Condom Use and Hip Hop Culture: The Case of Urban Young Men in New York City

Abstract

Objectives. We explored how young men’s perceptions of and participation in hip hop culture—urban social and artistic expressions, such as clothing style, breakdancing, graffiti, and rap music—and how contextual factors of the hip hop scene may be associated with their condom use, condom-use self-efficacy, and sense of community.

Methods. We conducted a cross-sectional survey of 95 African American and Latino men aged 15 to 25 years as part of a 4-year ethnographic study in New York City.

Results. Differences in young men’s perceptions of and levels of affiliation with hip hop culture were not statistically associated with differences in their sense of community or condom-use self-efficacy. Frequency of participation in the hip hop nightclub scene was the strongest factor negatively associated with condom use.

Conclusions. Popular discourses on young men’s health risks often blame youths’ cultures such as the hip hop culture for increased risk practices but do not critically examine how risk emerges in urban young men’s lives and what aspects of youths’ culture can be protective. Further research needs to focus on contextual factors of risk such as the role of hip hop nightlife on increased HIV risk.

Condom use among young men is one of the most relevant behaviors to protect the health of youths, particularly in the United States. Nationally the cumulative number of AIDS cases among youths (aged 13 to 24 years) is estimated to be 40059.1^,2 Although the number of new HIV/AIDS cases per year among many age groups decreased or remained stable from 2001 through 2005, it increased from 1569 new cases in 2001 to 2480 in 2005 among individuals aged 15 to 24 years.1 In fact, individuals younger than 25 years now represent about half of the new HIV infections in the United States.1^,3 Most of the HIV-prevention research among youths has focused on the impact of HIV among young heterosexual women and young men who have sex with men. Nonetheless, there is a lack of epidemiological and behavioral information on young heterosexual men’s sexuality.

Urban youths’ cultures, such as hip hop culture (a system of symbols and urban practices that encompasses a range or constellation of related forms of social and artistic expressions, such as clothing style, breakdancing, graffiti, and rap music and videos), are often blamed for fueling sexual risk practices among youths.4 Taking this assumption as an unproblematic finding leaves us without a careful exploration of what social elements within hip hop culture facilitate or promote condom use. With this aim in mind, we explored how youths’ perceptions of and participation in hip hop culture, and contextual factors of the hip hop scene, might be associated with condom use and strong predictors of condom use (i.e., condom-use self-efficacy and sense of community). Although condom-use self-efficacy is a well-known measure of condom use, in our study we wanted to examine how urban young men’s sense of community was associated with both condom use and with variations in perceptions of and participation in hip hop culture.

Sense of community has been used by a number of studies to appraise sense of identification and belonging, interdependence, satisfaction of needs, and emotional connection among members of a community.5^–7 Furthermore, a positive relation has been found between psychological sense of community and positive individual outcomes such as increased participation in local community action,8 subjective well-being (happiness, worrying, and personal coping),9 and adolescents’ perceptions of loneliness.10 In this study, we adapted the scale of sense of community developed by Davidson and Cotter for measuring sense of community in urban settings.11

We hypothesized that condom use among young men would not be associated with frequency of listening or dancing to or level of enjoyment of modalities of hip hop music. We hypothesized that inconsistent condom use would be associated with contextual factors and the young men’s perceptions of hip hop culture as a form of sexualized activities. We also hypothesized that stronger affiliation with hip hop culture would increase young men’s sense of community and condom-use self-efficacy.

METHODS

Design

From 2004 to 2007, we conducted an ethnographic study on masculinity, sexual risk practices, and hip hop culture among urban young men of African American and Latino descent in New York City.12 Data collection components included field observations of social spaces frequented by young men in the hip hop scene, in-depth interviews with young men, open interviews with young women, and a cross-sectional survey with African American and Latino young men. In this article, we present the findings from the survey component.

Survey respondents were recruited during ethnographic fieldwork. To qualify, they had to be aged between 15 and 25 years, live in selected neighborhoods (4 predominantly Latino and African American neighborhoods in Manhattan and the Bronx), and to self-report familiarity with the hip hop scene (e.g., attending hip hop concerts or nightclubs, listening or dancing to hip hop music regularly). Parental authorization was required for participants younger than 18 years. Participants received an incentive of $25 as compensation for their time and effort.

Measures

The survey instrument used in this study was based on the ethnographic research component of the study. This is because hip hop culture is a form of cultural construction, a process conducted within the highly localized spaces of neighborhoods and social networks as well as within global cultural spaces defined by television and the music industry. Thus, it presents a measurement challenge to capture the constant dynamic nature of hip hop culture; for this reason we combined standard measures with measures that emerged from the narratives of the young men in the study.

