Negotiating Risk and Promoting Empowerment through Rap Music: Development of a Measure to Capture Risk and Empowerment Pathways to Change

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to report on the development and construction of the Individual and Community Empowerment (ICE) inventory, a measure seeking to capture the specific pathways by which either risk-enhancing impacts or empowering impacts of rap music manifest. Data were analyzed via structural equation modeling from a convenience sample of 128 high school and college students. Results found that respondents elicited (1) empowering themes that related to them individually and to the broader community and (2) high-risk themes that may promote risky health behaviors. Implications about research and practice relevance of the ICE inventory are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• Empowerment
• risk
• therapy
• hip-hop
• rap music
• culture
• youth

Notes

This research was supported by a Texas State University Research Enhancement Grant awarded to Raphael Travis Jr. and Scott Wm. Bowman. The authors acknowledge the assistance of Dr. Anne Deepak for contributing to the conceptualization of the final questionnaire and data collection. Authors express thanks to the Texas State University Office of Multicultural Student Affairs for assistance with participant recruitment and data collection logistics.

*p < .05

**p < .01.

*Indicators first validated with the Tyson RAP scale in “Rap-music Attitude and Perception Scale: A Validation Study” (Tyson, 2006).

TVM = Tyson violent-misogynistic subscale.

*p < .05

**p < .01

***p < .001.

*Difference from other category is significant at the 0.05 level.

**Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed).

*Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed).