Hip hop was a cultural movement. It emerged in the early 1970s in the South Bronx. Hip-hop emerged from the “ghetto” and became a cultural force for social protest and creativity. But starting in the 1990s, hip-hop shifted from a creative cultural production to a production for mass consumption. Hip-hop began to grow, and through mass marketing targeting broader, whiter audiences, hip-hop evolved to rely on images of crime and sex. Hip-hop went from being a tool for social change to being about cars, women, and drugs. There is a gap between the civil rights movement and the new hip-hop generation. This is not to say that there aren't artists in the hip-hop community speaking out about things that need to change like racism, exploitation of the poor, police brutality, and lack of education for blacks and the poor. But mainstream music on the radio is mostly about female body parts shaking and grinding, having sex, being really drunk, high, and/or violent. It's not entirely the fault of hip-hop artists, there are people who don't know Malcolm X, Susan B. Anthony or Thurgood Marshall, but most people will know overrated artists with trashy lyrics like Lil Wayne , Nicki Minaj, Soulja Boy, and 2 Chainz. What was once a useful tool for creating social change is now harmful. Hip-hop has created many powerful African Americans with lots of money and influence, but its power has ceased to reflect and reveal a social conscience to inspire cultural change, because few people rap about the need for change. By exploring the evolution of hip-hop from the civil rights movement to modern hip-hop, this article will attempt to show that hip-hop has evolved from a powerful tool of social consciousness to a monster of mass consumption... ... middle of paper ...... stronger behavior and feelings of unfairness. This study also looked at the race of listeners. Black and white subgroups identified with representations of resistance, while Asians did not. This article shows that rap is popular among various groups of young people, but the majority of them are black students. Common to white, black, and Asian students who identified with hip-hop was the feeling that they lacked cultural capital and did not do very well in school. They found that whites and Asians who listened to hip-hop were more violent. Black youth did not fit this model; liking hip-hop was not a predictor of crime. For black youth, appreciation of rap music is more associated with feelings of social injustice as well as less cultural capital. This study will show how hip-hop influences other races.