Rap music burst onto the scene in the 1970’s with classic hip hop beats, the R&B smooth feel, and the hard rhymes that can just wipe away every song that comes next to it. Rap’s roots are based out of New York, but has traveled all over the world spreading messages to all kinds of people. However, in the beginning era of rap, rap music was an outlet of resistance for black listeners. Many believe in the early 1990’s, that is when rap hit the Golden Era, where the music punched out political issues, hated on cops, and addressed several racial issues where in turn the music turned into myriad amounts of political movements. Rap became a huge target of criticism in the media, where black listeners of rap music were looked at as victimizers,  where angry white kids who listened to heavy metal where looked at as victims of the music.

Despite all of the controversy from rap music, it is constantly growing, and not just with black audiences, audiences of all kinds, young to old, white to black, and female to male. With the popular increase of rap music, even concert ticket sales have increased, Chuck D from Public Enemy stated that sixty percent of his audience was white. The study that was taken in this article, the findings were high, rap music is very popular in a small, mid-western city. And the statistical difference of race and who listens to rap music was not that much different. Mostly all of the respondents in the study did agree that, “Rap is a truthful reflection of society.” I definitely agree with that statement, since several artists in different areas of music are afraid to truly state how they feel, where as rap artists do not care what people think.