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 Roots to Rap
Rahiel Tesfamariam
Columnist Page
Friday, November 19, 2004; Page 21
‘Cultural Marketplace’
Hip-Hop is perhaps the fastest growing form of popular culture in America today with its increased popularity among youths and adults from all walks of life. What many African American artists fail to realize is that their music not only reflects who they are as an individual but who we, the whole of Black America, are as a collective.
The present state of Hip-Hop threatens us, as a people, by allowing for information that depicts us in a light contrary to our identities to be disseminated globally. The Black woman, in many respects, currently faces cultural and social extinction due to this information plague that is running rampant in homes throughout the world.
A large majority of rap videos today make the claim that a woman’s body is all that she has to offer the world, as mobs of half naked women stand in the shadows of misogynistic men- always to be seen but never to be heard. Equally, the female rappers whose lyrics focus on sexual promiscuity and gold diggin’ aspirations seem to be the only ones who have albums to go Platinum.
In an article about the “Representation of Black Female Sexuality in the Cultural Marketplace”, Bell Hooks says, “undesirable in the conventional sense, which defines beauty and sexuality as desirable only to the extent that it is idealized and unattainable, the Black female body gains attention only when it is synonymous with accessibility, when it is sexually deviant.”
While some may argue that these women have agency over their bodies, others would say that they are held captive by the men they wish to appeal to- locked into an image that they can never bring to life nor should want to. They will instead prolong the prejudices and racist beliefs that so many Whites have used to justify the oppression of Blacks and the sexist thinking that so many men use to justify the degradation of women. Now, please understand that the “neo-feminist” and humanitarian in me believes that women have the right to uninhabited self-expression. But, according to Michael Eric Dyson, we live in a world where “live-in boyfriends; the loosening of hierarchal child-parent bonds in deference to lateral and multiple male affections; the often unwitting sexual sacrifice of boy and girls to abusive partners; and the resort to drugs and alcohol to drown the pain of poverty- turn out to be the cruel but faithful calculus of Black female resentment by young Black boys.” They begin to hate us because they can see when we hate ourselves.
There is undoubtedly a Domino effect of regression: Lil Kim’s personal insecurities and misconceptions about womanhood lead her to get breast implants, plastic surgery and to wear blonde wigs. A young girl then sees this and begins to think that altering her body- most often times to a more European standard of beauty- will make her more of woman. Similarly, that very little girl can adapt the same detrimental thinking from hearing Lil Kim’s lyrics that would have one believe that a woman’s worth amounts to what she can do in bed and what material possessions she can con a man into giving her.
It is especially tragic when there is no female rapper counteracting these messages. While Eve is known for being the middle ground between extremes, she has made no groundbreaking effort to reinvent how Black women are portrayed in Hip-Hop. Perhaps we will have to wait for the “emotionally unstable” Lauryn Hill to return in order for little Black girls to see a side of themselves currently absent from the genre. In the meantime, I hope to see the day when Black Entertainment Television becomes a part of the solution rather than a part of the problem.
Look for upcoming commentary on Hip-Hop in Roots to Rap. For Rahiel Tesfamariam send email to rahielt@washingtoninformer.com. |
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