Dear Norf Norf Lady,

I have watched your video where you expose your local radio station for playing the song “Norf Norf” by rapper Vince Staples, a claim that I find strange in and of itself given that you said the radio station in question is a Top Hits Radio Station, and the song Norf Norf has never been a hit song, and it never charted on the Hot 100. So the fact that a “Top Hits Radio Station” would play this song seems strange to me seeing as “Norf Norf” never was a hit song.

However, the purpose of this letter is not to question the legitimacy of your claim, rather to discuss the flaws that I find with the content of your video. Now, I will start by saying that I appreciate you making it clear that you aren’t trying to attack people who do listen to music like this, and not sounding as though you advocate for censorship of artists who make music like this. I can also understand that if I was a parent I would hesitate to expose my child to music like this, and I respect your need as a parent to monitor the music and media that your kid consumes. In those respects, this video is pretty reasonable. That being said I feel that you are unfairly dismissing this song as a piece of art simply because it doesn’t reflect your first world, Christian, family friendly values right back at you. You make the claim that “this is why our society is messed up” which is a claim that I find to be quite ridiculous. How a child grows up to conduct themselves in life is not determined by the music they listen to, rather the way they are raised by their parents, and the people that they associate with. People that do grow up to be violent and hateful people, most likely do so because of some kind of failure by their parents or the educational system they are in (or in most cases a combination of both) to properly instill the ability to tell right from wrong. It has nothing to do with the music they grew up listening to. Also I highly doubt that you will find any kind of statistical correlation between violent crime rates, and the violence content of music because that is extremely difficult to graph out. Musical taste is a very personal preference and there is such a vast variety of music that different people listen to that you cannot possibly qualify your statement that this one song and others like it are the reasons there is so much violence in this country. However, if you could I highly doubt you would see a statistical rise in violent crime after the release of this song. Much like you will not see a statistical rise in violent crimes committed against police officers after the release of N.W. A’s infamous song “F*ck Tha Police”.

Which brings me to my last point which is that even though this music doesn’t reflect your reality or your personal values, doesn’t make any less of a piece of art. I think you would agree with me that music is an art form, I hope so, but let’s assume that you do. An artist is going to paint a picture of the stuff they see around them. If an artist lives near a waterfall, they’re going to paint a picture of a waterfall. In that same sense a musician is going to make music based on their surroundings, so if a rapper is brought up in a bad neighborhood where crime and violence is very common, most likely they will rap about crime and violence. Which brings me to the overall point that I want to make to you which is that contrary to what you believe, music like this is not made to encourage violent behavior, nor is it made to glorify said behavior, but it’s made to bring attention to how messed up life gets in neighborhoods like the ones Vince Staples may have grown up in. This song and others like it are a reflection of their own reality and is made to show the general public how bad life is for certain people, and while it may be uncomfortable for you to listen to it, and it may scare you to think that your kid is being exposed to it, imagine what it must be like for those living the life that is depicted in this song, and think about how easy you really have it in comparison. You can turn this song off and never listen to it again and go about your life as usual, but these people described in this song live this song every single day and they do not have the ability to walk away from that the way you have the ability to walk away from this song. I don’t see this song as trying to encourage more people to be violent, it’s an attempt to discourage people from being violent by showing them how brutal the life of a gang banger really is, and his way of conveying that is through explicit terms. That's really the only way to convey something like that.

At the end of the day this song is not made for you, and that is fine, I’m not even that big a fan of Vince Staples music personally, however I respect his right as an artist, and as a creative thinker to talk about these things however he sees fit. This song is a reflection of the reality that Vince Staples was brought up in, much like his whole album “Summertime 06” and I get that doesn’t appeal to you because you were raised in a much different environment than he was, and that’s fine. This music isn’t necessarily meant to appeal to people like you, and I’m certainly not trying to turn you into a Vince Staples fan. I’m just telling you don’t dismiss this type of music as an art form simply because you can’t handle the way he chooses to express himself. If you don’t like it that’s fine, but you still need to give it the respect it deserves as a piece of art that is a reflection of somebody else’s life. I do hope that this letter will help you open your mind more to different types of music, or at the very least given you a slightly different perspective on music like this. As a parent I understand why you were upset that your child had to here this song, but I feel that it was unfair of you to attack the song as if it was going to turn your child into a violent person. For I will say one more time, you as the parent have more control over how your daughter will conduct herself in life than this song, or anything else in the world besides your daughter herself. However, the values that you instill in her at a young age are much more lasting than some lyrics she hears in a song.