For David Perez, Hip-hop was a means of acquiring an identity, but it came with baggage that he still finds himself lugging around.
I guess that what I would say about why misogyny persists in my private life is that, at times, it feels really good. Misogyny sells because it is the default social mode, but also because it can feel deeply satisfying in abstraction. Yelling “bitches ain’t shit but hos and tricks” is a particularly cathartic expression of masculine id, most especially because it is so obviously removed from reality. Escapism is vital as a release from conscientiousness, because moral crusading, though necessary, is tiring and tiresome.
There are times where I just want to put on “Slob on My Knob” or “Put In Her Mouth” on full blast and laugh my ass off at the sheer audacity of the lyrics:
Slob on my knob, like corn on the cob
Check in with me, and do your job
Lay on the bed, and give me head
Don’t have to ask, don’t have to beg
It’s different to me now that I’m not 15 anymore, but I feel like I’m 15 when I hear it. Most of the time, dealing with the contradiction between this and what life is actually like is quite simple. There’s what gets played by myself or with my domino buddies, and then there’s how I treat the various women in my life. It is easy to compartmentalize because it doesn’t feel important.
And yet it is difficult to reflect and say that this is particularly healthy. I’m 26, and can separate fantasy from reality, but I recall it being far more difficult to do so as a teenager and even into my college years. Projecting masculinity to my male peers was just as important as trying to court females, sometimes more so. I didn’t want to hear about respecting women and honoring mothers and peace and bullshit. That shit was boring. I wanted to hear about guns and drug running and “Yous a Hoe” and “Hoochie Mama” because that life sounded like fun. Sometimes, it still does.
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As always, my brain and my balls disagree about what’s best: a world of fairness, respect, and equality, where women can lead dignified lives unhindered by discrimination, or a world of disposable, supplicant nymphomaniacs solely designed for my pleasure. I know that this division between my testicular impulses and intellectual desires is a false dichotomy, but allow me the delusion. Such tucking away impulses into discrete parts of life is simply a matter of convenience. Upon close examination, consistency is difficult. Perhaps that’s one reason politicians of all backgrounds and persuasion have imploded with such regularity: how can we ask them for constancy and solidity if we can’t offer that for ourselves?
To be sure that I wasn’t just being lazy, I asked my friend Justine, an ardent fan of hip-hop and dyed-in-the-wool feminist, what she thought:
Just as you recognize the different forces pulling on you, so do I, a young woman who is nothing if not a feminist and a lover of music—especially rap and hip-hop. The forces pull on me too – the unimaginable allure of a knocking beat and clever lyrical references paired with the cringe that contorts my face when the inevitable sexist and homophobic showcases of hypermasculinity boom through the speakers. The way only way to avoid cognitive dissonance and a complete breakdown about one’s belief system is to compartmentalize the most problematic words and phrases—as you pointed out, this is sometimes easy thanks to their sheer absurdity.
However, the misogyny that is so clear in rap lyrics (positive, life-affirming hip-hop hereby excluded, of course) doesn’t always stay in its place and does impact our daily lives. At its worst, it is a culture that devalues women, excuses rape, domestic violence, and bailing out on fatherhood. Even though I place a high premium on truly living one’s beliefs, I just can’t seem to pry the Lil’ Wayne album from my own hands.
Justine is obviously as bright and insightful as they come. She expressed hesitation at passing judgment over hip-hop lyrics as “a white girl from New Mexico,” and this gave me pause. It brought up some unpleasant memories and thoughts about the issue of legitimacy.
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As a Puerto Rican kid who grew up in a predominantly African-American and West Indian neighborhood in the Bronx, plenty of what I listened to on Hot 97 or on my CD player (dating myself here) reflected my experiences quite powerfully. I can vividly recall a man with no eyes and exposed sockets begging for change on the train, the Wild West feel and crumbling buildings of East Harlem when I went to spend the night with my cousins, and the panic parents felt when a kid lost his shoe on the jungle gym for fear of stepping on an empty crack vial. The violence never touched me personally, but those early experiences shaped and, sometimes, warped the world-views of my peers and I.
The misogyny, the glorification of ostentatious displays of machismo and borrowed wealth, were all incidental because hip-hop was a badge of identity that I needed.
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Keeping all this in mind, I recall never quite feeling legitimate as a hip-hop head. I liked to read, enjoyed Nirvana and Green Day as much as I did Wu-Tang Clan or Biggie, and was constantly reminded in school and on the street that because I was fair-skinned and studious that I was a “sellout,” a “fake Puerto Rican,” even “white.” The single quickest way to get me to throw a punch at someone during my formative years was to call me “whiteboy,” which generally came from people who didn’t know me. That all stopped when I entered high school, as much because of my size and willingness to fight as because I finally found a comfort level balancing my nerdy, private-school days with my nights and weekends smoking blunts and talking shit with the older dudes on White Plains Road.
Hip-hop at that age, then, wasn’t so much about “living one’s beliefs” as you put it—it was a means of acceptance and fitting in. Certain albums, like Mos Def’s Black on Both Sides and Nas’ It Was Written, finally opened the possibility to me that it could be more than utilitarian. In a high school where the student body was roughly 50-percent white and 50-percent black and Latino, the lunchroom social dynamics said it all: the white boys sat among themselves, while I sat with a group that was basically black and Latino with a few Serbs and Albanians thrown in. I was friends with guys on either side of that divide, but that was my place, and it would’ve been unnatural if I didn’t sit there. Hip-hop was what we listened to, and we listened to it at an extremely high volume because that was hilarious and sounded good.
