A Study on the Impact of Popular Music Genres on UK Youths' Behavior

This report investigates the effects of popular music, specifically gospel, rap, and reggae, on the youth of the United Kingdom. The research explores how these genres influence the lifestyles, cultures, and behaviors of young people in the UK. The introduction establishes the importance of music in society and the cultural significance of various genres. The literature review examines existing research on popular music and its impact, defining key terms and concepts. The methodology section outlines the use of both secondary and primary research methods, including interviews and observations. The results section presents findings from both secondary sources and primary data collected from UK youths, highlighting the influences of each genre. The discussion analyzes the impacts of hip-life (rap), reggae, and gospel music, examining both positive and negative effects on youth culture, including fashion, aspirations, and social commentary. The report concludes by summarizing the key findings and implications of the research.

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My Research Title
Name
Student Number

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My Research Title
Contents
Introduction (1)
Literature review (2)
Methods (3)
Results (4)
Discussion (5)
Conclusion (6)

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Areas for further work (7)
References (8)

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Introduction
Generally, the importance of music is known in almost all communities in the world. In modern
world music is everywhere and no part of the society without music lyrics. Music is the oldest art
that is used in various ways in societies all over the world. All societies both literate and non-
literate have developed new ways of presenting their cultural activities by the use of music
(Boulos et al., 2012 p.89). This means that music has the power to express social amendments
and emotions to society. Music creates emotions and feelings at higher rates in an effective
manner. In the United Kingdom, youth is aware of the music and they have tried as much as
possible to emulate themes associated with the music.
Therefore, music influences cultural identities and peoples culture. In UK youth listen to
different types of music such as hip life, jazz, reggae, rock, hip hop, and gospel. The issue here is
that how these musical exposure in society are affecting the lifestyle, the culture, and behavior of
youths. The research discusses the effects of popular music to the youths in the locality of the
UK. The research focused on the effects of gospel music, the hip life or commonly rap and the
reggae music in the UK. The study focused on the impacts of the lyrics to the listeners and the
type of audience where the music is always performed and disseminated in the country. In
addition, the research also investigated how reggae, gospel, and rap impact the aspirations and
fashions used by the youths in the society (Brake, 2013 p.67).
Statement of purpose.
Different researchers have carried out studies on the impacts of music in different countries but
they are yet to identify the effects of music on youths in the UK. Because of this, the research

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has taken the opportunity to carry out research on the impacts of popular music to youths in the
UK.
Research question
The research questions of the research were;
In what ways reggae, gospel, and rap impacts the youth in the UK?
How the lyrical content of music affects youths in the UK both negatively and positively.
How the reggae, gospel, and rap affects the culture –fashion and dressing code of youths in the
UK?
The reason why I am doing the project is that I would like to identify how the behavior of youths
in the UK has been affected by popular music (Crane, Kawashima & Kawasaki, 2016 p.23). The
benefits of the research will be analyzed by answering the research questions identified in the
research. The research ought to benefit the entire population of the UK on how to interpret the
impacts of popular music to their behavior and lifestyles. The research will also impact the music
shops to produce music of high quality and also music that will attract many people not only in
the UK but also in the entire world.
Literature Review
The section reveals the current debate on the research topic. We have different authors who have
described the content reggae, the rap, and gospel but no one has discussed the impacts of popular
music on the UK youths.

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According to Fonarow (2013) the term popular has adjective meanings. This refers to the
common things or general behavior exhibited by someone or something. Therefore, popular
music refers to the common music which targets a large number of individuals in society.
In addition, defines Fonarow (2013) popular music in different ways. The author uses the
ethnography approach to define popular music as music which is created and interpreted in
different ways by different groups and different individuals in society. The issue of popular
music is to focus the social identity and enhance relationships. Therefore, emphasizing music
will mean regulating the social practices and processes within society. Music should be holistic
and historical thus reflecting on the dialogical approach and reflexive arena.
Similarly Lie (2012) alludes the popular music in different perspectives. He says that popular
music involves the unquestionably rooted structures that entail the inner operational patterns and
the entire secular human body. The structure identified by the author here is the music gestures
which utilizes the human body parts for communication. The listeners in this music find
themselves adjusting to the rhythm of the songs. The rhythm of music is the key element that
determines the popularity of music in society. When individuals find themselves swaying to the
same rhythm of the music then it shows that the music is of high quality and it's impacting the
behavior of society. Also, the author has indicated that popular music determines the
understanding of the world. This means popular music measures the people's feelings in society
thus determining the behavior of individuals in the society. The music here has been identified as
the outcome of environmental experience in society and most of the musicians in our societies
write music explaining their life experiences, the social challenges, and personal attributes.
In addition Miranda (2013) defines popular music as that little palindrome which determines the
conundrum of status. The author first concerns on the genre. Since popular music is treated as a

