Rap music and the hip hop culture have been under attack since their creation. Parents, teachers, news media and even the Supreme Court have joined the fight against hip hop music and lifestyle that comes along with it. Hip hop has been blamed for gang activities, school shootings and isolated incidents around the country for decades. Hip hop music has been criticized for its violent nature and hip hop music has also been under scrutiny for its objectification of women in its lyrics. In her essay In Defense of Hip Hop, Cathleen Rountree states, "hip hop music frequently assumes the central role of scapegoat when violent words and deeds erupt among the young". Typically, artists are rapping about how much money they make, what kind of fancy cars they drive and how many women they've had sex with. Rappers talk about drugs and guns in their songs with regular frequency. Fortunately, not all rap songs are about guns, drugs and sex. Lose Yourself is a rap song by the artist Eminem about taking advantage of every given opportunity and treating said opportunity as if it is the chance of a lifetime. The song emulates turning nothing into something. Eminem is a rapper whose birth name is Marshall Mathers. Marshall has been at the center of controversy before for many of his songs and his explicit lyrics. As one student puts it, "Eminem became the next hit in rap in 1999 with extremely violent and shocking lyrics that included descriptions of raping and killing his ex-wife and vicious slurs against homosexuals." (Taking, par.2).
One example of these controversial songs is Guilty Conscience which depicts three people's situations. The first situation is a man going into a grocery store to rob it. Before he gets to the door his conscience begins to talk him out of robbing the store. At the same time, the man's evil conscience is reinforcing the idea that it is a good idea to rob the grocery store.
