Hip hop is my first love. One of the first tunes that I recited as a child was Tupac's California Love.
While other children were humming the melodies to songs like Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star I was dishing out ga-gas and goo-goos reminiscent of a gangsta rap song. That's still one of my proudest moments.
My parents raised me around hip hop; it was all that I heard around the house as a kid. So, I had no other choice but to fall in love with hip hop. It was my destiny.
As I have grown, I see things differently and can understand how I've grown into the woman that I am today. Hip hop is one of those things that has altered me positively, and negatively.
Now, let's start with the positive.
Hip hop has made me a more creative person. Especially in the current era that we're in where there's new music being made every second, it's easy to find inspiration. There's something about the way the beat meshes with the flow of the lyrics and the tone of the voice that's beautiful to me. It's an art.
It's poetry and melodies meshed together. It's a part of me. And, it's helped me connect with some amazing people that feel the same way I do.
Now, with the negative.
The average perception of women in hip hop is disgusting. And, that's only the average. And, the way hip hop treats black women in particular is even worse. The misogyny in hip hop is either blink and you miss it, or incredibly blatant. It's something that I've been exposed to ever since I was a child. I truly think I played a part in the problems with my self-confidence that I have had over the years and how I see myself as an adult.
Here's an example of the blink-and-you-miss-it misogyny.
You're probably looking at this going "Hotline Bling?! Anything but Hotline Bling!" But trust me, I can explain.
Hotline Bling's misogyny goes into the psyche. Once you look deeper into the lyrics, you'll absolutely see what I mean.
"'Cause ever since I left the city,
you started wearing less and goin' out more
Glasses of champagne out on the dance floor
Hangin' with some girls I've never seen before..."
At a close listen, this song sounds very obsessive and controlling. Drake seems to want to control this girl that he used to be with, even though it's obvious that he left first. The girl he's talking about is even coming into her own and living her life, but Drake is not with it because he isn't included in it.
"You don't need no one else
You don't need nobody else, no....
You should just be yourself
Right now, you're someone else...."
If those lyrics aren't screaming creeper to you, then I don't know what will. In fact, who is Drake to tell this girl who she is and that she's not acting like herself? And that "You don't need no one else" line? Shudder.
Hotline Bling promotes unhealthy relationships that put women on a lower level than men. It suggests that men should have the power to control women no matter what the nature of their relationship. Even though the girl and Drake aren't in a relationship anymore, Drake still seems to think he can control his girl. This song's misogyny isn't blatant. It's not something that you'll catch during a casual listen. But, it's there.
Now, blatant misogyny.
The perception of women in hip hop video has been pretty terrible for quite some time. It seems to be the norm to fill your video with tons of booty shaking naked ladies. This video of D.R.A.M's new single Broccoli is no different.
Now, I really do enjoy the song. It's a fun party type of record; it means no harm. It's just when I saw the video that I was like:
I will reiterate, I love hip hop. I really do. Not all hip hop is like this. Some of it, is amazing. But there's some parts of it that are hurtful and detrimental. I just hope that things can shift in the right direction in time for me to have kids, so I'm not stuck having to explain to my daughter that she can be so much more than just an ass in a hip hop video or some half singing rapper's play thing.