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genre, it should be remembered as a self-definition and it cannot be compared with the
susceptible to the genre. Therefore, music measures the momentary position by describing the
organized words in the sound. The acceptability of popular music in society is acceptable and
that's why it has impacted on social behavior.
Different authors have described why popular music is common and popular in society. Popular
music articulates common features and principles of society thus making it popular. The idea is
that popular music targets the authenticity of society thus making it more popular and being
recognized by the people. There are suggestions that popular music becomes more valuable in
society under the influence of social forces in society. Popular music is therefore related to
different approaches whereby the aim to communicate a certain message to society and also
communicate certain facts regarding the society. In addition, popular music has been associated
with commercial purpose whereby it is linked to the process of advertisement in the marketplace.
This means that a business organization prefers to use popular artist with popular music so as to
reach a large number of individuals.
Methods
The research used both secondary resources and primary sources to obtain data needed in the
research. Method refers to the way of producing data and it's the overall methodology choice
used by the researchers to arrive at the common conclusion in the research (Mercken et al., 2012
p.56). The research used three secondary resources which indicated the effects of music on the
youths in the UK. The secondary resources used were compared and analyzed to give different
findings discussed in the result section.

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Secondary Research
The sources used for content Analysis were;
 Hyder, R., 2017. Brimful of Asia: negotiating ethnicity on the UK music scene 6th edition.
Oxford University Press.
 Frith, S., 1986. Art versus technology: The strange case of popular music. Media,
Culture & Society, 8(3), pp.263-279.
 Prior, N., 2011. Critique and renewal in the sociology of music: Bourdieu and
beyond. Cultural sociology, 5(1), pp.121-138.
All the articles were clearly used to determine the effects of popular music to youths in the UK.
The aim here was to analyses how different resources explained the impacts of popular culture to
the youths in the UK. The results were indicated as shown in the result section of the research.
Primary Research
In the light of research questions identified in the research, the primary research was based on
descriptive design. The descriptive design most of the times it is concerned with the attitudes and
opinions held by the population in the study. In the research I looked on the impacts of popular
lyrics to the youths, recording the positive and negative effects of popular music to youths in the
UK. The impacts of popular music and videos were also analyzed in the research.
The targeted population was the UK youths in different areas such as schools and in churches.
The research also targeted the bars and restaurants which attracts a lot of youths in the UK. Also,
the research targeted the use of social media such as YouTube in accessing music videos and
audios which are major sources of popular music (Miranda et al.,2012 p.34). The data was
collected by the use of interviews with the help of an interview guide and observation which

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were noticed during the data collections in the study. The youths in different fields such as
churches and restaurants were to fill the research guide which articulated on different concepts
which revolved around identifying the effect of popular music on the youths in the UK. All the
information was to be recorded on the interview guide and then taken for further analysis.
Analysis Method
From the research method, it's clear that qualitative analysis is to be used. This shows that data
analysis was to be used based on the information obtained from the interview guide in the
research. The relevant performance of the genres and the audience used were sampled and all the
information's related to the influence of popular music on the youths in the UK was analyzed.
Results
The results obtained were as shown below

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(a). the secondary sources
Articles used for data
Frith, S., 1986. Art versus
technology: The strange case
of popular music. Media,
Culture & Society, 8(3),
pp.263-279.
Prior, N., 2011. Critique and
renewal in the sociology of
music: Bourdieu and
beyond. Cultural
sociology, 5(1), pp.121-138.
Hyder, R., 2017. Brimful
of Asia: negotiating
ethnicity on the UK music
scene 6th edition.Oxford
University Press.
Gospel music influences the
social cohesion of youths.
Gospels are source of
entertainment
Reggae music influences the
dressing code
Reggae has positive impacts to
youths
The Hip life music serves as
source of entertainment.
Hip life music influences the
dressing codes.
(b).The primary data.
The data obtained in the research interview gave the following results. The three types of popular music
gave the following data results

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The gospel music gave impacts of 40%
The rap music gave impacts of 35%
The reggae music impacts of 25%

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Discussion
The discussion analyses how the three categories of populous music have impacted the youths in
the UK. The results in secondary resources resembled the primary sources used in research.
The impacts of Hip Life music.
From the data obtained the rap music forms a social commentary that is related to societies and
communities. The results gave moral implication to youths in the UK. From the information
filled in the interview guide, we observed that the influence of hip-life music cannot be ignored
at any cost. The influence of rap music to youths in the UK comprises both positive and negative
impacts (Miranda et al., 2012 p.134). The youths indicated that they have a different way of
viewing rap music in the country whereby some indicted that rap music initiates fame to youths.
Mastering what our artist do speak in the songs makes youth to be famous. The other category of
participants viewed rap music as a basis of negative influence on society. The participants said
that they were not happy on dressing code emulated form the artist in rap music. Most of the
youths in the UK who cannot afford the expensive models of clothes end up stealing because
they want to be like the artist.
Impacts of reggae music to UK youths
Generally, the impacts of reggae or the commonly known as Rastafari is huge and has many
effects on society. The results obtained from the research guide indicated that youths in the UK
were fully influenced by reggae cultural practices. It was observed that much of the Jamaican
cultural practices which are connected to Rastafari culture were highly practiced by youths in the
UK (Sawka et al.,2013).The reggae music, therefore, played a major role in spreading
fundamental elements which were associated with modern Jamaica. Youths could even use the