I have a great male friend from college who engages me in long email conversations about men, women and the things in between us. Coming off of the heels of a recent discussion, my dear co-hort hit me with the following email:
Sis: I was recently listening to a good amount of “conscious” Hip Hop stuff, and I was loving it, but then I started thinking that maybe I just related to it because I am a man.  Hip Hop has been almost exclusive to the male mind frame.  Both ignorant and conscious rap speaks of male ideals and lifestyles whether it be sexual conquests, or general aggression and man type issues.  There aren’t many viable female MCs for women to relate to. 
 
I know that you are a “live and die for Hip Hop” kind of female, but, outside of party tracks….
 
What does current Hip Hop have to offer women?
I was taken aback by this one, because while I have pondered the space that Hip-Hop (particularly as it exists today) holds in my life, I have never heard ANY male question what Hip-Hop means to women, or how we reconcile our gender identity and maintain an allegiance to such a hyper masculine art form. It took me off guard, but I did my best to offer an insightful answer:
 I think that Hip-Hop, much like the Black Power Movement, has taken on a very masculine identity while still pretending to be somewhat all inclusive. Whereas the Black power movement leaned primarily towards female abandonment, forcing traditional gender roles in the efforts to “remasuclate the Black man” and ignoring women, the Hip-Hop of today (including the “conscious” stuff) is actually anti-female. Like, hateful. Women are treated at best like 50’s housewives (be pretty, be submissive, be quiet) and at worse, like accessories (be available for my pleasure when I deem you worthy). With the exception of the rare female emcee who gets her probs (usually begrudgingly) or the anthem about the “special ladies” or the “Hot Thang” (which usually features the standard video models: ethnically ambiguous, long-weaved and undynamic), women seem to occupy the same space in Hip-Hop that Stokely Carmichael reserved for women in the Black Power Movement: prone*.
 
Brief interjection: Hip-Hop is, obviously, about a lot more than gender politics. Race and class are huge factors in the genre, and give women a place to understand and connect to the music a bit more. However, sex is married to race and class and it all comes together at the end.
 
What do I, Sister Toldja, get from Hip-Hop in 2008? At times it seems like very little, aside from aural pleasure. See, most of the stuff I listen to came out in the 1990’s.  So some of the slights that I would be sensitive to from a modern rapper, I ignore because of the nostalgia. When I listened to the Digable Planets in 1995, I needed them to tell me how Souter and Thomas threatened a woman’s reproductive rights or about Max Roach and Mumia Abu Jamal. Now, I know those things. In fact, I think I am more intelligent than most rappers. So the educational value has waned. I suppose I’m getting a lot of insight about the male mind, but Hip-Hop contains a bravado and machismo that I would HATE to believe exists inside the average male. Cause if it does, I ain’t NEVER getting married…
 
I love Mos, I love Common, I love Kweli, but even these dudes say some stuff that makes me go “Huh?” Like, when a male emcee personifies another emcee as a woman to offend him. I’m at the show too, I’m in the audience, I’m buying the records. But I don’t feel welcome, I don’t feel like I am a part of what’s going on. Being a female Hip-Hop fan, especially a sista (because I think we tend to want/expect more from the brothers), I feel like I’m watching a pissing contest through a peephole. Any minute, some dude is gonna catch me and remind me that I’m not supposed to be there.
 
Example: Little Brother. I like them, but they are coming at the girls HARD sometimes: “Tell em something funny while they rub on my tummy/three o’clock, have they ass run to Waffle House for me”. WHAT? That’s not cool, cute, sexy or funny in my mind. I guess he’s a “playa”, sending a woman out the house at 3AM for some food. I guess that was the tap on the shoulder, the reminder. “Sister/girl/bitch, you aren’t supposed to be here.”
 
The blame for the relationship between Hip-Hop and women doesn’t go to the men alone.  The women validate the rappers’ masculinity, success and give silent agreement to the notion that it’s okay to talk about us like dogs.  And in our female need to be included, wanted and desired, we play along. We discuss the brilliance of Biggie, and ignore the lyrics about beating his woman’s ass (and the reports that he did just that when married to Faith). We hide behind the shield of “he ain’t talking about me” when the lyrics get foul and hold even the slightest hint of female-praise as evidence that (insert typically-misogynistic male rapper’s name here) is “a good dude”. We show up at the concert, even though we aren’t really welcome until the afterparty, where we can toot our asses up to the latest jams and grind on men who have yet to transcend prepubescent notions of gender and sex.
So what relevance does Hip-Hop have for women today? Some days, I really don’ t know. Evidence that we still have a long damn way to go with gender politics? The view from the other side of the fence? Masochism? Maybe all of that and then some. Don’t get me wrong, I still love Hip-Hop, or perhaps .02 percent of it. But I love me more.
*Prone- serving no real purpose beyond simply being present.

DROPPED BY SISTER TOLDJA

This entry was posted on Monday, April 14th, 2008 at 12:37 pm and is filed under Blind I. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.