Final Draft

December 3, 2012
Hip-Hop Culture and Gender Roles

Dear Hip-Hop Fans and Listeners,

In a time when more and more rappers are taking over our radio and internet streams with their unproven talents and misogynistic raps, our society has grown to adapt the characteristics from the pervasive sexism and gender discrimination that is present in the lyrics of said musicians. As an avid hip-hop fan and unofficial expert of the genre for the past 7 years, I have an undeniable love for the music, but it’s not an unforgiving one. We must be aware of the hatred and objectification towards women, as well as the disconnection of the male black community, that our current state of hip-hop is influencing, and use this as the first step towards healing the pain that it expresses. The most unfortunate part of this crisis is the fact that it is affecting everyone without most of us realizing it. By analyzing and comparing lyrics from different generations of hip-hop, as well as detailing the resulting statistics and standard occurrences, we can better comprehend the negative effects that today’s rap music inflict. It is time for us to act like responsible citizens and understand how the current state of hip-hop influences negative gender roles on society.

Back when hip-hop was just called hip-hop and the song lyrics were not all harsh and stinging words directed towards male dominance and female objectification, rappers actually spoke about more good things than bad. Hardships growing up in impoverished conditions as well as more positive notes toward life were common themes of hip-hop songs back in the day. Influential groups like A Tribe Called Quest told stories through their rhymes and took the listener through bright and imaginative narratives, a trait today’s rappers are lacking. One of the group’s most popular songs, “Can I Kick It,” has member Q-Tip reciting positive attitudes and feelings through rhyme: “Rock and roll to the beat of the funk fuzz, Wipe your feet really good on the rhythm rug, If you feel the urge to freak, do the jitterbug, Come and spread your arms if you really need a hug.” The rapper is inviting listeners to bring their feel good dancing mood onto the metaphorical “rhythm rug,” and if they feel at all down, there is always someone there to give them a warm hug to brighten their spirits. Q-Tip’s rhymes are intelligent, artistic, and take a more playful lyrical approach than most of today’s rappers. At the the peak of the group’s popularity in the early 1990’s, one could easily say that the level of hyper-masculinity and objectification of woman were not as severe as they are today. Listeners of 90’s era hip-hop took to heart the words spoken by those rappers, and embodied those qualities and approaches into their own lifestyle, resulting in little gender-based issues. Rappers didn’t convey the image of men always out looking for some person to bang, and as a result, most women did not have to dress slutty in order to grasp the attentions of other men. This effectively resulted in society not demanding such ridiculousness in terms of gender inequality, with men not forced to flaunt their extreme power and masculinity, as well as women not being forced to throw their bodies out as pure sexual instruments in order to keep up with what society believed to be the norm.

Unfortunately, things have changed over the past 10 years. More and more incompetent rappers are releasing their music to the public that contain no skilled form of song-writing. The main message in today’s raps are essentially, “I make a lot of money, I get a lot of women, and I do a ton of drugs and drinking.” Surely artists rapping these messages are not the best type of role models when it comes to our youth. This is especially true since the most prevalent aspect of their raps contain endless rhymes of being the macho-man who have sex with countless women daily, something men think they must accomplish now in order to be “normal,” which, in the process, results in society almost degrading women into mere “sex-portals,” and nothing else. For example, we have rappers like Lil’ Wayne who write rhymes such as “Shawty wanna thug, Bottles in the club, Shawty wanna hump, And oh I like to touch ya lovely lady lumps, She wanna lick the rapper.” First and more obviously, any person can obviously detect the amount of talent and skill needed to produce such lyrics, which really takes away from the quality of today’s music. Secondly, when our generation’s most influential rapper only raps about the sexual desire of men wanting to “grind” on women in the club and having the ladies “lick [their] rapper,” the approach here is far less intelligent and imaginative. Not only does this type of lyricism transcend on to the males of society, but the females’ standards and overall moral beliefs lower significantly in order to meet the needs and expectations of those rappers and other various males who now take on these female-degrading and masculine-favoring manners.

