Rewriting Rap to Empower Teens

INSERT DESCRIPTIONFrom left, Stephania Germain, Aria Byrd, Jazzmyn Carter, Amber Twine and Jakia Goodwyn. (Carla E. Stokes)

A group of high school girls in Atlanta got tired of taunts and catcalls from men in the street. So they decided to rap about it:

Imma give you yo number back
Cause I don’t like you and yo game is whack
You see these boys just don’t know how to act
I try to walk away but they talk smack
Take it to the streets

Creating rhymes about bad behavior may not seem like a meaningful way to battle harassment. But rewriting rap lyrics is one way educators are trying to harness the power of popular music to help build kids’ self esteem and counter negative images of women in the media. As I wrote about in today’s Well column in Science Times, the power of hip-hop to reach teens hasn’t gone unnoticed by health researchers, who are now spending time on the dance floor and dissecting rap lyrics in hopes of finding ways to better communicate with young people.

The Atlanta teens are part of a group called HOTGIRLS (Helping Our Teen Girls In Real Life Situations). Although rap is often blamed for promoting degrading images of women, HOTGIRLS uses rap music to start conversations with girls about the challenges they face growing up.

Rewriting song lyrics helps girls “critically analyze the messages they encounter in the media and in their daily lives,’’ said HOTGIRLS founder Carla E. Stokes. “Girls are using hip hop as a vehicle to reach their peers and raise awareness about issues that affect their lives.’’

The group has started the FIREGRL club, which takes teens into a recording studio to create their own versions of popular songs, such as Let Me Tell You How You Talk to Me, a reworked version of Justin Timberlake’s song Sexy Back. (Listen to the song here.) Although everyone doesn’t have access to a recording studio, Dr. Stokes notes that parents can discuss song lyrics with kids, and even encourage them to rewrite lyrics and perform their own more positive versions of popular songs.

“For a lot of parents, the response is to turn off the TV or the radio,’’ said Dr. Stokes. “I don’t think they can realistically shield their children from all the messages that are out there. I think the important thing to do is just talk to children about what they’re hearing.’’

Comments are no longer being accepted.


When we sing,instead of speak,we have intonation,melody line and crescendo,which gives us a broader vocabulary to express ourselves.

Because singing is visceral,it can’t help but effect change!

Once upon a time, rap was an art form based in making a statement about the life you faced. It spoke of poverty, racism, drug culture, violence, and hopelessness not as marks of status but as everyday challenges. The multibillion-dollar rap ‘industry’ saddens me because it often glorifies those challenges into a desirable lifestyle.

When I see something like this, where people are using rap to make a grassroots statement about the culture they live in, as an affirmation of the refusal to accept what you’ve been handed as ‘your lot’ in life, it makes me happier.

This isn’t some grey-suited PC maven handing down judgments about appropriate language or topics; it’s people using an art form to express their feelings about their lives, and those feelings are substantially different from the ones expressed in so-called ‘mainstream’ rap.

I wish these young women success and hope that their voices come across loud and clear.

Dr. Stokes is absolutely right. My wife and I talk to our two kids on a daily basis – but we have also turned off our TV and radio, so it makes the conversation easier. To help counter negative images, we’ve also created the Strivers Row website at so teens can see some positive alternatives.

Excellent! Another program to boost the flagging self-esteem of our nation’s school children while doing approximately nothing to educate them.

Speaking as someone who enjoys hip-hop music and was a kid probably much more recently than anyone running this program, these types of programs have never worked, will never work, and are a huge joke to 99% of their target audience. Come on, H.O.T.G.I.R.L.S? Is that a rap group or a cartoon from the eighties?

I think this it’s wonderful to see young women of color speaking out about issues that affect their lives and defining themselves on their own terms. According to their web site,, the program is led by young women and girls who are part of the hip hop generation. In addition to their media literacy work, HOTGIRLS also educates youth about important health issues including sexually transmitted infections, HIV/AIDS, and gender-based violence; something that our school systems are struggling with. Keep up the great work!

