Tag: Sean Combs

This has been a hot topic floating around the ‘Nets lately.  Ashley Judd apparently thinks that Hip Hop promotes misogyny.

Her condemnation of Hip Hop had people raising their arms in protest from the following statement in her autobiography:

“As far as I’m concerned, most rap and hip-hop music — with its rape culture and insanely abusive lyrics and depictions of girls and women as ‘ho’s’ — is the contemporary soundtrack of misogyny.”

My questions is this…what would make her make such a statement?

Could it be that a lot of Hip Hop is very…misogynistic?

I’m sorry…are we talking about Hip Hop?  The same music form that has had countless forums and debates on how misogynistic it is within it’s own community?  What was all that uproar against Nelly about again?

Take a look at Billboard.com and search what the top Hip Hop songs are right now.  Then tell me if the artists have a history of positive images of women in their work.

I have listened to Hip Hop music all of my life, so trust me I know very well that there are many artists who are nothing like all the artist on the charts.  But I can’t expect a person not learned in the culture to know that, and especially if the biggest selling representatives have “bitch” and “hoe” in their rhymes and strippers all in their videos.

“But Merc, Rock music is misogynistic too!”

…So?

Here’s the thing:  each community and culture is going to make allowances for itself.  Devil worshiping in Heavy Metal is not going to be taken that seriously in that scene, just like those who love Hip Hop are all going to sing “It Ain’t No Fun” when it comes on at the party.

Wasn’t No Hands the hottest song last year?

I think the hottest song out right now is from a group called Travis Porter.  I forget the name of the track, but I know the first line is “Run into the pussy like a crash dummy.”

It’s hard to point the finger at someone else when your whole hand is stained up.

“But Merc, these Hip Hop artists are being more promoted by the labels.  It’s the system brutha!”

That’s true; but at the end of the day, someone is buying the music and singing it out loud.  The artists are not without responsibility either.  They wrote it, they sang it, and someone bought it.  Be it white kids from the suburbs or not.

Now suddenly people seem to be making light of Ashley’s childhood, in which she says she was raped and sexually abused.  All in the defense of “Hip Hop”.

I think the real problem is people saw “Hip Hop” and read “Black people”.

It’s just like another article I wrote last week, people need to analyze the information given to them.  Many of these reports are from people already infusing their own opinions on Judd’s statements, such as Bossip.com that says

“Just in case no one cares about her ‘woe is me, my childhood sucked and I grew up to be a wealthy, well-adjusted successful actress’ sob story, Ashley Judd has decided to randomly throw Hip-Hop into her new autobiography.”

Oh, that’s right.  Being rich means that all issues of sexual abuse in your childhood are now washed away.  Just ask Oprah!

But in another statement Judd states the following:

“My intention was to take a stand to say the elements of that musical expression that are misogynistic and treat girls and women in a hyper-sexualized way that are inappropriate. That is not acceptable in any artistic expression, in any cultural form, whether its country music or in television story lines. And if they read more than one paragraph in the book, they would see that all four hundred pages are about that,”

Just a few months ago a 10 year old girl did a song called “Letter to Lil Wayne”.  If you read the comments section, the people who were against the girls said some of the most crass, demeaning, and embarrassing things I have ever read.  Yes folks, a 10 year old girl makes a song pleading for Lil Wayne to stop being so disrespectful to black women, and many of the people who saw it, called the girls little bitches and so forth.  Great way to make the music look positive.

People have their own perspectives and minds on this, and that’s fine.  I am of the firm belief that many artists and the entertainment industry DO have some responsibility to the messages they promote.  Misogyny has existed before Hip Hop for sure.  But if our society values our women, or at least wants to start promoting the idea of value, then why are we not singing songs of love instead of “I don’t love these hoes”?  Everyone has a role to play if they want things to be different.  Ashley Judd didn’t say any critique I haven’t heard from the Hip Hop community itself.

So why the uproar?

Gifted from MERC80.COM.