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Dialogues@RU is published
annually
by the
Writing Program at
Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey
Volume 4
Fall 2005
Hip-Hop: Reconstructing the Image of the African American Woman - Page 1
By Melissa Connerly
Hip-hop has become one of the dominant forms of popular culture in this country as well as overseas. It is a significant part of the African American culture, which includes the music genres rap and rhythm-and-blues; it has often been described as a community or a movement, and plays an important role in shaping its audience through music, videos, and even dance. Hip-hop, and in particular rap music, has served as an outlet for African American men to articulate the problems they have in living in an oppressive society. However, over the years rap music has become commercialized, and lyrics now focus on things such as money, clothes, cars, and sex. And more and more, male African American rap artists have begun to exploit African American women, including female rap artists, making hip-hop a battleground for African American men and women. This battle is a struggle for power. In his essay "From Culture to Hegemony," Dick Hebdige discusses how power can shift from one cultural group to another, as what is normal and what is not normal is reconstructed and changed. Female rap artists Lil' Kim and Queen Latifah are examples of this process. These artists are pioneers in a rap industry that is dominated by men. However, it might be argued that to gain their positions in the rap industry, they have assumed the slave-rooted roles that African American women have had to fight to live down, the roles of the "Jezebel" and the "Mammy." The "Jezebel" can be defined as a sex object, a stereotype of the promiscuous African American woman, which is the most common image of African American women. The "Mammy" can be defined as the mother-like figure whose only job is to nurture and take care of others. If it is true that Lil' Kim and Queen Latifah take on these roles, how does it affect their audiences? Where do African American women look for models to overcome the stereotypes placed on them by a white patriarchal society if the hip-hop community brings new life to the stereotypes? In fact, they should look to the hip-hop community itself, as it seems that the only way to destroy these stereotypes is for African American women such as Lil' Kim and Queen Latifah to embrace them. The place where these stereotypes were re-born will be the same place they are changed and reconstructed for the better.
The most popular artists of the hip-hop industry have become icons, and in turn play a major role in shaping their audiences. The most influential artists are those who are able to inspire their audiences to do something out of the ordinary, or who leave a lasting impression through their lyrics and music videos. In his essay "Popular Culture," John Fiske states, "In industrialized societies the people make their own culture out of resources that are not of their making and not under their control. Popular culture typically involves the art of making do with what is available" (326). Fiske implies that people take the products of popular culture such as rap music and music videos and decide which ones will actually be popular, and in doing so, exert their ownership over the culture. He extends this concept when he states, "But popular discrimination does not stop at the selection of the commodity or text, it then selects the functional elements within it" (327). The products of popular culture are then re-examined, and the key points and themes extracted from things such as rap music lyrics and music videos for everyday use. The authors of Gender Talk , Johnnetta Cole and Beverly Guy-Sheftall, would agree with Fiske's concept of how popular culture works, and argue that the process is not always positive. As Cole and Sheftall state,
The severe sense of alienation between the sexes is most notably reflected in the frequent descriptions of Black girls and women as "bitches," "hos," "skeezers," " freaks," "gold diggers," "chickenheads," and "pigeons." Rap music videos are notorious for featuring half-clothed young Black women gyrating obscenely and functioning as backdrops, props, and objects of lust for rap artists who sometimes behave as predators. (186)
Most of the derogatory words have been coined by rap artists themselves and have become a part of the language or slang. Essentially such offensive words and explicit images are the "functional elements" within rap music and music videos, and these key elements are disparaging towards African American women. The insulting words, often just made up to rhyme in a song so an artist can sell his music, become a part of the everyday language of many African American men. This is what essentially makes the process within popular culture, as Fiske describes it, negative.