Music Videos And The Messages They Carry

Music videos are a pivotal aspect in rap music that transforms the song’s lyrics into a visual representation of its content. 

Even the most vulgar of lyrics will get its visual representation regardless of its misogynous and obscene content.

This uncensored, publically accessible material raised question to whether or not music videos subconsciously subjected its youthful viewers towards experiencing sexual activity, drug use, and violence.

A team of researchers from the Rollins School of Public Health, Emory Center for AIDS Research, School of Medicine at Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia and the University of Alabama, Birmingham, set out to answer the question.

Research of rap music videos discovered the constant reoccurring roles of sexually-exaggerated personas of African American women.

Editor-in-chief of the Journal of Women’s Health and executive director of the Virginia Commonwealth University Institute for Women’s Health, Susan Kornstein related African-American girls’ acceptance of the stereotypical role in rap music later leads to harmful health issues.

Much of rap music and videos specifically transmit, promote, and perpetuate negative images of black women. Rap music’s demeaning message affects all women, but mostly black or latino women in particular are seen in popular hip-hop culture as sex objects.

Majority of hip-hop videos that are regularly run today show women, surrounding at least one man, seductively gyrating wearing little to nothing, with the cameras focused on their body parts.

These images are shown to coincide with the explicit lyrics that typically insult women suggesting they’re worth nothing more than money.

The women are seen as sexual objects by rappers whose lifestyle mimics that of a pimp. In numerous rap songs, men refer to all women as they think a pimp would to a prostitute, and promote violence against women for breaking that image.

Joan Morgan, a hip-hop feminist, revealed the hard truth of women desiring equality from their male counterparts in her book When Chicken Heads Come Home To Roost: My Life as a Hip-hop Feminist.

“Yeah, sistas are hurt…But the real crime isn't the name-calling, it's their failure to love us---to be our brothers in the way that we commit ourselves to being their sistas."

Overlooked: Feminists Impact on Rap

Since rap music began to grow in popularity and became “the record industry’s highest-grossing genre of music,” feminist’s accomplishments are under minded according to Katherine Cheairs’ Radical Women: Women, Feminism & Hip Hop. 

The development of rap music has overshadowed women’s barrier-breaking accomplishments in hip-hop.

As rap music’s explicit content became notorious for its uncensored misogynist lyrics, obsession with 

materialism and fashion; the importance of hip-hop’s origin faded away.

Early femcees, such as Lauryn Hill, Queen Latifah, and Sojourner Truth, spoke out against the racist and sexist views in the rap industry. These revolutionary femcees used the genre of music that was dominated by masculine ideals and used it to empower themselves as well as the objectified African American women.

The lack of respect men show for the Black female body is rooted back to slavery. Black female slaves were judged and sold on their physical appearance which displayed the woman’s ability to produce more unpaid workers.

Dating back to 1851, Isabella Baumfree, also known as Sojourner Truth, gave her “Ain’t I a Woman” speech during the Women’s Convention in Akron, Ohio, highlighting the out-dated chivalrous description of how women should been treated.

Not only does she point out the death of chivalry towards women, but she’s aware the definition of a woman is already being challenged, altered, and perceived differently. Below is an excerpt from her speech.

“That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman?”

Cheairs compared the timeliness and impact of Sojourner Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman” speech and Queen Latifah’s single “U.N.I.T.Y.” stating that both addressed social inequalities women strived to overcome.

Yet, rap music attempted to eclipse women’s resistance against the preconceived notions about their image.

Rap music did this by perceiving women as sexual objects in its lyrics and videos. Outraged Black women began revolting against the rappers who promoted the sexualized image of women.

For example, African American female students from Spelman College protested rapper Nelly’s scheduled school concert due to his blatant lack of respect for women shown in his music video to his song “Tip Drill.”

The music video showed Nelly swiping his credit card between the butt of a video vixen with no recognition of the reality of how demoralizing his action was.

The women’s protest not only worked and cancelled Nelly’s performance, but gained media recognition as well. A major part of the protest not highlighted in the media’s coverage was the presence and support female protestors received from male students.

Resistance shown in protests, like the one in Spelman, is the forward step feminist took in attempts to suppress the ugly side of rap. Although, there is little revolt against the corporate enterprises that funnel money into rappers whose lyrics are predominately about sex and violence.

The Differences Between Women and “Bitches”

Both female and male rappers have used the word “bitch” as a derogatory term while describing other rappers. The literal definition of “bitch” refers to a female dog. 

The word has impacted hip-hop’s perception of women and caused confusion in regards to the definition of the word.

At first “bitch” was constantly being used by male rappers to deflect their insecurities while establishing their dominance over women in hip-hop. “Bitch” was also used in describing women who failed to fit rappers’ stereotypical description.

Rappers, such as Jay-Z, recognize the multi-meanings behind using the word “bitch” and have explained that no matter how you say it; “bitch” belittles women.