Chronic sexual harrassment of girls and women is the sound track to how demeaning and deadly Hip Hop and Rap have been to the black community.

As Stanley Crouch points out, approximately 3,000 black people died in the south from the reconstruction after The Civil War through The Civil Rights Novement, whereas 10,000 black people were victims of black-on-black gun violence in the 1990’s in California alone.

Music that celebrates this slaughter and perversion of black culture is $ in the pockets of ClearChannel and disrespects and endangers black girls and women especially. White people who defend it are poseurs, appologists, and dilletantes with ‘no skin in the mix’.

How about teaching teens to completely avoid rap music, rap “culture” and always speak proper English? Rap music and culture leads to low IQ, low expectations from life, angry attitude, praising-prison mentality and many more social problems.

When will you liberals give up on this “hip hop in the classroom” nonsense?


Shahdi Fakah-Pabahdet November 6, 2007 · 12:51 pm

Isn’t there just a bit of cognitive dissonance in calling a group meant to counter “degrading images of women”…HOTGIRLS?

Eds note: Good question and one I asked myself. Click here for an explanation of the name by the group’s founder. Bottom line is that while we might think the term “hot girls” is degrading, that’s not necessarily the case among young people and within the hip hop culture. One of the 14-year-old girls who is a member of the group says “I”m hot because I’m smart, educated and I respect myself.” — tpp

Karlos- ‘you liberals’ makes you sound like a moron, but then again, name calling is consistent to both rap/hip-hop and neo-con politics, so i guess you shouldn’t expect too much of yourself either.

The last person who posted was correct. Rap or whatever the media terms this is degrading to women, black culture, and it seeks to limit the opportunities for these people to think differently. Blacks need to stop being under so much peer pressure and understand that in the real world people do not carry guns, were their pants on their hips, talk in codes, or think about sex 24/7. It is time for blacks to wake up…..

Eds note: Before I wrote this story (and the accompanying column that appeared in the paper) I probably felt a little bit like you do. But I realize I had a very one-sided view. If you’re not part of the hip-hop culture (and I am definitely not) then you tend to only hear about the really offensive stuff — and yes, it is offensive. But many songs in this genre are personal stories and quite moving, uplifting, empowering etc. Bakari Kitwana, the author of The Hip Hop Generation, has a song on his website by Blitz the Ambassador that is a remembrance of Emmet Till, a young boy murdered in Mississippi in 1955. I think it’s an incredible song. I have one other thing to add. In my real world, you’re correct, people don’t carry guns. But for a lot of urban youth, violence is very real and guns are a part of their everyday experience. I think a lot of rap music reflects that reality, and that’s why a lot of middle-class (and above) people don’t understand it (including myself), because it’s so far afield of our experiences. tpp

I mean, this all sounds well and good but when will we get to the point where we can just educate our children in a straightforward manner? Why do we always have to mix some “cool” element into it to make it more appealing? Will it even be constructive after a while or will it just become a joke? The cognitive dissonance comment is very important. HOTGIRLS??? *sigh* How about you’re valuable (not hot) because you are smart, educated and you respect yourself.

Re the comment by Shahdi Fakah-Pabahdet:

Might not the real problem be our residual sense that a woman who tries to be attractive (“hot”) is in some sense “asking for” harassment?

Why is this even printed?

Further diseducation / miseducation of American youth.

Perhaps they should turn to Shakespeares Sonnets, rather that this garbage.

There have been periods and artist who did not need to degrade women as part of their message (think KRS-ONE, Public Enemy & Poor Righteous Teachers). Now Rap is big business, simple supply and demand. As long as there is marketing and promotion for this type of trash, there will be suppliers. We need to stop the demand and the supply will end on its own.

