Rap and hip-hop culture is a major influence in the lives of African American youths in various different social aspects of life, particularly violence, crime and sexual activity. Many students are uncertain of the real messages behind this pop culture and often times are categorized, or labeled, before they have a chance to determine their own beliefs and understanding. It is shown that if students are given the opportunity to pay more attention to the consequences of the actions behind what they see and hear in music and various types of pop culture and media, they will be able to identify problems on their own in the future and work with them rather than responding violently or seeking trouble as an outlet to the potentially dangerous aspects of their lives.
Jabari Mahiri and Erin Conner conducted two separate studies by providing an outreach program for an elementary school, and then observing 41 middle school students, 15 of which were from the previous elementary school. The students were sampled from Westwood Elementary School in a low-income section of a large city in northern California, consisting of predominantly African American students. The researches were highly involved with the study, and even taught classes.
Two different school classes were involved, a combined language arts and social studies class, and an academic literacy class. The researches conducted various different experiments that included projects, reading, exposure to specific events, and also directly communicated with the students to understand how they felt about what they were doing. The teachers arranged their curriculum around the research and attempted to create opportunities which directly to determine the students' reactions towards the 
influences of rap on their lives.
The students engaged in a number of different and elaborate activities during the study. They created their own rap album and got into the finer details behind production like song titles and album cover art. They also wrote a biography about a life-experienced person in their community, went on a field trip which involved research on their own neighborhood and a funeral of an older of a student in the school in effort to determine the positive and negative aspects of Westwood itself. Most generally 
however, they kept a log of their experiences throughout the study and very much so keeping track of their feelings and interpretations.
Some students read a curriculum unit called Our America which deals in violence in general and how students deal others when it comes to potentially violent situations. It is a collection of stories told by youths in effort to help students learn through the experience of others told on a level of literature they can both understand and relate to. In depth responses were given by many different students in a very natural way, and the students were generally excited to have a rare opportunity to have their voices heard on what many would consider serious and fundamental aspects of their lives.
The research provides an excellent controlled study and is able to obtain a very specific view of the interpretation of rap and hip-hop on the lives of youths in an equally as specific location. Consequently, this only provides a very low percentage of students within a school, including what would be generally considered unnatural results based on how students are normally exposed to this culture. Usually students do not have people so willing to provide literature, field trips, activities and what not, holding their hands along the way, and this unfortunately results in negative responses.
A positive side effect of the study was actually helping students better understand what it is they are listening to and why they do not always have to be involved with negative aspects of life just because someone they care about is. Since some of the students received preferential treatment, the results were somewhat tainted. This type of effort would need to be widespread in order for it to become the norm. Another, broader study could be done without the need to be so involved with the actual students, and a specific comparison could also be done with a larger number of students who all have been worked with in effort to show more clearly what happens when students are given a better understanding of a major influence that impairs their understanding of right and wrong.