Originally my topic for this week was going to be about women in urban in music and how they influenced and shaped a male-dominated genre, but thanks to my roommate that’s going to be on the back burner until next time. What I need to address before I can address all that women have done is the ever-present misogyny present in urban music. Although I have defined urban music to also include R&B I’m going to mainly focus to the misogyny present in Rap.
I know that this is supposed to be a blog encouraging people to try out the genre, but I can’t present to you all the good without at least mentioning the very apparent and obvious bad.
Here’s a little backstory as to why my topic shifted so suddenly.
My roommate only listens to Korean Pop (kpop) which is extremely cool considering that I had never heard of it before. We were recently talking about how different our music tastes are when she brings up how her music taste was pretty similar to mine when she younger. Then she introduces me to the song that sparked this post.
“Kim” by Eminem. (I’m not going to link to it but feel free to look it up if your curious.)
It’s an extremely violent depiction of how Eminem felt towards his ex-wife. Not to go into much detail or anything but the song is basically him murdering his ex-wife, the man she was with and the man’s son.
Yea…it’s pretty bad.
Maybe it’s because the music I listen to isn’t as graphic or maybe it’s because I’m currently taking a class on misogyny, but I was hyper-aware of how disgusting the lyrics were.
And then I started thinking about how misogynistic rap is in general. It’s not that I just realized it, I’ve always known about how women were portrayed in this genre, it’s I just finally became aware of it.
Rap but even more specifically gangsta rap is extremely misogynistic and that’s something that has always bothered me about the genre. I love rap music. I love the politically charged messages under the guise of catchy lyrics and the beautifully engineered beats. I’ll even confess to liking some of the more recent mumble rap that relies more on beats than actual lyricism.
What I don’t like however is women being referred to as… you know the words I’m looking for but if you don’t the first one started with a “B” and rhymes with witches and the second word is the name of a garden tool.
Rap, although not as much in recent years objectifies women and reduce them to only creatures that exist to please men. They are simply objects of desire. I remember a time when I wasn’t allowed to watch music videos because the scantily clad women were too much for an impressionable girl to see. I don’t watch music videos now for an almost similar reason. It’s uncomfortable to see women being paraded around in basically nothing solely to reinforce the idea that the male rapper has it all, woman included. It’s tiring to see women who look like me being reduced to sexual beings.
The representation of women in this light does nothing to help advance the genre, in fact, it hurts not only the genre but also the consumers of the music. To girls and women, it shows that you have to have extremely large breasts and butt, long hair, and be virtually naked to be deemed desirable to man. To boys and men, it gives this false representation of how a real woman is and how she behaves. It reinforces this idea that women are just objects of pleasure and not actually people with thoughts, feelings, and goals.
I love rap. I really do. It’s part of my culture. I just wish it was more respectful towards women. I personally feel that it was more inclusive to females it would have a better reputation and a larger more diverse audience of listeners.
If you’re in need of some woman friendly rap, look no further.
“Keep Your Head Up” by Tupac
“The Light” by Common
“Dear Mama” by Tupac
“’03 Bonnie & Clyde” by Jay-Z
“How to Love” by Lil Wayne
“Fancy” by Drake
“Independent” by Webbie
“Crooked Smile” by J. Cole
“Sure Shot” by the Beastie Boys
“Complexion” by Kendrick Lamar.