Oprah’s town hall meetings on misogyny in hip hop
I am old enough to have been around when rap was born. I remember the first time I heard Rapper’s Delight by the Sugar Hill Gang and my mother went out and bought the 33rpm so we could play it on our record player (remember those?). I remember writing down and memorizing the words to “The Message,” “Jam On it,” “Roxanne, Roxanne,” and even “The Rapping’ Cowboy.” I also have to admit to dancing to “Gangsta Bitch,” “What Y’all Ni**a’s Want” and “I’m F****n’ You Tonight” not to mention pumping most of DMX’s catalog while pounding on the treadmill. The music I listen to does not always define who I am. As a woman of color I always knew that “bitches ain’t shit but hos and tricks” did not represent me. Hey even Oprah pumped 50 Cents lyrics to In Da Club (“go shorty it’s your birthday, we’re gonna party like it’s your birthday”) during her endless “I’m turning 50” on-air celebrations. I guess she too ignored the rest of the lyrics to that song and just felt the beat. But the white suburban teens buying these records don’t have that breadth of knowledge. And as Russell Simmons stated 4 out of 5 rap albums are purchased by white suburban teens. That is why the mainstream rap world has to do better.
If we are to be honest with ourselves, we are all a mass of contradictions. In fairness to some of the artists I mentioned above for every “Move Bitch get out the Way” there is a “Runaway Love.” For every “California knows how to Party” there is a “Changes.” A lot of artists are capable of going either way with their music and lyrics, but when it comes down to it, revenue is what determines the path they will take. And in America sex sells everything from rap music to chewing gum. The degradation of women is not limited to rap music and it is not fair for Imus or anyone else to use the hip-hop world as a scapegoat for their inappropriate behavior. Misogyny is indeed a societal problem and one that we need to address as a nation, not just within the confines of rap music and lyrics. I certainly do not have the all the answers, but I do know that my wallet does the talking when I refuse to purchase music that I find offensive. I too have grown weary of explicit lyrics and videos. Of the promotion of luxury goods and thug living. But I am not ready to dismiss rap or the hip-hop community. I realize that these songs are just one facet of hip-hop, unfortunately to the mainstream media, they are the end all be all and sole reason to condemn the entire hip-hop genre.
On a side note:
It is a shame that Don Imus was the catalyst for this conversation on the Oprah show. A show with millions of viewers, the majority of whom probably cast a sideways glance at hip-hop. Oprah claimed on Monday’s show that she “did not want to fight this fight alone” yet she has taken up all sorts of other causes on her own from healthy living, to reading, to her current campaign against child molesters. Why this issue was not deemed worthy until now is unknown to me. I have written many letters to both her show and her magazine asking her to clarify her statements against rap music and challenging her to bring positive artists to her show. She said on Tuesday’s show that she considered Common a poet, but he had never appeared on her show until now, even when his song “The Light,” one of the most romantic rap songs I’ve heard in a while, was getting much air play. And isn’t it interesting that her audience was suddenly filled with black faces when discussing this topic? This also happens when she has artists on like Mary J. Blige, Denzel Washington or Beyonce. Does she bus in faces of color for these episodes? Just a thought.
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