M. Stringfellow

I live in Portland, OR–one of the most liberal, whitest cities in America–and I can tell you my partner and countless other young women are harassed, screamed at, catcalled and followed every single day. A man can walk around wearing nothing but sandals and shorts on a sunny day but my partner would not dare wear even a tight shirt. The way women are treated in our country is a complete disgrace. So I guess I have no idea what someone is talking about when they say “asking for harassment”. I have no idea why a group of black girls empowering themselves makes anonymous readers fret about the girls’ sexual practices. As a relatively young person whose worked with children of abuse I have no idea why the older generation would complain that kids wouldn’t WANT to go into a recording studio for free and develop a talent that already interests them. How can you complain that kids don’t WANT to do something in response to a report that kids ARE ALREADY doing such a thing? Should the girls care what I or any other nytimes reader thinks of their group’s name? They’re not rapping for us. They’re rappig for themselves.

To Mark the writer- To say you can’t understand rap music because it’s outside of your experience, is like the critic Tom Wolfe described who said he couldn’t review the first photo-realist paintings ‘because he hadn’t read anything about them yet.’

You can see, and hear, what’s in front of you, right? The context is unimportant compared to the fact of it. Sexual harrassment and exploitation of girls and women is wrong, and the white people at ClearChannel who are making the most $ from it should, like tobacco companies, be paying for programs like these young women have started, and for ads addressing the concerns they voice.

Well, Karlos, I guess these girls should just be listening to Wagner and supporting his Nazi agenda of peace, love and nonviolence, right?

Most of those posting criticizing rap and hiphop culture have NO personal experience of it, just what they see on TV. Shakespearean sonnets are no more “standard English” than urban dialects are. Anyone who, like myself, grew up along with hiphop knows that many lasting and BEAUTIFUL images have from the lips of KRS-One, Public Enemy, Rakim, Nas, Mos Def, and other masters of the game. And for those who don’t recall, poetry has always been first and foremost an oral, not written, genre. The whole idea of meter comes from how poetry is experienced when heard out loud.

As to why we can’t just teach kids by, you know, telling them the right thing to do, because that works so well (Just Say No to Drugs!), yeah, let’s just tell them to have self esteem, pull their pants up, stop having sex and work hard in school. That’s brilliant and it’s worked extremely well so far, right?

Why is it that across generations people have felt free to describe the musical expressions of African-American culture (blues, jazz, rock and roll, rhythm and blues, and now rap) as “garbage”? The fact of the matter, we have continued to make a silk purse out of the sow’s ear of our experience in racist Amerikkka. So sorry if that doesn’t suit your personal aesthetic.

Finally, for you old people, it used to be cool to be “cool”. Now it’s cool to be “hot”, and not just in a sexual sense. Hot is the new cool, and has been for some time. Try to keep up.

jay scott,

I am a liberal too. But this “hip hop in the classroom” nonsense has reached epic proportions. You need to remove your Political Correctness Glasses and think outside the box when it comes to the issues that affect the poor, minorities and women. Think outside the box and understand that speaking in primitive terms (hip hop/rap slang) and acting like some rapper and thinking 50 Cent is cool and that life is tough “in the hood” because of “white” people–never mind the millions of immigrants that make it in this country by simply avoiding rap culture—is the reason why these hip hop fanatics always fail.


I love the idea of suing the idiots making all of the money off of selling audio poison–sorry, misogynist rap–to teens. I wonder what the legal strategy would look like for said law suit…

Karlos- sorry, but for me, ‘Political correct’, like ‘liberal’, is another term that derails discussion, because what does it mean?

In WWII, were the Allies ‘politically correct’ and the Nazi’s ‘polically incorrect’?


