Hip Hop Girls?
‘Cause she ain’t nuthin but a bitch to me’
Warren G.
'Hoes recognize, niggaz do too / Cuz when bitches get skinless and pull a voodoo / What you gon do? / You really don’t know / So I’d advise you not to trust that hoe.1
Studies of rap music in America claim that it’s a man’s world, and that the rap music industry is slow to recognise the contributions females are making as producers, creators and consumers of Hip Hop.2 Only recently have female artists gained some respect for their work. They still face a mountain of woman-hating, semi-pornographic lyrics and images – many of which leave little to the imagination.
Big booty video hoes. You know what I’m talking about. Ass-all-in-the-camera-wearing-little-more-than-a-weave-and-a-smile shaking all they got (and bought) like it’s a contest.3
Women are treated ‘merely as a hole to be filled by men, and the songs have hundreds of disparaging [insulting] remarks toward 'hoes' and ‘bitches’.’4 Women are often depicted as being disloyal and money grabbing, only paying their men attention when they become successful. And you might be scratching to find any credit for brains or vibrant personalities either.
One of the problems is that the majority of the women 'performing' in these questionable videos are paid performers/models. The assumption that they represent women within the Hip Hop community is incorrect, and does nothing to help promote a true and balanced profile of genuine female Hip Hop Heads.
Now that pussy’s mine, so I’ll fuck it a couple mo’ times…
Snoop Doggy Dogg – ‘Ain’t No Fun’
Women as Body Parts
Music videos are frequently blamed for upholding negative stereotypes of women, and for treating women as nothing more than ‘body parts’ – where one part of the woman is made to stand for the whole person.
What sort of personal values do little girls in our hip-hop nation develop when they are constantly bombarded by the images of their future selves as little more than rumpshakers? What do little boys learn when a disproportionate number of Rap videos portray their sisters, mothers, future wives and future daughters as little more than eye-candy?5
The model, quite literally, is her breasts, her buttocks, and even her hands and feet – whatever the camera chooses to linger on…6
…if it’s about showing skin then show skin. All of it. Male and female. But the preponderance of women’s exposed flesh in Rap media is about more than showing skin and selling sex. It’s about power…is it a coincidence that violence against women has been steadily rising at a time when women are more and more sexualised in mainstream media?7
This ‘talking down’ of females can make it hard for women to relate to the Hip Hop scene – especially if they want to break into that scene. As American ‘girl writer’ Heart says: ‘Being a girl writer you have to be brave because whether you are that kind of girl or not, they figure when a girl hangs out with all the boys [she] is this kind of girl…’ Female writers understand that the boys’ personal attacks on their reputation aim at discouraging their participation. ‘The stories get so outrageous they make you laugh. They want graffiti for boys only…’8
War, crime, corruption, poverty, inflation, pollution, racism, injustice… this is a man’s world!
Pink, New York Graffiti writer
Local Hip Hop artists in Aotearoa seem less concerned with male/female politics, even though it’s also a male-dominated scene.9 In general, images of half-naked females don’t fit the style of locally made videos – although a recent video from 3 The Hard Way (now Australian based), for their single ‘Girls’, shows a female strip club set-up. There’s also some concern that, as Hip Hop’s commercial popularity rises, bikini-clad females, ‘doing little but shakin’ their booties’,10 will become more common. Dei Hamo’s ‘We Gon’ Ride’ is sometimes used as another example of the downward slide, but director Chris Graham is quoted as saying ‘I wasn’t going to objectify women – I’m not going to do any low angles on their asses… [but] a lot of guys on the shoot thought I was way too New Age and sensitive.’11
More reassuringly, the lyrics of locally produced Hip Hop rarely talk about ‘hoes’ or ‘bitches’ (and if they do, they’re still less mainstream). Rather, Aotearoa’s fastest rising lyricist, Scribe, sends shout-outs to his girl on ‘My Lady,’ and Che Fu calls on his ‘sister’ for help in ‘True Balance’.
