Blog #3

How Have Thematic Elements in Female Rap Changed from 1990-2022?

Results

Overall, there is an observed change in themes over time. Over time, there has been an increase in positive themes as a whole, with a slight decrease in overall negative themes. Neutral themes have occurred at a similar amount and haven't experienced drastic changes.

Data

Beginning with positive line occurrences, it can be seen that while the data spikes in an every other year pattern, the year 2017 marks the beginning of the biggest upward trend of positive line occurrences yet. Since then, the average occurrence has increased from around 25 percent to between 30 and 40%

The most evident change as seen in this graph is the increasing trend that songs have experienced within the theme of sexual expression. This mirrors the smaller percentage but similar trajectory of body positivity, which has been on the upward trend since 2018. We can note the fall of confidence occurrences, which was taken over by more sexual expression themes beginning in 2013. The encouragement of others has remained very similar throughout the years, however, starting in 2014, independence has made more of a consistent appearance, being noted every year since then.

In terms of negative line occurrences, there are less aggressive and drastic spikes in the data than there are in the positive themes. For example, the highest and lowest levels were in 2004 and 2016, and after that, the average occurrence came down to between 15 and 25%, which 20 years prior, it had been between 25 and 35%.

Specifically changing the percentage has been the decrease in violence beginning in 2010. That year marked the biggest decrease in the theme, and there has rarely been an occurrence since then. Another reason for the lower negative themes in recent years has been the decrease in attacking others and braggadocio. Peaking in 2003, the numbers have slowly decreased by a percent or two each year, now around 11% occurrence. I found that misogynistic and sexist remarks were not very present in my data, which contrasts with much of the outside research that I found, so the data for that theme is pretty rare, only occurring once every few years. The same goes for self-objectification, in that there was not a strong correlation between the theme and its prevalence over time.

Overall, neutral themes have remained exactly that. The overall trend of the neutral themes I analyzed typically remained between the 15 to 25% occurrence rate.

From this graph, the most glaring point is the consistently dominating occurrence of emotional expression, and the following of wealth and fame. Only in the past few years has wealth and fame been more consistently present, however it has been a part of every year. Religion has remained sporadic throughout the years, and racial commentary has died off for the most part since the early 2000s. Relationships were very common in the beginning years of analysis, however in the most recent years, it has been less and less common to see it be a powerful theme in female rap music

Discussion

To further the validity of my findings, after running a single-factor Anova stats test in order to test variation in dependent variables, the p-value ended up being 0.009. This means that creating my results purely based on chance would happen 0.009% of the time. With an alpha significance level of 0.05%, I can reject the null hypothesis, and fail to reject the alternative hypothesis of shifts from high negative themes to more positive.

With the data discussed above, there can be an observed change in themes over time. As seen, there has been an increase in positive themes as a whole, with a slight decrease in overall negative themes. Neutral themes have occurred at a similar amount and haven't experienced drastic changes.

The most notable changes over time have been the decreases of violence, braggadocio, and attacking others, as well as the increases of sexual expression, body positivity, and independence. In regards to the projection, this seems to be the way that the genre is headed. However, because the genre is relatively new, it is hard to predict exactly how prevalent these themes will be in the future.

Limitations

Some potential limitations regarding the actual methods were previously mentioned, but the three years that were not included may have not accurately accounted for the trends over the years. However, they were spread out over a few year time span, so that the majority of themes could have otherwise been interpreted.

Beyond that, there is of course that I was not able to look at the most popular individual songs due to complications during my initial research. As such, by looking at albums, it limits the themes prevalent during that time period, since many artists have a similar approach to all of their songs on an album and typically write about similar experiences. However, the album’s status of the RIAA does indicate that the songs on an album were successful, so it provides a good snapshot of what consumers were listening to during the time period.

Another limitation is that I was in fact short on time, and I could not analyze every female rap song during the time allotted, but I attempted to do my best based on the popularity of songs and the time granted for this project. Interpretation bias is another possible limitation, and while I tried to take the direct meaning of what words or thoughts meant, it is possible that misinterpretation and inaccuracies could have happened throughout the process.

Finally, I believe that it is important to acknowledge that every artist I analyzed did not look like me. It is important for the research to reflect that while I took what the words exactly meant, there is something to be said for the experience of the artist and the messages that they were trying to convey. There is a limitation for ideas getting lost in translation as I will never be able to fully understand or relate to the artists I analyzed.

Conclusion

The biggest application for the work that I have completed this year lies in filling the academic gaps that I was able to find in August. While I was not able to find a timeline that detailed the occurrence of themes in female rap music from the beginning of its popularity to now, I was able to create that in terms of common themes found throughout the genre, not just focused on the artist’s gender.

As rap is becoming a more common presence in the world of music, it is also common to be hearing this music through accessible platforms. As such, it lends itself to creating more “icons” in the pop culture world that are actively being followed by younger audiences. The younger generations are subjected to different values much more often, and by having these followings, messages are much more readily available. My research provides a general overview of common messages and how they have changed over time, as well as a projection of where these themes could be headed in the future.

Reflection

How did you handle the uncertainty of the research process?

Overall, the research process took me a minute to adjust to, and working through my frustration and continuing to work regardless of frustration helped to to keep going.

I was able to work through a lot of complications during my work, and being patient and trusting the process was the best lesson that I was able to take away from my research. What I struggled with was keeping that patience, especially when things went awry at different points in the year, but in order to finish, I made up time and worked harder in shorter amounts of time.

Throughout the process, there were a lot of times where I was worried about not being able to finish, but I was able to really focus when I needed to and keep pushing through to the finish line. Letting myself control what I could control really helped me to continue working hard and enjoying the process in whatever way it took me.

If you could revisit your research process, what would you do differently and why?

My research process took a long time to actually get started because of how behind I got during the preemptive starting points. One of the biggest issues I had was that when I went to look for the Billboard charts that I had read about in my first semester research, they ended up not existing. When I looked and paid for things that didn't really exist with my purchases, I had to totally shift gears and methodology of how I collected my songs and found my actual data points.

If I could do it over, I would want to make sure that I had done the preemptive looks first, prior to making a set methodology. Because this wrench got thrown into my plans, it set me back essentially two weeks, which really ended up cutting into my data collection and analysis time. With those two weeks, I could have done further analysis on the actual themes itself, or lyric analysis to increase the depth of my study's results.

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