Rap lyrics have been blamed for many things - promoting sexist attitudes towards women, celebrating criminality and stoking anti-police attitudes, among other claims - but the link between lyrics and gun crime has been discussed at some length recently and with a little more sense.
Last year we covered this story on the blog and the same arguments are floating around now. And David Cameron - ever the soundbite-hungry attention-seeker - had criticisms to make about Radio 1's lyrical output in this link.
Meanwhile, this thoughtful article on the BBC website explores some of the issues around lyrics and their influence (or not) on young people.
Those of you doing A2 coursework which focuses on rap lyrics might want to have a look at some of the links from these articles, or contribute your own views as comments below.
And to lighten the mood, you can win a bag of Haribo if you can correctly identify the rappers who originally wrote and recorded the track "Looking down the barrel of a gun"... 1st come first served.
Useful for:
EA4C Language Investigation
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