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APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Phoebe Butler-Ajibade, EdD, Human Performance and Leisure Studies, North Carolina A & T State University, Corbett Gym, Room 202, Greensboro, NC 27411, 336-334-7712, pbajibad@ncat.edu

Is there a new trend to promote "smoking" in hip hop music videos? Snoop Dogg's video "Drop it Like it's hot" opens with a halo of smoke around his head. The majority of hip hop videos do provide images of rappers smoking tobacco products. Because hip hop has a powerful influence on the purchasing habits of youth, tobacco manufacturers may partner with music artists to promote tobacco use amongst the video genre.

Essence, one of the leading magazines for black women, has launched a year-long "Take Back the Music" campaign, which includes a series of articles designed to spark a dialogue about positive portrayal of women in rap music. Efforts to promote the media's portrayal of positive and healthy images to youth are important.

There is substantial evidence that young people's attitudes, values and behaviors are influenced by exposure to media messages (American Psychological Association, 1998; Calvert, 1999)

When youth aged 8-12, were asked to identify music videos that contained people smoking in them, the youth were quickly able to identify the artists and songs of ten or more music videos. The findings of a content analysis of 300 music videos found that tobacco was present most frequently in rap videos versus other types of music videos and that the majority of the videos (98%) contained smoking images.

Learning Objectives:

• To identify rappers that have music videos containing smoking images.
• To identify the hours that music videos containing smoking images are portrayed.
• To compare and contrast prevalence of images of smoking in rap videos with other types of music videos.

Keywords: Tobacco, Media

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Not Answered