life with. They just see a nice piece of ass that they want to have sex with. These dumb asses can't see anything beyond a sexy body and a nice ass. It's pathetic.

It's also insulting that people my age listen to this, as if it's actually good. If John Coltrane were still alive today, he would be disgusted with what qualifies as music these days.

3 Pointless Lyrics

These "lyrics" are the saddest excuses for lyrics I have ever heard. However, I will say that you know exactly what kind of person that rapper is.

These "artists" that every 14-year-old "hood" kid just worships. Yeah, these are the kinds of people that kids these days look up to. No wonder this generation is falling apart! I'm surprised that this generation hasn't become extinct yet.

I have always hated rap music. I'm black, so everyone assumes I listen to this trash. Nearly every rap song nowadays consists of controversial lyrics pertaining to sex, drugs, racism, money, violence, and struggles.

I listen to rock and roll. At least they shift their style every once in a while. I listen to bands like Saliva, Motorhead, Disturbed, KISS, and AC/DC. I mainly hate rap because of stereotypical views. People assume that all black people listen to rap. I don't and I never will again. Even country musicians have some form of talent.

4 No Talent Goes Into It

The effort that goes into it is very negligible. Most rap "artists" are obsessed with success and money to the verge of pathology, resulting in ever more mediocre "music."

Rappers have no talent with musical instruments and don't have any creativity. They don't craft interesting lyrics on top of emotional or exciting music. They just talk and use a computer-generated beat.

I pretty much only listen to music from before the turn of the century because artists then were creative and worked hard to perfect the words and tune to the song. The result was a fantastic variety of songs that really can bring out emotions in people, both happy and excited, or sad and lonely. The fact that every rap song sounds the same comes down to their lack of creativity and general inability to play and create real music.

5 Glorification of the Gangster Mentality

Yeah, you're bad, you know the streets, and you know the plight of the people. But guess what? You're a millionaire. You've made something of yourself. So why are you still acting like your entire world is shaped by the neighborhood?

Instead of glorifying the gangster life and helping make sure people and the neighborhood stay the same, why not do something positive? Instead of dropping $50k on a diamond-studded grill, how about building a playground for the community? Instead of paying half a million on a Bentley, why not send a few dozen kids to college?

6 The Sound

In my entire life, I don't think I've heard of, witnessed, or heard rumor of any rapper who can play an instrument. Talking into a mic isn't singing, and the rest of the sounds in a rap song are made by electronic devices.

There's zero skill involved other than the skill a five-year-old has to sing nursery rhymes. The Sound is exactly that, just terrible sound with a lot of bass and not much else.

All they do is say a bunch of pointless, trashy words with their hideous voices to a bunch of awful "music" in the background.

7 No Variation

Not only is rap monotonous, but there is almost no individuality. Pretty much every rap "artist" sounds like every other, and the "songs" are almost identical.

They need to paint a visual picture to complement their beat. Wavy trap artists such as Playboi Carti and Ethereal need to channel energy into the wave they create. Mike G from OF can spit descriptively, though.

Why does the game always have to convey either struggle or lavishness? Where's the in-between? You can be lyrical without rapping about negativity and violence, but Eminem has been spotlighted as the lyrical standard. Battle rap hasn't helped, even though I love some battle rappers. Also, where's the love for other Detroit MCs? Pay dues. Descriptive language is key. Hip-hop deserves an atmospheric renovation.

8 Songs Bragging About Having Money

Don't get me wrong, I love rap music. I even like some songs about making money, but only when it's about the hard work and effort involved. But I hate songs that just brag about having money and tell people that they don't have as much.

If someone is talking about getting enough money to feed their family, like Dr. Dre did in "Forgot About Dre," then it is not bad. But someone talking about how they have a ton of money and are blowing it on stupid stuff just pisses me off.

The dumbest thing is that modern rappers talk about how much money they've got and how they're going to spend it all on cars, jewelry, and making it rain in the club. You're wasting all of your money. Even rappers like Pac and Biggie would find that stupid.

9 Glorification of Drug Use

It's not the fact that rappers use drugs. After all, decades of music were influenced by mind-altering chemicals. It's that all the negative aspects of a drug culture are put on display.

The use of hardcore drugs, the peddling of drugs, and the violence that goes along with illegal and addictive substances. Brian Wilson may have used drugs, but he wrote about Good Vibrations and not about the years he spent confined to his bedroom sleeping and taking drugs, the deterioration of his voice and his mind, and the tragic loss it was to the music world when one of its most brilliant members was no longer even a functioning member of society.

10 Misinformation

Rappers are talking about things that a young person might want to do. It's steering black youth in the wrong direction in life. The youth are dropping out of school trying to do things that rappers are talking about.

A lot of things that rap has "taught" people are specific to the ego of the rapper and have no value to their stupid fan base.

The Contenders
11 Racism

So much of rap music talks about how difficult it is to be considered a lesser person because of the color of your skin and how one's heritage can be a cause for others to hold them back. But ask yourself when you listen to some of these lyrics: are they helping or hurting the cause?

