" OUR BABIES GROWING UP ON HIP HOP MUSIC IS IT GOOD OR BAD FOR OUR CHILDREN'S FUTURE? "

" HEY MOMMY/DADDY CAN I LISTEN TO YOUR IPOD?!"

I'm an absolute fan of hip Hop music since my days of growing up in the era of the 80's-90's. I used to listen to rappers like (Run-DMC, LL Cool Jay, The Fat Boys, Big Daddy Kane, NaS, The Notorious BIG) But music was different back in my dayS. There wasn't such a threat of violence and exposure of drugs as it is now a days.  But ever wonder why your child knows the lyrics of the latest Hip Hop or R&B song that shoud only be listened to by adults? Ever wonder why your child knows how to do the “Stanky-Leg” or the "Dougie" dance and not their homework? In my recent post I tackle the issue of children listening to Hip Hop & R&B music either via radio, Ipod, or television. My question to you is “Should your kids listen to such music which exposes women, drugs, and violence amongst the inner city"? Is there an age restriction for young parents to allow their kids to listen to hip hop? Will having your kids listen to such music influence them to do bad things in life like having them hurt or kill someone? Will it lead them or even putting them in jail? With the music world being so entwined with such respected artist like Drake, Kanye West, Nikki Minaj, Lil’ Wayne, Usher, Rick Ross, Jay-Z, Diddy and others it’s hard for the kids not to listen to it especially when it’s blaring out of the windows of cars, barber shops, supermarkets or even in your own home? I have a better question will Jay-Z and Beyonce'allow their little girl BlUE-IVY listen to their music when she turns 2-5 years old? 

Here are some soultions:

1)      Should we as parents and adults eliminate all inappropriate music from our ipod or music devices?  

2)      Should we create a children’s playlist on our ipod’s or music devices  only for our children to listen to?

3)      Or simply buy them their own ipod/music device  and load it with more suitable music for them to listen to?

4)      Just allow them to listen to whatever they want regardless of what explicit lyrics are on the songs they will listen to it anyway!?

So what are better solutions to this epidemic amongst parents and their children in the inner city today? Or are we making too much of it and is it all just music and it should not be taken so seriously?

Will you continue to allow your children to listen to it?

Storyby: urbanmessmagazine