The misogyny, the glorification of ostentatious displays of machismo and borrowed wealth, were all incidental because hip-hop was a badge of identity that I needed. Now that my identity isn’t as in flux and that my musical tastes have broadened, it feels strange to assign overarching importance to something that is just a means of entertainment and artistic expression. I’d just as soon listen to Pet Sounds as My Dark Twisted Fantasy these days, but that’s because I’m old(er) and music’s now an accompaniment to life. But there was a point where it was my life, and that period helped shape my worldview into what it is now.
Whether we are fit to pass judgment because of our experiences, then, is irrelevant. It belongs to you, it belongs to Justine, it belongs to me, it’s horrid, it’s wonderful, and perhaps the entire notion that it somehow must stay at the vanguard of urban music and culture is now outdated, just as nonsensical and outdated as the notion that white men can’t jump or rap. Whether one’s tastes veer toward Drake (shame on you) or Tyler the Creator, it is an inescapable fact that hip-hop, and notions of race and class in America, is not at the same place it was back when KRS-ONE wrote “You Must Learn” or when Mos Def wrote “Mr. Nigga.” The lesson remains correct and relevant, but the context has changed radically. Legitimacy to discuss the brilliance and pitfalls of hip-hop and the culture that’s grown around it is moot: if you have a well-considered opinion, then you should be part of the debate.
—Photo Por Puro Amor Al Rap/Flickr
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Now to be clear most of the versions of masculinities expressed in hiphop i cant stand. however they closer to what het women want, than the dismal ‘new man’ of the90s – that feminists constructed and quickly abandoned, did it even last 5 yrs?
Most young men attempting to emulate hiphop masculinities wont get close, thankfully. but their masculinity will be enhanced making them more appealing to women
So it is very interesting reading what a young man raised on this music thinks about its effects
Around 1990 hiphop unfortunately changed from being primarily a vehicle of goodtime party music or moralconsciousraising music(del la soul), to being the vehicle of the disaffected and disposed – particularly gangsters
A disturbingly condensed and concentrated mirror of general society’s free racketeering values – social darwinism, swaggerjuice and uber materalism(you are, what you own), by those worst affected by them.
The only good thing about post90hiphop is that it has revived masculine traits
I’m not sure what is worse, not noticing misogynistic themes in culture, being oblivious to it, or noticing misogynistic themes in our culture and creating a pseudo intellectual debate about the worth of having them. Such as trying to argue that misogynistic themes in our culture help young males identify with themselves better and eventually become better men and that it’s “wonderful” in it’s misogynistic overtones. Or that because it’s entertainment and exciting, that these themes are okay. So David, is misogyny good or bad? Or is it neither to you? Just something men need because you can’t smack a… Read more »
Y’all need to grow up and then loosen up. “Fuck ni**az; get money” “Can I get a f*ck you to these ni**az from my ladies who don’t got love for ni**az without dubs.” Do we actually believe the women who said these things in a rap song hate men or do we think they’re just expressing a current feeling? We hear women frequently telling men to open up and tell them how we feel and then people, largely women, get offended when the current mood is “f*ck b*itches.” The anger is there…it’s gotta go somewhere or it’s internalized and that… Read more »
Interesting article but basically what you are saying is that your male “testicular desires” — I.e your sex drive — is fundamentally misogynistic and hostile to women. Isn’t this a bit demeaning to men? Seems like you are perpetuating the idea, which men complain about feminists doing, that the male sex drive is basicslly narcissistic, predatory and aggressive.
My take on this issue is that the lyrics are a reflection of social frustration. The lyrics about women have no male hip hop counterpart. While many artists say horrible things about men, there are not enough prominent female artists balancing out the hate. However, one can easily find misandry in the broader black community. Black men are rarely viewed in good terms. They are dogs, thugs, no-good, losers, and other more profane nouns. Being such, I think the lyrics about women is a way for those male artists to vent their frustrations over constantly being degraded, humiliated, belittled, and… Read more »
In the early to mid90s, i remember loads of female hiphop and they soon were rapping and singing about not wanting short dciked men, scrubs(undesirable men), men who couldnt last, wanting bad boys etc
There was a feministe piece about the number of prominent female hiphop artists back then. I dont really remember the names as in the uk, the dance explosion that emerged from blkamerican chicago house was still consuming us
This just happens to fit within the bastardized version of masculinity many of those young men adopt (which may itself reflect the lack of masculine role models intheir community)
Well the serbs and albanians mentioned in the article certainly have masculine role models, yet they like similar men across the world attempt to adopt this behaviour. In some disturbing way Hiphop’s contorted, perverted versions of masculinity connects with, speak to the minds of young men and women across the globe
Rap has definitely changed over the years. In the past it seemed to be a way for people to tell their story their way (because as you say its not like rap hip hop started out this way although some would seem to like you to think it did). But now its pretty much an embrace of misandry (and considering that its coming men you could probably call it self loathing misandry). Take the very things that many would call the antitheis of being a man and glorify them (and I find it odd that while people who critique rap… Read more »
Outstanding writing as always, Mr. DP. Danny: I’m going to push back a little bit on that statement. I agree that the things you describe are misandry, and I appreciate you claiming and deploying that term as a challenge. That said, it seems like every day somebody throws hands up in the air and bemoans the decline of hip hop. It is the one thing that has been as constant as the boom bap: the claim that hip hop is dead/sold out/lost its conscience/is no longer authentic. Come on! Ghostface glorifies all those things that you identify, but he is… Read more »
I feel you on Ghostface however there is a big difference between Ghostface (who as you say does tell a good story) and someone like Lil Wayne who may actually have a good story to tell but its buried under all the image, glitz, and glam. Its not that the authenticity isn’t there anymore its that it so hard to find under what’s basically pop rap people either give up or think that the pop rap is all that’s out there. Its almost as if being authentic actually works against you these days in a rap industry where all you… Read more »