It’s been about 40 years since hip-hop first began in the ghettos of New York City and it has come a long way since then, influencing areas as diverse as politics and technology. Now we hope to add medicine to the list.
- Becky Inkster
Hip-hop originated in the South Bronx area of New York during the early 1970s. Many of the original artists – and even performers still today – came from areas of high social and economic deprivation and this is often reflected in their lyrics, for example The Message by Grand Master Flash & The Furious Five, released in 1982, which opens with the lyrics:
Broken glass everywhere
People pissing on the stairs, you know they just don’t care
I can't take the smell, can't take the noise
Got no money to move out, I guess I got no choice
Now, HIP HOP PSYCH, a new initiative aims to use hip-hop to help improve people’s mental health and to address issues including stigma towards mental illness and the lack of diversity within the psychiatric profession. The initiative is introduced by its co-founders, Dr Akeem Sule and Dr Becky Inkster, in The Lancet Psychiatry.
“Much of hip-hop comes from areas of great socioeconomic deprivation, so it’s inevitable that its lyrics will reflect the issues faced by people brought up in these areas, including poverty, marginalisation, crime and drugs,” explains Sule. “In fact, we can see in the lyrics many of the key risk factors for mental illness, from which it can be difficult to escape. Hip-hop artists use their skills and talents not only to describe the world they see, but also as a means of breaking free. There’s often a message of hope in amongst the lyrics, describing the place where they want to be – the cars they want to own, the models they want to date.”
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Image: Hip Hop Musik (cropped)
Credit: Garry Knight
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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