In his 2003, Jay-Z sampled N.W.A.’s “A Bitch Iz A Bitch” and listed the differences between a woman and a “bitch” in his track “Bitches and Sisters” off his album The Blueprint 2.1.

During the beginning of the song, Jay-Z labels woman “bitches” that act like they’re high class and fake a hard demeanor. He also labels woman “bitches” that have sex with men solely on the fact they’re famous. 

Regardless if women had sex prior to their partner’s fame; Jay-Z states there’s a possibility she can still be a bitch.

Jay-Z further justifies his use of “bitch” saying that a woman’s sexual encounter with someone famous, besides rappers, is a failed attempt to higher her status as a woman.

“You ain’t no better cause you don’t be fucking rappers/you only fuck with actors, you still getting fucked backwards.”

Jay-Z questions and answers why he, among other rappers, disrespects women by labeling them as “bitches.”

“Say Jay-Z, why you gotta go and disrespect the women for, huh?

Sisters get respect, bitches get what they deserve/sisters work hard, bitches work your nerves/sisters hold you down, bitches hold you up/sisters help you progress, bitches’ll slow you up/sisters cook up a meal play they role with the kidz/bitches in the street with they nose in ya biz/sisters tell the truth, Bitches tell lies/sisters drive cars, bitches wanna ride/sisters give up the ass, bitches give up the ass/sisters do it slow, bitches do it fast/sisters do they dirt outside of where they live/ bitches have niggas all up in your crib/sisters tell you quick "you better check your homie"/bitches don't give a fuck, they wanna check for your homie/sisters love Jay cuz they know how 'Hov is/I love my sisters, I don't love no bitch.”

These lyrics paint an evil image perceiving women as manipulative, money hungry and sexually driven savages that will only bring men down.

Rappers point out extreme faults in women using it as a scapegoat to justifiably use “bitch.” To justify the rappers’ use of the word further, femcees countered these rappers using “bitch” to describe males.

Women who attempt to positively spin “bitch” by using it nonchalantly between themselves is counter-productive in taking away its negative definition.

Normally reverse-psychology has its benefits, but not in the case of femcees using “bitch”, a word that has continually oppressed their gender’s image in hip-hop. Femcees’ use of “bitch,” regardless of its contextual meaning, continued to reinforce the same misogynist ideals that kept women’s voice out of hip-hop. 

Ice Cube and Yo-Yo Debate Old vs. New Image of Women

As most male rappers demoralized women, few neither recognized nor respected the new age femcees in their fight for equality in the hip-hop culture.

Ice Cube, former member of N.W.A., rapped lyrics that denied women as equals to men.

In N.W.A.’s track “A Bitch Iz A Bitch,” Ice Cube admits the word ‘bitch’ doesn’t apply to all women. Yet, he puts women beneath men with such lyrics as: “But all women have a little bitch in ‘em… It makes a girl think she’s better than me.”

One femcee that changed Ice Cube’s perception of female rappers was Yo-Yo. Yo-Yo’s approach towards rapping was natural considering she’d been doing it since she was 12 years-old.

But, Yo-Yo admitted to having to be strong in order to survive in the world of hip-hop.

“Even if I wanted to be nice and smiling and soft I couldn't do that and be a rapper," Yo-Yo said in an article written in The Los Angeles Times.

Yo-Yo went further confirming insecurity existed between male and female rappers when she stated, "I'd seem weak, and you can't look weak and survive--not in rap. It's a jungle--full of males. If you come across as weak, you get cut to ribbons."

Ice Cube noticed Yo-Yo’s hard-edged masculine persona in her delivery and decided to have her on his track entitled “It’s A Man’s World.”

The title speaks for itself. The disputed lyrics exchanged between Ice Cube and Yo-Yo argues two ways in which women should be perceived.

Ice Cube argued for the objectified view of women stating, “Women they're good for nothing no maybe one thing/to serve needs to my ding-a-ling.”

In response to Ice Cube, Yo-Yo denied all stereotypes and suggested a new image stating, “No, Yo-Yo's not a hoe or a whore/and if that's what you're here for/exit through the door.”

At the end of the song, Ice Cube asks Yo-Yo’s intentions for becoming a rapper, in which she responds, “to prove a black woman like me can bring the funk through.”

Ice Cube and Yo-Yo’s lyrical exchange covered both the male and female perception of how women are viewed and treated in hip-hop.

The attitude in both Ice Cube and Yo-Yo’s delivery changes throughout the song. In the beginning, both rappers go shot for shot, bobbing and weaving insults and retaliating with punch lines.

What started as a rap battle of the sexes ended up becoming more humorous than literal when Ice Cube states, “This is a man’s world thank you very much,” in which Yo-Yo responds, “But it wouldn’t be a damn thing without a woman’s touch.”