Condom use.

Two items were used to measure respondents’ condom-use behaviors. General frequency of condom use was measured on a 5-point scale (1 = “never use” to 5= “always use”). Respondents were also asked to indicate the number of times that they had used condoms out of the total number of vaginal or anal intercourse encounters in the previous 2 months to classify the young men into 2 groups—consistent or inconsistent condom use. By measuring condom use through these variables, we were able to triangulate our research findings.

Condom-use self-efficacy.

Condom use self-efficacy was measured through 5 items: (1) “I would refuse to have sexual intercourse without a condom,” (2) “I would insist on using a condom even if my partner didn’t want to,” (3) “If the person I was about to have sex with suggested using a condom, I would feel like that person cared about me,” (4) “If the person I was about to have sex with suggested using a condom, I would feel less worried,” and (5) “I would respect my partner if he or she suggested using a condom.” All of the items were scored on a 4-point scale (4 = “I definitely would refuse/insist” to 1 = “I definitely would not refuse/insist”). The α coefficient for the scale was 0.79. Therefore, a composite indicator was created, ranging from 20 (highest self-efficacy) to 5 (lowest self-efficacy; mean = 15.55; SD= 3.69).

Sense of community.

We adapted Davidson and Cotter’s Sense of Community Within the City Scale.11 The adapted scale contained 12 items: (1) “When I need to be alone I can be,” (2) “I like the house/apartment in which I live,” (3) “I like the neighborhood in which I live,” (4) “I feel safe here (in my community),” (5) “This city gives me an opportunity to do a lot of different things,” (6) “I feel I can contribute to city politics if I want to,” (7) “It is hard to get around this city” (item was reversed for scoring), (8) “I would say that I am involved in a lot of different activities here,” (9) “If I need help, this city has many excellent services available to meet my needs,” (10) “There are good opportunities here for me to practice my religion in this city,” (11) “When I travel I am proud to tell others where I live,” and (12) “I feel like I belong here.” These items were scored on a 4-point scale (4 = “strongly agree” to 1 = “strongly disagree”). The α coefficient for the scale was 0.83. Therefore, a composite indicator was created. The scale ranged from 48 (highest agreement) to 12 (lowest agreement; mean = 36.58; SD= 5.42).

Background measures.

We collected background information on 2 areas: demographic variables and sexual experiences. Demographic variables included age, education, race/ethnicity, language, years in the United States (if not born in the United States), weekly income, household financial status, household composition, access to health care, gender identity, and sexual orientation. Four items were used to measure sexual experiences: age at first vaginal intercourse, age at first anal intercourse, number of lifetime sexual partners with whom they had vaginal intercourse, and number of lifetime sexual partners with whom they had anal intercourse.

Perceptions of hip hop culture.

As part of our qualitative study we collected young men’s perceptions of hip hop culture. Their answers included hip hop culture as a form of entertainment, as a type of music, as a way of dancing, as something that talks about violence, as expressions in the forms of graffiti, as something very sexual, as the old-style breakdancing, as something that is linked to drugs and drug trafficking, as something that is urban and hip, as an expression of young people, and as a type of lifestyle. We included these definitions in the survey as dichotomous statements (agree or disagree), in which respondents answered whether or not they agree with each perception of hip hop culture.

Hip hop music and dancing.

From the qualitative study, 3 types of hip hop music were more often listened to by the young men: rap, reggaeton, and “all hip hop–like music.” We used a 4-point scale to examine the level of enjoyment of listening to hip hop music (1 = “never enjoy listening to [type of music]” to 4 = “enjoy listening every day to [type of music]”). We used a similar scale to measure frequency and enjoyment of dancing to rap, reggaeton, and all hip hop music (1 = “never enjoy dancing to [type of music]” to 4 = “enjoy dancing at least once a week to [type of music]”).

Belonging to hip hop culture.

Two items were used to measure respondents’ affiliation with hip hop culture: (1) how much they feel part of hip hop culture (1 = “not at all” to 4= “very much part of hip hop culture”) and (2) how much hip hop culture has influenced their lifestyle throughout their life (1 = “hip hop has never been part of my lifestyle” to 4= “hip hop is part of my lifestyle now”).

Context of hip hop scene.

One of the recurrent qualitative themes from the initial ethnographic fieldwork was that respondents linked high sexual activity with active participation in the New York City nightclub scene. Thus, we included a question on frequency of participation in the hip hop nightclub scene (1 = never to 4 = more than once per week).

Analytic strategy.

