Lyrical substance use put under microscope

Lyrics like “Buck pass the blunt / These G-Unit girls just wanna have fun / Coke and rum / Got… Lyrics like “Buck pass the blunt / These G-Unit girls just wanna have fun / Coke and rum / Got weed on the ton,” may not phase college students in Pittsburgh’s bar and nightclub scene.

It’s doubtful that these lyrics from The Game’s 2005 smash hit “How We Do” would influence college students to drink or use drugs for the first time.

But researchers at Pitt’s School of Medicine think parents of children and teenagers have a reason to be concerned – its recent study found that one out of every three of the Billboard’s most popular songs contain references to drug, alcohol and tobacco use.

A team of researchers at UPMC led by Dr. Brian Primack analyzed the 279 most popular songs of 2005 in five different genres.

They found references to substance use in 77 percent of rap songs, 36 percent of country songs, 20 percent of R’B/hip-hop songs, 14 percent of rock songs and 9 percent of pop songs.

The study was published in this month’s Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine.

The list of songs and their respective genre categories were taken directly from Billboard Magazine. The researchers did not release any artist names in the study, though it would not be difficult for one to find out who made up the percentages.

In the rap lyrics studied, Primack said substances were generally associated with drug dealing, sex and improved social standing.

In county music, Primack said most of the references were to alcohol, which was usually associated with humor.

“It became funny that someone couldn’t walk straight,” Primack said.

As an example, Primack used country artist Neal McCoy’s hit, “Billy’s Got His Beer Goggles On,” in which a man’s increasing level of intoxications makes him attracted to everyone at a bar.

The study found that two out of three times these references were positive associations with substance use, such as sex and money.

The others contained negative physical and legal consequences to substance use, such as being unable to walk straight and going to jail.

But Primack said most of the emotional, sexual and social consequences of substance use were overly positive.

“If somebody had some pot and then they had sex, we would call that positive sexual consequences,” Primack said. “If somebody smoked pot and then was unable to perform sexually, we’d call that negative sexual consequences.”

According to the study, a typical adolescent is exposed to 84 explicit references to substance use in popular music each day, totaling more than 30,000 references in an average year.

The researchers determined this by using a statistic from an outside study that said the average teenager listens to 2.4 hours of music a day.

Primack said the eventual goal of the study is too see if there is a relationship between substance use in lyrics and behavior among children and teenagers.

Student employees Mary Carroll and Aaron Agarwal and fellow UPMC researcher Michael Fine joined Primack on the research team.

Carroll, who also works as a peer editor for Adagio Healthcare in Pittsburgh, said she suspects these lyrics have an influence on children’s identities.

“I work with a lot of kids, and a lot of times they know these songs, and a lot of them know all the lyrics,” she said.

“When you ask young people some of the things that are very related to their personal identity, music is always one of them,” she said.

Nick Pratt, a Pitt business major and aspiring rapper, said corporate America plays a larger role than people realize in the content of popular rap songs.

“[Record executives] are putting out what listeners want to hear and, unfortunately, a lot of people want to hear these types of songs,” Pratt said.

Pratt said there are a handful of mainstream rappers who shun illegal acts and send positive messages, but the majority of mainstream rappers today do the opposite.

“I can’t say I’m glad to hear that it’s 77 percent, but I can’t necessarily say I’m surprised,” Pratt added.

Richard Finkelstein, music teacher and choral director at Schenley High School in Oakland, said he doesn’t believe lyrical content affects the behavior of students, though there may be a few exceptions.

“Art reflects the society. Society doesn’t reflect the art,” Finkelstein said.