Cos more than everything / you were there for me / just like you’d said you’d be / (just like you said it) / Through my darkest day, my coldest night…
Scribe, ‘My Lady’
Sister won’t you help me / for my luck is running low / some balance in my life / could help me even out the flow…
Che Fu, ‘True Balance’
Women Who Represent
In an article for Auckland’s Weekend Herald, Janet McAllister wrote a feature about the women who represent the Hip Hop arts in Aotearoa. She posed the question ‘Is there any danger that New Zealand Hip Hop could follow the misogynist lead of the United States? ‘Yes, says [University of Auckland’s Dr Kristen] Zemke-White, it’s already happening. But she doesn’t think that Hip Hop here will get as nasty anti-woman, as nasty porn related. It’s a smaller industry, there’s less anonymity and people have more family and more community.’
Despite women’s participation in Aotearoa’s Hip Hop scene it’s still very small compared to that of males, although there is a feeling among the women of Hip Hop that gender (whether someone is male or female) is not an issue for them. They seem to be able to overlook the negative role models surrounding their sex, and continue on regardless. And the balance is definitely changing – youth workers in Thames report that in their Urban/Hip Hop dance classes there are five girls for every one boy. Perhaps these attitudes result from a generation of young women in Aotearoa who, during the late '80s and early 90's, grew up with the campaign‘Girls can do anything’.
It’s not intimidating; it’s just like anything else in life, and as long as I can do what I do and no one suppresses me or disses me, that’s good.
Nemesis – female MC
If you can build up the confidence to step out and try graffiti, being female doesn’t affect you in any way. Gender doesn’t play a part in your ability to paint, it’s your self confidence that does.
Diva – writer/aerosol artist
There isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t have Hip Hop in my life; it just wouldn’t be the same without it. Hip Hop is part of me, it’s in me and it always will be.
Tweek – B Girl
Whatever the cause, it’s another good reason to celebrate living in Aotearoa.
Test your knowledge
- Why are music videos frequently blamed for upholding negative stereotypes?
- In Ifè Oshun’s quote about rap media, what does she suggest is the underlying issue?
- What indicators suggest Aotearoa’s Hip Hop videos might eventually follow the sexist lead of the US?
- Are gender issues of particular concern to the women in Aotearoa’s Hip Hop scene at present?
- Which pro-female slogan did a generation of Aotearoa women grow up with?
- What does aerosol artist Diva suggest is the most important thing for any Hip Hop artist to develop?
Extend your thinking
Think of all the music videos you watch on TV. What is the most common way woman are portrayed in them? Do the women in these videos have anything in common with the women you know personally? Would you be happy for your mother, sister or girl-friend (or yourself) to be portrayed in this way? Why/Why not? Do these images worry or offend you? Why/Why not?
1. Snoop Doggy Dogg, Verse 3 – ‘Ain’t no Fun’.
2. Nancy Guevara, 1996 in ‘Women Writin’ Rappin’ Breakin’ (in ‘Droppin’ Science: Critical Essays on Rap Music and Hip Hop Culture’, Perkin, W.E., Temple University Press, Philadelphia).
3. Oshun, Ifè. ‘Hip Hop Fridays: Big Booty Hoes (And Other Whack Rap Video Images) (Rap and Hip Hop Guide for About, the Human Internet) from ‘Flipping the Script’ resources – http://www.flippingthescript.net
4. Best S. & Kellner D. Spring 1999, ‘Rap, Black Rage, and Racial Difference’: ‘Enculturation, Vol 2, No.2.
5. Ifè Oshun – ref as above.
6. Cole S. K., Spring 1999 ‘Enculturation’, Vol 2, No. 2.
7. Ifè Oshun – ref as above.
8. Guevara, N. 1996 pp52-53.
9. Betts R ‘Hip Hop Culture in New Zealand’ and Tamati S ‘A window on our world’, 'The Next - An Impression of Hip Hop Expression'.
10. McAllister, J. 15/16 Jan 2005, ‘Homegirls’ feature article, Magazine section, Weekend Herald.
11. Ibid.
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