You’ve made an incorrect assumption – that hip hop/rap equals speaking in primitive terms. Maybe your knowledge of hip hop and rap is limited to what you have gleaned as a non-fan, but trust me, there is plenty more out there. Buy yourself a Mos Def or Jurassic 5 album and tell me that their thinking is “primitive.” Mos Def is no primitive (which, speaking of word choice, is a really problematic thing to say about an art form associated with black people) – take a listen to the song “Fear Not of Man” if you disagree:

Listen.. people be askin me all the time,
(Where do you think Hip-Hop is goin?)
Whatever’s happening with us”
comin down to visit the townspeople
We (are) Hip-Hop
Me, you, everybody, we are Hip-Hop
So Hip-Hop is goin where we goin
Til you get a clear idea
So.. if Hip-Hop is about the people
and the.. Hip-Hop won’t get better until the people get better
then how do people get better? (Hmmmm…)
Well, from my understanding people get better
when they start to understand that, they are valuable
And they not valuable because they got a whole lot of money
or cause somebody, think they sexy
but they valuable caause they been created by God
And God, makes you valuable
And whether or not you, recognize that value is one thing
You got a lot of socities and governments
tryin to be God, wishin that they were God
They wanna create satellites and cameras everywhere
and make you think they got the all-seein eye
Eh.. I guess The Last Poets wasn’t, too far off
when they said that certain people got a God Complex
I believe it’s true
I don’t get phased out by none of that, none of that
helicopters, the TV screens, the newscasters, the..
satellite dishes.. they just, wishin
They can’t really never do that
When they tell me to fear they law
When they tell me to try to
have some fear in my heart behind the things that they do
This is what I think in my mind
And this is what I say to them
And this is what I’m sayin, to you check it

All over the world hearts pound with the rhythm
Fear not of men because men must die
Mind over matter and soul before flesh
Angels for the pain keep a record in time
which is passin and runnin like a caravan freighter
The world is overrun with the wealthy and the wicked
But God is sufficient in disposin of affairs
Gunmen and stockholders try to merit my fear
But God is sufficient over plans they prepared
Mos Def in the flesh, where you at, right here
on this place called Earth, holdin down my square

Ahhh … because it’s a free country?

Hip hop is a genre of music. Music is a medium of expression, an art, and entertainment, just like any other medium. The entertainment industry produces thousands of television shows, movies, web sites and songs a year; most of which have ‘negligible value’ aside from entertainment purposes.

Saying a particular genre in one of these mediums is garbage because it produces mass-market releases of ‘negligible value’ aside from entertainment is like saying English is a disgusting language because some of the words you can say in it are offensive.

There are offensive movies, books, songs and images that serve no higher purpose aside from entertaining. There are also highly valuable movies, books, songs and images that inspire countless people every day to learn more about their world and make it a better place.

The sooner we can all realize this fact which has gone unchanged by time, the sooner we can start discussing real issues.


This is a quote from an earlier post, that angers me deeply. Blues and Jazz are both becoming too similar. Not to each other, but to themselves. Every jazz song sounds just like the next, and it gets annoying after a while. Rock and Roll….well rock is next to dead for African Americans. Rock and roll not so much. That is more due to a change in culture. No one really likes actual Rock and Roll anymore; it’s a dying age. R&B, still making its way, but again, all the same. As for rap, it’s horrible. The only rapper I support is Eminem, and he’s white. All the rap nowadays is about doing drugs, having sex, having more sex, having way more sex, clubs, and gangs. Not to mention that most of the rap artists nowadays are simply gangsters who happened to get a lucky record signing deal, but are still the same idiots they were before they got rich. So, to answer your question, the only one that is considered garbage (at least to anyone with half a brain) is rap. Old school rap was fun and energetic, and maybe even somewhat innocent, but what’s coming out today is hardly even music. Consider this before making assumptions. Also, the person who wrote this is only 14 years old, so consider that as well….

Eds note: I’m not sure where you got the impression that the authors of the research cited in this and the accompanying column were teenagers but they are not. They are adults and established social science researchers. However, I think it’s fair to say we can learn a lot from teenagers if we pay attention and listen. tpp