1) first, i want to bring your attention to the fact that obama mentioned weezy B. in a speech and here is what he said:
"You are probably not that good a rapper. Maybe you are the next Lil' Wayne, but probably not, in which case you need to stay in school," Obama, D-Ill., told a cheering crowd, brought to a standing ovation at a town hall meeting in Powder Springs, Georgia.
&The presumptive Democratic nominee was speaking about high school drop out rates and the need for people to be committed to working hard in school so they can get a job after school.
Obama said he knows some young men think they can't find a job unless they are a really good basketball player.
"Which most of you brothas are not," Obama, who played basketball in high school, a sport he continues to play to this day, said jokingly. "I know you think you are, but you're not. You are over-rated in your own mind. You will not play in the NBA."
2) second, i want you all to read how TIME is analyzing the connections between obama, weezy, hip hop, and blackness in a swampland blog titled, "the politics of lil wayne". i want to reserve my opinion about this blog ... and then i don't.
3) my opinion: the TIME blog is condescending and ever more illuminating about the culture clash between white and black america ... or money vs. poverty ... or youth vs. oldheads ... whichever way you want to group folks ...
it's a clash and there is something lost in translation.
i think hip hop has always been political; TIME mag might consider it "crude" but that's a value judgement. cuz i think highwaters are kinda crude. and i bet most of the TIME staff got their pants jacked up under their chests.
hip hop is political but it just don't fit in a little box. hip hop has always engaged contemporary politics and current events. hip hop doesn't belong to a political party. that is a limited idea of political. hip hop comments on the human condition which to me is ... political. hip hop advocates for individual, civil, and human rights on the regular ... and that ... is ... POLITICAL.
4) i love hip hop ... and i am woman. i am so tired of people trying to make hip hop ANTI-WOMAN.
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& hip hop loves ME back.
it probly don't love you cuz you act like a BITCH, BITCH.
yeah i said that ... and if you know hip hop you know how i mean it.
and if you don't know what the fuck just happened don't ASSUME, don't take it personal ... listen to more hip hop.
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2 comments:
Mei. I'm with you on asserting hip-hop's longstanding legacy of political/social engagement. We need to continually define our culture for ourselves.
But Mei, Mei, I really don't get the part of the post about "branding hip-hop anti-woman." I'm not even clear who has branded it anti-woman. ARe you talking about the dribs and drabs of commentary a select few have made on the way commercial rap (and some underground shit) talks about/visually represents/objectifies/trivializes women?
It seems that as soon as someone states the obvious--that a lot of contemporary, commercial hip-hop demeans women--males and females reflexively defend "hip-hop" by selling Black and brown women down the river. I know because 've done it myself.
But watching our culture be co-opted and corporatized has really opened my eyes about the danger of letting dehumanizing shit slide. Back when rappers had to pass the 'hood smell test, defending hip-hop reflexively made some emotional sense. As Talib Kweli reminded us on Hip-Hop Vs. America, to even be rapping you had to be down by law. It was assumed that you cared about your community even if your behavior didn't always show it. If you did some contradictory shit, we got it because we were all struggling. If you did good, we did good. If you did bad, you had to redeem yourself (remember the LL "Goin Back to Cali" dustup? When we were mad at Eazy E for going to George Bush's White House? When we cussed out Hammer and Vanilla Ice? When Cube's "True to the Game" and EPMD's "The Crossover" laid out our anxiety/anger about sellouts?)
But shit is so different now. Hip-hop isn't some little engine that could any more. It isn't even fucking Black or brown, even tho the MCs who front it are.
I think women of color who love and live hip-hop owe it to ourselves to shut down *any* person, place or thing that treats us like bitches, whether it looks like hip-hop, gospel, our Daddy, our sons, our husbands, baby-daddys, etc. We **cannot** let people think for one minute that it's OK to disrespect an African woman. Not on some moral shit. On some real shit.
We just can't afford to pledge allegiance to twisted logic any more. Just because something is "hip-hop" doesn't make it mystical, complex or correct. The answer isn't to listen to more hip-hop. It's to avoid making baseless generalizations about it but being honest about what some of it actually says.
That's just basic human sense that will help us all. We don't help Black men, women or children and we don't help hip-hop by letting folks dehumanize us with words and deeds.
akiba, thank you thank you for the feedback! i appreciate this dialogue ...
1) i don't think claims that hip hop is mysogynistic are in dribs and drabs ... i see it as ubiquitous ... i think that it is how it is defined by mainstream america because it is seen as fact as you say here: "as someone states the obvious--that a lot of contemporary, commercial hip-hop demeans women." so is it dribs and drabs ... or is it obvious, akiba? i think it's neither. i think it's about interpretation. i don't think it's so obvious that hip hop is demeaning.
2) here's why: as a woman who loves hip hop, grew up around hip hop i have never felt disrespected or demeaned personally. i don't think video girls are representations of me. i don't think rappers are talking about me when they talk about bitches and hoes. i don't get personally offended. i have never felt dehumanized.
3) now, do i think the rappers have twisted views about women - sure, some of them do. do i think some of them just make it up - some of them do.
4) i am only 'defending' hip hop by trying to place it in a broader context ... i think that hip hop has and will always operate in larger cultural paradigms of racism and sexism and materialism etc. i think rappers have the right to be artists and express their opinions and possibly dysfunctionality in any way they choose. i am defending hip hop because i don't think it is the CAUSE of what it expresses. hip hop is the symptom of the world we live in. it is the artistic voice to a fucked up world and mindset that ALL of us operate from. it is the public outcry of deep insecurities, self hatred, and of course, racism and sexism as well. i am tired of hip hop being the scapegoat for the the entire world's issues ....
5) by scapegoat ... i mean that people do not criticize education like they criticize hip hop. people don't criticize parenting choices like they criticize hip hop. and people don't get involved in the communities they criticize. writers for TIME as well as black women i know and love observe hip hop from an outsider perspective with very little compassion and a whole lot of judgement. is the root of negative themes in hip hop the musicmakers and the music itself? i think not. the root is how human beings have learned to relate to each other and ourselves.
6) why say listen to more hip hop? because i think as we tend to do with most things we generalize it as mostly bad or mostly good but what the actual music reveals to us (not just radio shit, mainstream, or hit singles - the entire collection of hip hop) is that there are multiple voices clamoring to be heard. there are many and often contradictory ideas expressed by even a single artist. just like any human art form. or any group of human beings. not all women behave one way. not all men. not all rappers. not even all ducks in a pond behave the same. not only that the music reveals a humor, a language, a self-deprecation as well as collective fantasies and desires. these desires might not be ideal but they are real for people. when people change people ... the music will change too.
7) i don't just defend hip hop i am saying i don't JUDGE hip hop. i let it be. i don't take it too serious. which is the why i wrote the part about "bitch, bitch" cuz it's not an insult it's a way we use language in hip hop ... i also don't judge country music or deth metal music or electronica. so why judge hip hop? why judge anything?
8) my overall point is: just be yourself and do your best and let everyone else be themselves.
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