I think rap music is brought up, gangster rap in particular, as

Hear now the words of the poet Ice Cube: “I think rap music is brought up, gangster rap in particular, as well as video games, every other thing they try to hang the ills of society on as a scapegoat.” These words are not idle complaints but the cry of a man who has seen the weight of false judgment placed upon art and expression. In every age, the powerful seek an easy answer, a surface to cast blame upon, a mask to hide the deeper wounds of their society. And so they seize upon songs, upon games, upon stories—and call them the cause of chaos. But what is this, save the eternal habit of humanity to curse the mirror that reflects its own face?

For in truth, rap music and video games are but vessels, carriers of imagination and testimony. They do not plant evil where none existed; they draw out and reveal what already lies in the soul of a people. When rulers and elders seek to name them as the source of society’s ills, they do not cure the disease—they only disguise it. They bind the wounds of the body politic with cobwebs, while the infection festers within. Thus, the false accusation becomes a comfort, for it spares men from confronting their own failures, their own corruption, their own cruelty.

Consider the days of Rome, when the emperors, fearing unrest, gave the people the circus—bloodsport and spectacle—and when violence spilled into the streets, it was not the greed of empire, nor the hunger of the poor, nor the corruption of senators that was blamed. No, it was the gladiatorial games themselves, as though mere sport had birthed the despair of the oppressed. Yet those games were not the source, only the mirror. The true sickness lay in the rot of power, but to admit this would have been to wound the pride of Rome itself.

Or recall the tale of jazz, once condemned in the early twentieth century as “devil’s music.” Ministers warned it would corrupt youth, newspapers said it would unravel morality, and elders cried that society was crumbling beneath its rhythm. But what was jazz truly? A cry of freedom from Black musicians, a weaving together of pain and joy into sound. Jazz did not create moral decay; it simply revealed the fears of a nation unwilling to face its racial wounds. It was made a scapegoat, just as rap and games are in our age, for it was easier to attack the drumbeat than the injustice of the world that gave it birth.

Thus the wisdom of Ice Cube’s words shines forth: beware the lure of the scapegoat. For it is always the powerless who are blamed for the sins of the powerful, and always the artist who is blamed for daring to sing what others wish left unspoken. When the cry of the street rises in song, when the pixel of a game carries the shadow of violence, the wise ask not, “How do we silence this?” but rather, “What truth is this revealing? What wound in our society beats beneath this rhythm?”

The lesson is plain: never believe too quickly the tale that one art, one music, or one game has caused the downfall of nations. Seek the root, not the shadow. Ask who profits from this blame, and what deeper sickness is hidden behind it. To condemn art is easy, to confront injustice is hard—but only the latter brings healing.

Therefore, O seeker of truth, let your actions be these: when others cry out that a song, a story, a game is corrupting the youth, do not join the chorus of fear. Instead, look beneath. Ask what pain, what hunger, what despair gives rise to the cry of that art. Listen with open heart to those who create it. And above all, resist the temptation to cast blame upon the innocent, for a people who forever hunt for scapegoats shall never face their own demons, and thus shall remain enslaved to them.