Just as the majority of us do, the 4th century philosopher Aristotle had a fascination with tragedy. The lure for him was enough that he made a point to figure out what draws in the everyday person to this grisly form of entertainment. Through his philosophical research, he found a few reasons to help explain its drawing power.

The first reason Aristotle came up with was imitation of real life. He figured that the people attending plays acted out with drama were being drawn in by the portrayal of real life. His belief behind this theory was that people learn from imitation, and because of that, they keep coming back. Another reason the imitation was keeping people in seats was that the plays let the viewer see aspects of life that they had no idea about. Let's say you are living a meaningless, dull life where you hardly ever leave the house. If you go see a play filled with emotion and based on things

Another main reason people listen to gangsta' rap is, just like any other form of entertainment, to help ease their mind of whatever happens to be bothering them. Listening to any type of music will help you forget about your problems, but with gangsta' rap you will also sit back and hear problems that will more than likely be worse than yours. People who despise rap music think that the violence in the lyrics makes the form of music unbearable, but if these horror stories are what the rappers are really seeing then of course that's what they're going to rap about. It's their way of venting their problems, and by listening to them vent, the listeners loose themselves in the rapper's problems, while forgetting their own. If I'm stressing over a philosophy paper and then I hear Summer Breeze and hear DJ Quik rap, "And I'm thinkin how many funerals I've been to?/ Watching all my homies get buried and the boxes they put 'em into," I'll realize that there are a lot better things that I could be worried over than a dumb college paper, and that I should be lucky enough to have college to write a paper for. Gangsta' rap sheds lights on a lot of problems you wouldn't even think twice about, and by listening you're problems seem a lot less meaningful.

Aristotle makes very good points about this topic, showcasing the main ideas behind his reasoning about the popularity of non-uplifting forms of entertainment. Every bit of his reasoning makes complete sense, and will help me prove my thesis of why gangsta' rap is very popular amongst our tragedy-plagued society. The often sorrow-filled and gruesome form of music has become a mainstay on the radios and in the CD players of people across the country, and even worldwide. Nowadays rap music depicts tragedy the same way plays did in Aristotle's time, only through a different form of entertainment, music. Since tragedy is the same no matter what form it's in, people are drawn to gangsta' rap for the same reasons they were drawn to dramatic plays.

you never got to see, and you liked it, don't you think you'd keep coming back for more?

Many rappers will also go into great detail in songs about the things they are involved with. Since most of us aren't rappers we're not really involved with many of the things they are, but when we hear topics that have to do with them, we listen. In the song The Ten Crack Commandments, Biggie Smalls, who was a former crack cocaine dealer on the rough streets of New York, tells his listeners in detail the ten most important things to know about selling crack. "Never get high of

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Approximate Word count = 1731
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)