Hip hop and social injustice

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Hip hop music, developed in the South Bronx in the early 1970s, has long been tied to social injustice in the United States, particularly that of the African American experience. Hip hop artists have spoken out in their lyrics against perceived social injustices such as police brutality, poverty, mass incarceration, and the war on drugs. The relationship between hip hop music and social injustice can be seen most clearly in two subgenres of hip hop, gangsta rap and conscious rap.

Political hip hop has been criticized by conservative politicians such as Mississippi State Senator Chris McDaniel^[1] as divisive and promoting separatism due to some hip hop artists' pro-black and anti-establishment lyrical content. Musicologist Robert Walser disputes this, arguing that many white youth who are exposed to hip hop as children are more likely to have positive relationships with African Americans and resist racism from their parents or other sources out of respect for black artists they admire.^[2][3]