The Unfortunate Turn Rap Has Taken

Below, the article writes about female portrayal in today's rap music, describing how portraying over sexualized women is not matching up with what hip hop culture is really about. Rather that rapping for artistic expression, it's like the gender roles in today's rap are having women being possessions rather than being respected.

Imagine you’re driving your way home from a party, and you turn on the radio. Rap plays, with its catchy beat that hypes you up and makes you feel like an effortlessly badass main character. But if you really listen to the lyrics or watch the music videos, as a female, I really feel less awesome and undervalued.

“It seems like every rap song is sexualizing women, making it 'cool' to use us as a source for entertainment or possession.”

I mean, literally the first words of the popular “I Love It” by Lil Pump and Kanye West are “You're such a f#ckin' h*e, I love it.” And it gets worse later on as they say “F#cked that b*tch up out in London (up out in). Then I f#cked up on her cousin. Or her sister, I don’t know nothin’ (uh-uh, woo).” And it doesn’t stop at the lyrics: the video shows naked women displayed behind glass projecting extreme body expectations. Another music video example: Young Thug -- Go Crazy (Chris Brown). All men are fully dressed, while all women with cinched waists and curves are wearing bikinis or showy-clothes. Maybe “women,” isn’t even the right term in this context, because women aren’t even called women in these songs: they’re the rappers’ “b*tches” or “h*es.” Most listeners don’t even second guess what such rappers say, because we’re so used to those kinds of lyrics. It seems like every rap song is sexualizing women, making it “cool” to use us as a source for entertainment or possession.

That being said, I don't disrespect hip hop. Hip hop is a whole culture movement forming shared identity, being a platform for artistic expression, and a way of storytelling. I find the core of hip hop amazing because it lifts important topics such as racism to the forefront. However, it’s difficult to respect todays’ rappers if in what seems like every other song they refer to women as their momentary sex toys shifting gender roles back to what we’re trying to loop out of. And I’m not saying obvious sexism is only in rap: it’s in other music forms like country, too. It just seems as if the sexism in hip hop has become a form of rapping culture, and as if it’s the only thing that makes a rapper cool.

Thankfully, not all rappers believe this is the only way to produce good, vibey songs. Lil Dickey raps his way through these problems by either directly stating them or with satire. He proves you can still be a successful rapper without engaging in these norms: 3+M monthly listeners on Spotify, 8.1M subscribers on YouTube, and collaborating with famous people for his songs.

Unfortunately, it’s not a coincidence that rap turned from expressing personal stories into what it is today. How women are betrayed in rap today is because the audience preferred such lyrics. But is this really what we want? Do we want to go back in time to when women were objects to show off to others? Do we want to listen to music where we are portrayed only by our bodily features? Do we want to watch music videos where women are dressed in undergarments and twerking to the camera? I sure don’t, and I am saddened that that’s what the previously inspiring hip hop culture has become.