She had this sparkle about her, like the way broken glass scintillates off the pavement. Was she beautiful? No. Her eyes sagged into her face like two potholes from all the ugly events she had witnessed in the world. Her hair, unkempt and scruffy, loomed over her gaunt-looking face, and her tattered t-shirt and \u201880s faded jeans dangled off her petite frame. Was she beautiful? No. But when she spoke, her voice caused bright red roses to bloom through the dirty cracks in the sidewalks of city streets. Did she need beauty? No. She had a voice, and boy did she know how to use it. What was her name? Hip-hop. And I have been in love with her for as long as I can remember. Hip-hop has wiped the tears off my cheek during my greatest moments of despair and has held my hand through my deepest fears. The love I have for her is unconditional and she has made a huge contribution to the woman I am today. But over the past few years we have come to a crossroads in our relationship. She called it \u201cartistic liberty,\u201d but there is something about hearing the word \u201cbitches\u201d and \u201choes,\u201d and other negative female epithets multiple times that just does not seem so creative or artistic.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like a long-haired, thick redbone,\u201d rapper Dwayne \u201cLil\u2019 Wayne\u201d Carter croons over the sensual beat of \u201cEvery Girl in the World\u201d by the Young Money crew. As groups of young people bop their heads to the hypnotic beat, or clusters of females gyrate their hips to the smooth baritone \u00a0voices of the Young Money crew and countless other rappers, the degrading and dehumanizing lyrics of today\u2019s rap artists towards women often brush against the ear without a second thought. Now what exactly is a redbone, you\u2019re probably wondering? The term refers to a \u201clight skinned female\/male mixed with black and another race.\u201d Seems harmless enough right? But when this \u201credbone\u201d beauty ideal of straight hair and fair\/racially ambiguous skin tones, also depicted as the \u201ctragic mulatta\u201d figure in T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting\u2019s book Pimp\u2019s Up Ho\u2019s Down<\/em>, is perpetuated as the preferred type of beauty within hip-hop culture, it creates tension for the darker-hued, non-European looking female members of hip-hop. While chatting with a friend of mine about my qualms with the language and content of hip-hop favorites like Kanye West or Jay-Z, she simply replied that \u201csometimes you have to tune out what they\u2019re saying and just enjoy the song for what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n Now hear me out, I know that all rap songs do not need to be about \u201cenlightenment\u201d; some rappers are just concerned about making a party hit. I know that the language of hip-hop is not \u201cpretty,\u201d and that\u2019s cool because hip-hop developed from a very grim and oppressed part of America. But lately there has been no variation. Rappers have gotten lazy. It has become all about the money and less about the artistry and lyrical value nowadays and we\u2019ve all heard the timeless adage \u201csex sells.\u201d But why does the woman always have to be \u201ca bitch\u201d or \u201ca ho\u201d? There are real bitches and hoes in the world, but if those are the women that these songs are supposedly targeting then why hasn\u2019t anyone taken the time to consider how that woman got to where she is?<\/p>\n In the Black Entertainment Television (BET) airtime special \u201cHip-hop vs America,\u201d a debate which collected all the voices and figures in hip-hop for a weigh-in on its current conditions, rapper Cornelius \u201cNelly\u201d Hayes, who has received a lot of backlash recently for his controversial video \u201cTip Drill,\u201d proclaimed that hip-hop is helping these women by providing them with jobs and opportunities. Yet I don\u2019t think having a credit card swiped down one\u2019s behind is a resume worthy skill. If Nelly really wanted to give these women an opportunity at success in their lives he would put them behind a desk instead of behind a camera. In the song \u201cMiss Me\u201d by rapper Aubrey \u201cDrake\u201d Graham, he does not judge strippers but claims \u201cI could never love her \/’Cause to her I’m just a rapper \/and she’ll soon have met another.\u201d Here Drake depicts rappers as being victims to loose women who are only after their money and status even though in the previous lines he praises strippers for being able to \u201cwork something[g] [and] twirk something.\u201d \u00a0Yet many women of hip-hop are constantly being cornered into this dichotomy: to be a part of a culture that prizes women\u2019s ability to shake their hips in front of a camera but then calls them unworthy and unlovable.<\/p>\n \u201cThe first step in getting out of an abusive relationship is to realize that you have the right to be treated with respect,\u201d describes Kidshealth.org. Hip-hop has never hit me and yet I still carry these bruises and cuts festering on my self-worth. As a young girl, I used to watch hip-hop videos and aspire to be like the women in the videos. They had it all: beauty, men, money\u2026or so it seemed. But my hair didn\u2019t bounce the way theirs did, so I got a perm. Then I noticed my skin didn\u2019t glitter the way theirs did, so I tried to stay out of the sun to avoid getting darker. Hip-hop wanted a \u201credbone,\u201d but no matter how hard I tried to alter my appearance, I was never going to be that. But if hip-hop really loved me, she would write a song that accepts me and all the other beautiful, black, curly-haired women everywhere. I love hip-hop and I always will. But I love me more. We need to show rappers how much we love ourselves and urge them to be more creative with their lyrics and to accept us for who we are. Rappers however are not the only ones to blame. It takes two people to sell a record and part of the reason why rappers are getting away with these lyrics is because we let them. Don\u2019t let them. Listen up and speak up because it won\u2019t be long until hip-hop sweeps away our sparkle on the dark and bleak city streets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Do you really know what you\u2019re singing when the latest Lil\u2019 Wayne or Kanye West song comes onto the radio? While analyzing the lyrics of some popular hip-hop songs of today, Daysha Edewi propose that women begin to take ownership over their music before the music owns them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,230],"tags":[185,143,182,183,184],"class_list":["post-199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-perspective","category-vol-3-issue-2","tag-black-entertainment-television","tag-dance","tag-daysha-edewi","tag-hip-hop","tag-sexism"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/community.scrippscollege.edu\/invisible\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}