To analyze the data, we used SPSS version 15.0 (SPSS Inc, Chicago, Illinois). Because this was a relatively small cross-sectional sample, we limited our analysis to the exploration of 4 sets of bivariate associations between each of our 4 dependent variables (condom-use general frequency, condom-use ratio, condom-use self-efficacy, and sense of community) and our independent factors in perceptions of, participation in, and enjoyment of hip hop culture. Because this was an exploratory analysis, we utilized stepwise linear regression equation modeling to determine which factors were significant predictors of our 4 dependent variables. Because we conducted multiple regressions, we set the α level at 0.05 and used the Bonferroni correction method to reduce the probability of type-I error.13

RESULTS

Sample

Ninety-five young men participated in the survey. The mean age was 19.5 years, and the majority of the young men were 19 years and younger (61.1%). Most of the young men were Latino (65%), 22% were African American, and 13% identified themselves as mixed race/ ethnicity. Most respondents (74.1%) were born in New York City, followed by the Caribbean (22.2%) and the United States outside New York City (3.7%). Ninety-five percent of the sample considered themselves straight or heterosexual, and only 5% viewed themselves as gay or questioning. Most young men were in high school (53.3%); 24.4% had a general equivalency diploma but were not in college, 16.6% were in college, and 4.4% had completed a college degree. There were no participants who had high school diplomas but who did not go to college. A significant number of them were currently engaged in the labor market (47.7%); out of those, 30.2% worked between 35 and 40 hours per week, 51.2% worked between 10 and 20 hours per week, and 18.6% worked “here and there” (occasionally).

Hip hop culture was a major aspect in their lives; 61.1% reported feeling very much part of hip hop culture, 29.6% reported feeling somewhat part of the culture, and 9.3% reported feeling marginally part or not part of hip hop culture. Furthermore, 48.8% reported feeling very much part of the hip hop nightclub scene in New York City, 35.7% reported feeling somewhat part of the hip hop nightclub scene, and 16.1% reported feeling marginally part or not part of the hip hop nightclub scene.

In terms of sexual experience, this was a sexually active sample of young men: 84.8% had had vaginal intercourse. Of those with sexual experience, average age at first experience of vaginal intercourse was 14.6 years (SD = 2.4); the number of lifetime female sexual partners ranged from 1 (17.9%) to more than 10 (32.1%), with most having had between 2 and 9 female sexual partners (50.0%). Thirty-eight percent of the young men reported having had anal intercourse. Of those, 97% reported anal intercourse with a female sexual partner and 3% with a male sexual partner. The average age at first anal sexual intercourse was 14.8 years (SD=3.36).

Predictors of Sense of Community

Demographic variables were not statistically associated with sense of community. Differences in perceptions of hip hop culture, frequency of enjoying listening or dancing to hip hop music, level of affiliation with hip hop culture, and frequency of going to hip hop nightclubs were not statistically associated with the young men’s sense of community (data not shown). However, consistent with the literature on sense of community, young men’s sense of community was moderately associated with condom-use self-efficacy (R=0.29; P<.01), general condom use (R=0.40; P<.001), and consistent condom use in the past 2 months (R=0.51; P<.001), after we adjusted for age, race/ethnicity, and education.

Predictors of Condom-Use Self-Efficacy

Differences in perceptions of hip hop culture, frequency of enjoying listening or dancing to hip hop music, level of affiliation to hip hop culture, and frequency of going to hip hop nightclubs were not statistically associated with young men’s condom-use self-efficacy. However, enjoyment in listening to hip hop music was positively associated with condom-use self-efficacy (Table 1 ▶). After we adjusted for age, race/ethnicity, and education, high frequency of enjoyment in listening to hip hop music was significantly associated with high levels of condom-use self-efficacy (b = 1.67; P< .05).

TABLE 1—

Linear Regression Coefficients on Condom Use Among African American and Latino Young Men (n = 95) Aged 15 to 25 Years, by Each Independent Variable: Hip Hop, Masculinity, and Sexual Risk Survey, New York, NY, 2004–2006

