It is 2013 in the Year of Our Lord A.D. Women are able to vote; have leadership positions and receive equal pay—well, we are still working on that. Though we as women have come a long way in terms of equal opportunities and rights, the pervasiveness of rape culture and sexual violence in this day and age is at an all-time high and is evident and alive in a genre that I love the most, hip-hop/rap.
Mind you, many will argue that there is a HUGE difference between hip-hop and rap. In its inception in the 1980s, hip-hop’s purpose was to promote a state of Black consciousness and to shed light on the Black struggle; making the discrimination, inequalities and issues in the Black community come to life over tight lyrics and dope beats. Some describe rap as more of a kind of music while hip-hop is more of a lifestyle. Hip-hop pioneer, KRS-One describes it simply as, “Rap is something you do but hip-hop is something you live.”
Fast-forwarding into a new era, it seems as if the lines that used to distinguish hip-hop and rap have been blurred by the onslaught of mainstream or commercialized rap. Though to me, hip-hop promotes a message of awareness and consciousness (artists such as Talib Kweli, Common, even Erykah Badu are examples of this) while mainstream rap lacks what hip-hop represents, I cannot and will not make exceptions for the sexual violence/rape culture that is promoted and exhibited within these genres.
As if women being dubbed as “big-booty hoes” (2 Chainz, Birthday) “exquisite thick b***hes” (Common, The Dreamer) or even “bad b***hes” was not bad enough, rapper Rick Ross took rape culture in hip-hop/rap to another level with these lyrics on his new song with Atlanta rapper, Rocko, called U.O.E.N.O.
“Put molly all in her champagne/She ain’t even know it/I took her home and enjoyed that/She ain’t even know it.”
With Ross’ PR team in full damage control, his sorry excuse of his apology on the radio last week fell to deaf and disturbed ears. Though Talib Kweli—another hip-hop pioneer—described Ross as a “misguided 40-year old” and many radio stations are refusing to play Ross’s song, the damage has already been done. Here you have it, one of rap’s most popular artists, sending and condoning the message of date-rape to thousands, if not millions of people—both domestic and foreign.
Many people have argued that there are worst lyrics out there. I even had a young woman argue with me saying, “I don’t believe that [Rick Ross] would rape someone. He gets p***y thrown at him every day—why would he do that?” This was her justification for why a rapper does not have a reason to rape. Remember, rape and sexual violence do not necessarily have to deal with the act of sex or the pleasure from it—it is all about power and control.
With Lil’ Wayne rapping he will “beat the p***y up like Emmett Till” or Kendrick Lamar in his song, Hol’ Up, claiming he was “back in this b***h in the back of this b***h with [his] back against the wall and your b***h on the edge of my d**k, jump off”, women, especially Black women, have been demeaned and degraded by the unconscious and the conscious rapper alike.
Yes, hip-hop/rap definitely needs to take accountability for its actions but we, those Queens who are hip-hop fiends, have the control to filter or de-filter what enters through our ears. The saying goes, ‘you are what you eat’ and I also apply this to a holistic point of view. When you ingest too much of something that maybe negative, (and hip-hop/rap is not all negative, there are other negatives in other forms of music, too) it can do harm to one mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally and even psychologically.
Though the music or song may be dope, we have to know when and where we draw the line and speak up when it comes to how we as women are represented in hip-hop/rap.
So it does not matter if Drake claims that “just as long as his ‘b***hes love [him].” It is most important and imperative that we, as Queens, know just how to love and respect ourselves.