Another epidemic that is a direct result from the current era of rappers is the idea and experimentation of video vixens and dancers for live performances. Video vixens are essentially females who wear little-to-no clothes and are placed into rap videos as props throughout the background. They are volunteers who do not look for any sort of pay, just the self-gratifying feeling that they were able to literally donate their body to a famous rapper’s sexually themed video. Joan Morgan, a music writer and hip-hop magazine editor, talks about how no one is addressing what is wrong with these vixens. Morgan questions our morality towards them, asking, “wouldn’t it be more productive to address the failing self-esteem of the 150 or so half naked woman who were willing, unpaid participants?” (447). Morgan’s point is extremely valid and brings up the fact that no one calls into question the service of these volunteers who will do anything to be in these rap star’s music videos. I have a friend of mine who is attending the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York, and was jumping for virtual joy when she posted on her Facebook that she had been “casted” to be one of 20 vixens to appear in a music video for   popular rapper ASAP Rocky. She ended her announcement by saying, “See you on MTV [expletive]s!” The joy and self-fulfillment women get from being chosen to flaunt their naked bodies in these rapper’s music video is not right, and should not bring them this amount of happiness. This also further proves the fact the most women will do anything, even if it is to make a fool of themselves in public, in order to bring any type of attention upon them, all a direct result of what women believe rappers want out of them.

On top of this, we have women dancers and entertainers who are similar to video vixens but perform their duties on stage during concerts while also receiving pay. Fittingly and unsurprisingly, these women are dressed in tight-fitting, revealing clothing, accentuating the typical lady assets: legs, breasts, and ass. These ladies perform grotesque and overly-sexual actions towards the rapper on stage, all to the “awe” of the audience. During a Lil’ Wayne performance for the aforementioned song “Lollipop,” women dancers would come on stage to grope Lil Wayne, sometimes kneeling on either side of him to pull on his belt in a suggestive manner. The lesson? Lil Wayne has droves of sexy women at his disposal, illustrating his masculinity through the command of female bodies, thus further proving the distorted field of gender equality. While the women's expression of sexuality is completely their own business, it is still evident that it is not a personal expression, but rather an expression that is for the heterosexual male gaze, uplifting Lil Wayne's own expression of masculinity in such a way that it completely overshadows the women's obvious talent as singers and dancers beyond the scope of their sexual parts.

Beyond this, mainstream rap has solidified the role of woman as a recipient of male domination and insult through lyrics, music videos, and commercial radio. As noted above, these music videos relegate women to adornments to the male artist. The young people who are repeatedly exposed to these sounds and images tend to habitually act them out in their own social situations. The American Medical Association estimates that almost four million men severely assault their intimate female partners or spouses each year. The leading cause of injury for women is also caused by men’s violence against their female partners, as it also results in at least 35 percent of all emergency room visits. The derogatory and misogynistic overtones in today’s mainstream rap music truly cloud our youth’s judgement and self-esteem, and as a result has our future generations being led in the wrong direction. All of these messages put out by today’s rap stars continue to promote gender inequality.

It is easy to see how all these factors from today’s mainstream rap contribute to the growing sexism and overall negative gender roles that have been conceived. But some people want to discredit the hip-hop industry of being the main culprit towards gender inequality by saying that the rappers aren't necessarily telling the listeners to mirror what they are saying. While this may be true, it is hard for our youth to try not to emulate their favorite idols, as it is almost inevitable that the listeners will try to reflect the words of their favorite rappers. So by contrasting the lyrics of artists from two different generations of hip-hop music, we can get a better idea of how much the genre has changed and how the change has shifted our society’s idea of masculinity, female objectification, and overall gender roles. And with more and more females believing that they will be publicly accepted and appreciated by becoming video vixens or live dancers for today's rappers, it becomes apparent how this perception is caused by mainstream rap. By also understanding how the rise in domestic violence is correlated to the rise in popularity of mainstream rap, we can finally begin to correct the issue at hand. We want our future generations to embody a type of character that we all would be proud of. It would be difficult to see our kids grow up to become something we are all ashamed of. We must be educated on the issue, correct the issue, and bring hip-hop back to the roots it was founded on!




Sincerely yours,


Iman Shahmiri