Have We Become Complacent With Hip Hop Culture Objectifying Women?
By: Omar Cook
There’s no doubt that hip hop has a major influence on American culture, and it brings people from all cultures and backgrounds together. There’s a major elephant in the room that we seem to ignore when listening to hip hop and it’s the lyrical content. At some point in hip hop history, it became acceptable to objectify women and degrade them in songs and videos and now it’s so regular in music that you almost ignore certain words when you hear it.
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I love hip hop but I can’t help but notice the lyrics to some of our favorite songs when I hear them and I think ok, does no one else hear this? Are we just ignoring this? The craziest thing to me is that women will be ready to pop off if a man calls them a b*tch or hoe but if their favorite rapper says it in a song, they’re bobbing their head, rapping the lyrics right along with him, and of course dancing to it at the party. This doesn’t apply to every person but i’ve seen it so many times I wonder do people just program themselves to be deaf to certain lyrics?
I get it, sex sales. But have we just accepted as a musical community that calling women out of their name or portraying them as sex symbols in music videos is just apart of hip hop culture? It also seems like the more vulgar and disrespectful a rapper is, the more publicity they get. I have to tune certain artists out because at some point, listening to these dudes talk about women in a degrading way becomes unrelatable. I can’t relate.
How many times have you watched a music video with multiple women twerking in the background, as if the message is that it’s just the thing to do to have multiple women? Try balancing multiple women in your life and see just how difficult that is. Try calling a woman out her name in real life and see the reaction you get. You’re asking for problems if you really try to act out some of these lyrics. Most of us can remember waking up early in the morning to watch BET Uncut to watch our favorite video vixens, but not even truly understanding the message being portrayed in the music and video itself. I don’t think that most people even realize the power of music sometimes and that people become subconsciously programmed to think that some of the behaviors that some rappers promote is okay behavior.
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There are only so many mainstream rappers that really get hyped for speaking something positive and motivating. J Cole talked about substance abuse in his latest album KOD and people still aren’t taking the lyrics literally because we’ve seen a couple rappers this year die from drug overdose. The message seems to be more easily consumed when it’s filled with negativity.
Hip hop culture has a problem that it needs to address, and also the people that listen to it because we support it. Maybe i’m tripping. Maybe i’m the crazy one, but I truly believe that it’s time for a new agenda and a new shift. One that promotes love, growth and success. People will talk about what relates to them, whether it’s a personal struggle, overcoming the environment they came from, or whatever, but it doesn’t mean you have to promote a certain lifestyle because you think that’s what’s going to get you sales.
There’s enough negativity surrounding black people in this world, and the last thing we need is our biggest influencers using their platforms to degrade women of color. If black artists truly understood the influence and impact they have, the way we speak about ourselves and to our own people would change.
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