Study shows murder is the leading cause of death for rappers
theGrio REPORT - A new study by the University of Sydney has found that murder is the leading cause of death for rappers.
A new study by the University of Sydney has found that murder is the leading cause of death for rappers.
Dianna Theadora Kenny, a professor of psychology and music at the University of Sydney, examined over 13,000 musicians, across several different genres, and their deaths and found that over half of all rappers’ deaths were related to murder.
“Murder accounted for 6.0% of deaths across the sample, but was the cause of 51% of deaths in rap musicians and 51.5% of deaths for hip hop musicians, to date,” Kenny said. “This could be due to these genres’ strong associations with drug-related crime and gang culture.”
While the findings are worrying for prospective musicians, Kenny was quick to assure people that hip hop was not a death sentence, pointing out that the genre was still relatively new and did not yet have as many artists who had reached an age where health problems became more pronounced.
“In the case of the newer genres, it’s worth pointing out that members of these genres have not yet lived long enough to fall into the highest-risk ages for heart- and liver-related illnesses,” she wrote in the study. “Consequently, they had the lowest rates of death in these categories.”
