Over half of dead hip-hop artists were murdered, study finds
http://m.washingtonpost.com/news/mo...ad-hip-hop-artists-were-murdered-study-finds/
But that’s a thesis driving “Music to die for: how genre affects popular musicians’ life expectancy,” a piece in the Conversation penned by Dianna Theadora Kenny, a professor of psychology and music at the University of Sydney. Kenny, who examined the deaths of more than 13,000 pop musicians, looked for patterns. Did blues musicians kill themselves more often than metal musicians? Did country artists die younger than punks?
Among Kenny’s shocking findings: More than 50 percent of hip-hop musicians in her sample were murdered.
“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 wrote. “This could be due to these genres’ strong associations with drug-related crime and gang culture.”
“It’s a cautionary tale to some degree,” Kenny said in a phone interview with The Washington Post. “People who go into rap music or hip hop or punk, they’re in a much more occupational hazard profession compared to war. We don’t lose half our army in a battle.”
Age of death and musical genre. (Courtesy Dianna Theadora Kenny)
The roll-call of famous musicians undone before their time is indeed intimidating.
http://m.washingtonpost.com/news/mo...ad-hip-hop-artists-were-murdered-study-finds/
But that’s a thesis driving “Music to die for: how genre affects popular musicians’ life expectancy,” a piece in the Conversation penned by Dianna Theadora Kenny, a professor of psychology and music at the University of Sydney. Kenny, who examined the deaths of more than 13,000 pop musicians, looked for patterns. Did blues musicians kill themselves more often than metal musicians? Did country artists die younger than punks?
Among Kenny’s shocking findings: More than 50 percent of hip-hop musicians in her sample were murdered.
“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 wrote. “This could be due to these genres’ strong associations with drug-related crime and gang culture.”
“It’s a cautionary tale to some degree,” Kenny said in a phone interview with The Washington Post. “People who go into rap music or hip hop or punk, they’re in a much more occupational hazard profession compared to war. We don’t lose half our army in a battle.”
Age of death and musical genre. (Courtesy Dianna Theadora Kenny)
The roll-call of famous musicians undone before their time is indeed intimidating.