Independent Factors	Condom-Use Self-Efficacy, b (SE)a	Frequency of Condom Use, b (SE)a
Affiliation with hip hop culture
Feeling part of hip hop culture	−0.58 (1.26)	0.41 (0.44)
Participation in hip hop culture throughout life	−0.44 (0.69)	0.03 (0.27)
Feeling part of hip hop culture now	−0.09 (0.01)	−0.52 (0.23)
Hip hop is my style	−0.77 (0.61)	−0.35 (0.21)
Frequent hip hop nightclub scene	−0.65 (0.72)	−0.67** (0.24)
Self-associations of hip hop
Music	1.90 (1.37)	−0.08 (0.48)
Dancing	−0.41 (1.04)	−0.53 (0.38)
Violence	1.71 (1.14)	0.01 (0.49)
Graffiti	0.68 (1.22)	0.11 (0.47)
Sex	−1.72 (0.98)	−0.24 (0.38)
Breakdancing	0.58 (1.08)	−0.62 (0.39)
Fashion	1.01 (1.08)	0.45 (0.25)
Being urban	0.59 (1.08)	0.39 (0.41)
Drugs	0.29 (1.17)	−0.47 (0.45)
A form of expression	0.79 (1.07)	−0.08 (0.39)
Level of enjoyment in listening to
All hip hop	1.67 (0.65)*	−0.99 (0.25)
Reggae	0.43 (0.51)	0.18 (0.19)
Reggaeton	0.47 (0.47)	−0.11 (0.09)
Rap	−1.06 (0.54)	−0.09 (0.19)
Frequency of dancing to
All hip hop	−0.21 (0.48)	−0.33* (0.17)
Reggae	−0.37 (0.42)	−0.14 (0.16)
Reggaeton	−0.37 (0.52)	−0.37* (0.19)
Rap	−0.08 (0.42)	−0.33* (0.15)

^aCoefficients were adjusted for age, education, and race/ethnicity.

* P < .05; **P < .01.

Predictors of Condom Use

Of the young men who were sexually active (n=72), 49.4% used condoms consistently, 25.3% used them more than half of the time, and 25.3% used condoms less than half of the time. During sexual encounters in the previous 2 months, 62.1% used condoms in every encounter, whereas 6.9% never used them.

The bivariate analysis suggests that the following background factors were not associated with variations in general condom use and condom use over the past 2 months: race/ethnicity, education, income, number of lifetime sexual partners, and variations in age at first vaginal or anal intercourse (results not shown). Age was significantly associated with condom use. The younger the respondent, the lower the frequency of condom use (R=0.28; P=.007) and the higher the likelihood of inconsistent condom use (R=0.46; P<.001).

After we adjusted for age, education, and race/ethnicity, young men’s perceptions of what hip hop culture is about were not statistically associated with condom use. Frequencies of enjoyment in listening to hip hop music types were also not statistically associated with condom use. Furthermore, differences in levels of affiliation with hip hop culture were not statistically associated with condom use (Table 1 ▶).

Frequency of dancing to hip hop, rap, and reggaeton music were negatively associated with general condom use (Table 1 ▶). In other words, the higher the frequency of enjoying dancing to these music styles at least once a week, the lower the frequency of condom use. We cross-examined these findings with consistency of condom use over the past 2 months, and dancing to reggaeton was the only type of dancing significantly associated with lower condom use (t = 3.15; P= .004; data not shown). However, once we accounted for the effects of frequency of attendance to hip hop nightclubs, dancing to reggaeton was no longer a predictor of condom use (see “Multivariate Models” subsection).

The strongest factor associated with low condom use was frequency of going to hip hop nightclubs. The higher the frequency of going to nightclubs, the lower the condom use reported (Table 1 ▶) and the lower the likelihood of using condoms consistently (t = 2.28; P< .05; data not shown).

Multivariate Models

To examine the salience of attendance to nightclubs as predictor of condom use, we examined 2 multivariate models. The first model was used to examine all demographic factors, frequency of dancing to reggaeton music, and frequency of visiting hip hop nightclubs, and we found that only age and attendance at hip hop nightclubs were significant factors associated with condom use. Because attendance to hip hop nightclubs was correlated with frequency of dancing to reggaeton (R= 0.28; P= .039), we tested the model for mediating effects and found no statistical significance (data not shown).

In the second model we examined the significance of attendance at hip hop nightclubs after taking into account condom-use self-efficacy and sense of community. We found that frequency of attending hip hop nightclubs remained a significant factor associated with low condom use. Moreover, for our sample, model 2 was stronger in predicting condom use (R 2=.394; F=7.80; P<.001) than if the model had relied solely on condom-use self-efficacy, sense of community, and demographic factors (R 2=.273; F=5.64; df=65; P<.001).

DISCUSSION

Limitations

This was a cross-sectional survey of a small, convenience sample that emerged from ethnographic fieldwork and did not include young men from races or ethnicities other than African American and Latino. As such, the findings from this study must be looked at with caution if one attempts to generalize to the entire universe of young men in hip hop culture. Because the quantitative component of the study ran almost parallel to the ethnographic research, we did not include specific questions about behaviors during or right after visiting hip hop nightclubs. In our original research design, we did not foresee that the hip hop nightclubs would be a significant factor for the ethnographic findings as well as the survey results. Therefore, this statistical association requires further investigation. Another limitation of the study was that most of the sample was sexually active and, therefore, we collected limited information on young men who were not sexually active.

