This is a man’s world: The construction of masculinity in rap songs’ lyrics from 1990-1995 and rap songs from 2005-2010

Rap music constitutes one of the most popular genres worldwide. The genre started as a means of protest for African Americans against the social inequality. Nevertheless the content altered over the years and rap music eventually took a different direction and turned out to be as an anti-feminist movement. The central content of the lyrics was firmly connected to sexist ideas and stereotypes regarding the interaction between the two genders. For this reason, it is vital to examine the alteration of the lyrics over time and the promoted role models through rap. Since the most content analyses examined videos, thereby this paper aims to fill the existing academic gap. Thus, the following research question emerged: How is Black masculinity constructed in raps’ song lyrics from 1990-1995 and rap songs from 2005-2010? In order to provide an answer to the posed research question, three subquestions were created. In detail, this paper analyses the construction of masculinity in the 90s’ (first subquestion) and in the 00s’ (second subquestion) leading to the third subquestion regarding the most noticeable similarities and differences between these two eras. By analysing 12 songs, the qualitative content analysis identified 4 themes for each era with misogyny being in the spotlight. Moreover, an additional theme that was extracted although contradictory to the aforementioned is the reference of love. The analysis aims to bridge the literature gap concerning masculinity in rap music and also to delve into the interaction of the genders which is depicted in rap music.