Think of some of the negative stereotypes of specific ethnicities and then consider how many rap songs reinforce these stereotypes. What do rap songs say about people of other ethnicities, including white people?

This nation and the world have a poor history of treating everyone equally, and there are certainly still issues today. However, most people have far more influence on their lives than they would believe. Most people feel held back at some point in time. If they really examine the situation closely, they'll realize that they are the ones working the hardest to keep themselves down.

12 It's Just Talking

My friends in school always sing it, but to be honest, it's just making random words up and rhyming them with other words, so that's it. And rap is going to be the best? No way.

Also, I hate how they always swear. It's just a bad influence and makes people go haywire. When people hear this, they do weird poses and act immature, pointing fingers. Is that what you are going to do in life? There are 10,000,000 things more useful to do than this. So, rappers, go help people and stop acting like you're the best. Move on in life.

13 Unoriginal Lyrics
14 Glorification of Violence

Not much really needs to be said here. The fact that rappers are killing other rappers because of something they said in a rhyme is ludicrous.

50 Cent became known because he was shot up, scarred, and lived to tell about it. It's a sad thing that we think more of him for this than we do for the doctor who toiled through years of schooling, earned the right to be called a surgeon, and used his education and skill to save yet another person's life.

In some lyrics, they spread their hatred of rival gangs like Bloods and Crips, even talking about killing them. Do you think children and teens should be listening to these awful lyrics?

15 Excessive Profanity

Yes, using the same cuss word at the end of every sentence does help make everything rhyme, but really, it's enough already. And it's not just that it is objectionable language. If you use any word that many times, it sounds stupid.

If rap lyrics are supposed to be an art, then excessive profanity is like only drawing pictures of vaginas. It may be amusing at first, and simple minds will have more tolerance for it, but eventually, people are going to want to see a picture of a sunset.

My sister and I conducted an experiment a few weeks ago. I had the idea of counting the indecencies in one particular song. So, I brought a paper and a pencil to the living room and sat at the table while my sister played a song on the computer.

Anyway, getting to the point! I counted 34 curse words in the first minute and a half, until my sister and I gave up on it after being told I missed some.

16 It's Not Real Music

Rap makes me feel nothing but the urge to roll my eyes every time I'm unfortunate enough to hear it. It's just noise and trash lyrics.

It's more of a bunch of yelling. The problem is that there really is no structure to rap. It's just some guy yelling a bunch of slang that rhymes while synthesized sound bangs in the background. (I have no problems with synthesizers, but it's just a 10-second audio loop in rap.)

People rush to rap's defense by claiming "it's good poetry," but is poetry a show of sexual violence, guns, cruelty, and greed? I don't think so.

17 Too Much Autotune

It makes rap "music" sound alien and unauthentic to listen to since so much of it is merely computer-generated garbage.

18 Songs About Sex

It's not just that there are so many songs about sex. It's that so many rap songs talk about sex in such a gross, degrading way. Why would anyone want to listen to "Wait (The Whisper Song)" by Ying Yang Twins, "Some Cut" by Trillville ft. Cutty, "Play" by David Banner, "Every Girl" by Young Money, or "Love Me" by Lil Wayne ft. Drake and Future?

All of these songs try to be sexy, but they all come across as gross, annoying, or both. They make sex sound disgusting, humiliating, or painful instead of fun. It would be like putting Donald Trump's "Grab her by the p****" conversation to a rap beat. What girl would want to listen to that? What girl would want to listen to any of these songs? What girl would be attracted to any of the guys rapping in these songs? Do you seriously think that the things they describe are what most girls want?

It seems that for most of these songs, the rappers think they are genuinely being sexy and attractive to women. To me, though, the stuff they describe in these songs is as sexy as the stuff described in "FACK" by Eminem (a song that is deliberately supposed to be gross and offensive). In other words, nothing they describe is sexy.

19 Random Sounds Replacing Instruments

These artists don't even know what music is. Instead of using background music that sounds like a DS having a mental breakdown, how about using real instruments, like a drum? Those sound way better than the Gameboy on LSD sound we get instead. It's just a spit in the face to anyone who loves music.

Yeah! The Black Eyed Peas popularized autotune and ruined it! If not for them, Britney Spears would've produced real music. They are even worse than Bonnie McKee, Justin Timberlake, Ariana Grande, Patrick from Fall Out Boy, Harry from One Direction, and even Max from The Wanted!

20 Perversion of the Language

Along with excessive use of profanity, there is a theme of general disregard for proper syntax, spelling, and pronunciation. It's hard to consider someone intellectual and a poet when their lyrics are filled with dis, dat, da, dose, and strengf.

21 Offensive Lyrics
22 It's Repetitive
23 Hip Hop Feuds
24 Negative Messages
25 It's Getting Worse Everyday

Drugs, money, sex, committing crimes, cars, jewelry, and weed.
#winner! Number 1 on Billboard. Sold 1 million copies!

This gets so annoying.

8Load More
PSearch List