Contextualizing Research Findings

Hip hop culture (which encompasses a range or constellation of related urban cultural forms, such as breakdancing, graffiti, and rap music) emerged in the late 1960s in New York City’s inner-city neighborhoods and has developed into one of the world’s most influential cultural movements.14 The market-driven nature of current hip hop culture underscores the central role urban youths play in late-capitalist cultural economy both as producers and consumers of culture, although the marketing of hip hop culture globally illustrates how cultural artifacts are transformed into commodities that are alienated from their original contexts and references to the point where their critical force is greatly diminished. Hip hop culture is now the dominant influence on youths’ fashions in cities around the world.15 As a result, the historically and materially grounded resistance struggles in inner-city neighborhoods in the United States, recorded in the products of the movement, are packaged as style rather than as critiques. Thus, in the process of developing into a global movement, hip hop culture has spawned cultural processes that have little in common with those found in the original sites of production. Indeed, as a result of its appropriation by the capitalist media system, hip hop culture products are now repackaged and remarketed to youths in the United States from neighborhoods where the movement first emerged at the grassroots level.

Over time the potential power of hip hop culture has been recognized by capitalist entrepreneurs and mass culture brokers alike, and large sections of what today might be described as hip hop talent and the hip hop market are now in the hands of corporate producers of popular culture (some of whom emerged from the ranks of hip hop culture itself). Yet innovation in hip hop culture styles and genres continues to take place among racial and ethnic minority youths (not only in the United States, but also increasingly in a wide range of global settings), and hip hop culture styles continue to be an important source of cultural expression for large segments of urban youths. Younger generations of hip hop artists are on the rise, and the artistic vocabulary and venues developed over the past 3 decades are being employed by marginalized inner-city youth with a renewed force.

For many African American and Latino youths, hip hop culture is a powerful tool for engaging critically and creatively in the construction of the terms of their sexualities,15 specifically the way in which their sexualities are portrayed and performed.16 The remarkable variability of cultural texts developed within the racially and sexually charged framework of hip hop culture continues the long tradition among oppressed groups of using representation as the field within which to examine, resist, and reshape systems of power.17 By appropriating and re-forming the gender and sexual codes found in dominant culture into hip hop culture narratives and collages, adults (as well as researchers) have taken the route of blaming hip hop culture for urban youths’ misbehavior. The findings presented in this analysis emerged from a study that focused on listening to the voices of urban youths while at the same time generating evidence to the gap between popular blaming of hip hop culture and empirical evidence of the associations between hip hop culture and health risk behavior.

Implications

Urban young men are often portrayed as being disengaged from society and from their communities.18 Our findings demonstrate that urban young men have a strong sense of community and that this sense of community is associated with consistent condom use. Therefore, we can infer that the underlying construct of sense of community (i.e., membership, influence, needs fulfillment, and emotional connection7^–10) increases young men’s awareness of their own actions and the consequences of those actions in their lives and empowers them to make sound decisions about their bodies. However, differences in participation in and affiliation with hip hop culture were not associated with levels of sense of community (a rejection of one of our original hypotheses). This leads us to reexamine our hypothesis that higher affiliation with and participation in hip hop culture would lead to higher sense of community, and to conduct further research on this lack of statistical association.

Contrary to what we hypothesized, condom use did not differ by perceptions of hip hop culture (including the perception of hip hop culture as a form of sexualized activities). However, frequency of enjoying listening to hip hop music was positively associated with condom-use self-efficacy (confirming study hypothesis). As in other studies, condom-use self-efficacy was a strong predictor of condom use among study participants.19

Popular discourses on young men’s health risks often blame youths’ cultures such as hip hop culture for increased risk practices, but these discourses often neglect to critically examine how risk emerges in the lives of urban young men and what aspects of youths’ culture can be protective. In this study, frequency of listening or dancing to hip hop music or emotional connection with hip hop culture were not related to variations in condom use (as it was hypothesized). Social context played a key role in shaping young men’s HIV risk. High participation in the hip hop nightclub scene was associated with low condom use. Having sexual intercourse under the influence of alcohol or drugs, situations often associated with visiting nightclubs in cities such as New York, is likely to be the major reason for limited condom use. Further research needs to focus on contextual factors of risk such as the role of hip hop nightlife on increased HIV risk for urban youths.