HipHop videos have a lot of messages in them about drugs, violence, sex, girls, cars, and most of all, money, but can these messages be harmful to a younger audience?

When people rap about doing drugs in their songs they are basically saying, “Hey, it's ok -- get high every day -- you’ll be fine.” Now, teenagers should know better and realize it’s just a song, but many kids that listen to this starting at a young age could be brain washed and think that they have to be like the guy in the song. I’ve never seen violence amongst kids directly related to hiphop, but there is a lot of violence between some hiphop artists.

In these videos, there are girls that are half naked, and sometimes acting out sex in the videos, so when younger kids see it they think that they have to do it to fit in.  They  see it so much that they want to try it as soon as they can. For most kids, wanting to have sex is unavoidable so parents should teach their kids about it. The way some guys talk to girls using terms in the videos like b***h and h** can be very disrespectful to probably any girl they say it to.  Some girls want to be so much like the girls in the videos that they might think that it is ok if a guy calls her that. But most of the time, those terms are only ok with friends and not some random guy.

The cars -- everybody wants a car like the ones in the videos with the 25 inch rims, spinners, tinted windows, and all the other accessories, but to have this, they have to have lot of money.  Because most of us don't have this kind of money, this desire could  could lead to robbery.

The best way parents can stop their kids from being strongly influenced by the images in the media is to teach their kids about life, and about sex.  This is the best way to avoid having them learning it through television.  Parents can help kids to understand that a song is just a song, not a way of life.