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Impact of Dancehall on Youth Behavior

Dancehall music is believed to negatively influence the behaviors and actions of youth through its lyrics promoting violence, sexual immorality, and drug abuse. Studies have found females are more psychologically impacted by the lyrics and that the music can create negative impacts. The promotion of marijuana and gang behavior in some dancehall songs contributes to drug abuse, disrespect, and poor academic performance among youth. While the influence of music can be significant, parents and broadcasters share responsibility in regulating what media youth are exposed to in order to protect societal morals and values. A recent example further illustrated these impacts when a dancehall concert in Guyana ended in theft, gunshots, and chaos due to the influence of certain songs and artists on

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Jada arthur
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608 views2 pages

Impact of Dancehall on Youth Behavior

Dancehall music is believed to negatively influence the behaviors and actions of youth through its lyrics promoting violence, sexual immorality, and drug abuse. Studies have found females are more psychologically impacted by the lyrics and that the music can create negative impacts. The promotion of marijuana and gang behavior in some dancehall songs contributes to drug abuse, disrespect, and poor academic performance among youth. While the influence of music can be significant, parents and broadcasters share responsibility in regulating what media youth are exposed to in order to protect societal morals and values. A recent example further illustrated these impacts when a dancehall concert in Guyana ended in theft, gunshots, and chaos due to the influence of certain songs and artists on

Uploaded by

Jada arthur
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd

Dancehall music in today's society exposes the minds of young people to violence.

It is
believed that the lyrics in the music influence violent behaviour on a subliminal level. This
influences the youth to behave violently and deem it as acceptable behaviour. The more the
youth listens to the music the more their actions are influenced and persuaded to be involved
and even encourage violence

The lyrics in the songs play a vital role in shaping the listeners as well as giving some insight
on the kind of person behind the lyrics. Many artistes have found themselves in trouble with
the law, ranging from assault to felonies, and their backgrounds and their lyrics are usually
correlated.

The glorification of sexual immorality is a popular theme in dancehall music. The promotion
of promiscuous behaviour and sexual acts are a common fixture in the genre and the lyrical
content tends to influence its youthful listeners.

The immoral sexual behaviour of the youth is due to the stimulating effect of sexual music
and they tend to gravitate towards it believing that it is acceptable conduct.

In turn this raises public health concerns in regards to sexually transmitted diseases, teenage
pregnancy and the human immunodeficiency virus and gives an unhealthy view on sex.

females more than males were more likely to respond psychologically to the lyrical content of
the dancehall genre and that the music is highly influential and can create negative impacts
on youths, who imitate these negative acts.

The evidence indicates that another negative message dancehall music is promoting are drugs
and drug abuse especially that of marijuana. Dancehall music is having a negative impact on
youth through drugs because various youth who listen to dancehall are smoking drugs or are
being influenced to smoke drugs. The influences are derived from the content of the music or
by friends who were influenced before. 

The promotion of marijuana on the market for students causes them to go out of their way to
smoke or sell to others to earn money and sometimes make a living. At present adolescents
are forming gangs, abusing drugs, fighting, showing a lack of respect to elders and creating
pornographic movies on mobile phones as well as altering uniforms to match fashion trends.
These behavioural patterns not only have a massive negative impact on the academic
performance of the youth but also on their health and lives. There is no doubt that the
influence of music on a whole on people is phenomenal. Therefore, there is no reason to
doubt the extensive effect of dancehall music on the minds of the youth. There is a strong
relationship between dancehall music, sexual immorality, drug abuse and violence. Music
plays an important role in the development of youths and the admiration of the sexual and
violent behaviour which are portrayed by dancehall artiste damages our society and the
youth are at risk of falling into that lifestyle. The impact of dancehall cannot be denied. There
is a need for parents to control what their children listen to while broadcasters should also
regulate what they air to protect society from absorbing a behaviour that doesn't support
good morals and values.
A good example of this behavior is a well-known singer Skeng who later came to Guyana to
perform his content which unfortunately ended very poorly. The outcome of the show was
terrifying has there were several evidence showing that gangs of men came into the show
stealing persons wallet and phones. Not only did multiple people left the site without their
rightful property but also evidence had been service that multiple gunshots were fired when
they entered. Why didn’t everyone evacuate you say? Well, everyone including the artist
himself taught it was the background music or apart of the show. So, inclusion beware of
who and what you listen to.

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