Music has thrived in America since its establishment over two centuries ago. In those two centuries, people have enjoyed listening to music ranging from classical to rap music. However, in recent decades the lyrics in modern rock, rap, hip-hop, and nearly all other music genres, have come to be seen as obscene and vulgar to today's society. All around the country rap songs have been banned from the air by radio stations. "WBLS/New York announced it will no longer play songs it feels encourage violence, misogyny, or vulgarity; WPGC/Washington, D.C. reaffirmed a bleep-and-ban policy; BET unveiled a ban on 'violent' rap videos, and WCKZ/Charlotte exiled gangsta rap to late-night airplay" (Rock 1). Are rap lyrics too harsh? Should music be censored? Musicians have always used music as a way to deliver a message or a belief. If rap artists and rock groups are censored they will lose what drives them the most; their freedom to write and perform what they choose.
             Many rap artists grow up in tough neighborhoods where their families struggle to survive. These musicians work their way out of the violence and poverty of their childhood to become famous and successful, and most importantly a role models to aspiring rap artists. "The power and promise of rap music rest in the bosom of urban America; an environment where one out of twenty-two black males will be killed by violent crimes, where the black high-school dropout rate is high as 72 percent and where 86 percent of black children grow up in poverty" (Berry 614). If censored, rap will lose the harsh reality depicted in its lyrics. The reality that rap artists illustrate for the world in every song they write. They search for a way to make the world understand what they went through as they grew up. Leland states, "Often the words reflect the frustration over poverty, drugs, violence, poor schools, family breakdown, and racial tension" (Krohn 1). Music is a form of dealing with the strugg...