I had a struggle session with some comrades the other day who said Hip Hop was bad because it degrades women and teaches guys how to be misogynistic. I felt that the perspective paints the genre as one thing and is an unfair generalization despite some aspects of the music being sexist in nature. I get both sides of the argument and wanted to see what you all thought.
Right, non-misogynistic hip hop isn’t/wasn’t allowed thru by white executives keeping alive myths about black sexuality/criminality. To a certain extent that’s just developed a lot of intertia. Contrarian examples: Common Market, Ms. Lauryn Hill who never reached big audiences or else felt compelled to quit by a hostile industry.
Hip-hop doesn’t degrade women. The kind of hiphop you dont like celebrates sexuality, reckless spending, aggression, drug use etc. You can take it or leave it, I personally enjoy quite a bit of it since I take it as fictional/autobiographical stories or simply mood/melodic music, not as a goal for my life.
If you are the kind of person who is going to change your behaviour depending on the lyrics of the music you are listening too you have a big problem, ignorant rap is not the issue.
You should consider listening to some Run the Jewels, Kids see Ghosts or even Death Grips to understand how flexible and inspiring hip-hop can be.
My friends back in Santa Monica would make homophobic jokes one minute, and then someone called a gay homie a removed and the same dude who was saying homophobic shit said “hey don’t disrespect a homie like that.”
This part stands out. I dunno quite how to parse it. They’re still homophobic, but personal loyalty overrides? They recognise that homophobia is part of the general cultural fabric and use it rhetorically, but don’t actually feel it?
Early 4chan was like this. The racism and misogyny and general misanthropy was all ironic extreme gallows humor, and the first pioneers who planted the clover leaf flag on that island of shit were surprisingly open-minded. Many of them were trans/queer or POC themselves.
I remember believing this wholeheartedly, years ago. I’m still not sure whether it was the case, or if I was just too dumb to see it. The community did take a hard turn right, after all.
Came here for a discussion about the flourishing subgenres of hip hop and instead it’s a struggle session about whether the black people music is sinful :/
If anyone else is into hiphop, my fav artist is definitely jpegmafia, and really enjoying other alternative hip hop like kenny mason and zebra katz. Also listened to a lot of grime this year like headie one, skepta, lowkey
not willing to debate whether these artists “degrades women and teaches guys how to be misogynistic” bc it’s just a bad faith argument
