Women, Sex, and Hip-Hop
“Bitches ain't shit but hoes and tricks
Lick on deez nutz and suck the dick
Get's the fuck out after you're done
And I hops in my ride to make a quick run”
These are the opening lines to a song from The Chronic by Dr. Dre, one of my favorite albums. With such jarring and degrading lyrics, why do I keep listening? Why do I love hip-hop but it hates me?
Hip-hop is not only a genre of music, it is a culture and one that is fairly new. Hip-hop recently celebrated its 50th birthday in August 2023. While this history is a rich one, it is also a heavily misogynistic one. In the early 80s and 90s after hip-hop gained some popularity, artists were ready to get signed onto labels. The labels were very specific on who they wanted to sign onto these labels and it was very clear that women were not one of them. However, they did have one clear role that they wanted women to play in the hip-hop scene: women were strictly included to add sex appeal into music videos. Women had to dance to and act out the degrading lyrics that men were writing about them. This added even more insult to injury and further pushed women out from the artistic hip-hop space.
Now, women have to work even harder than men to get into and gain respect in the hip-hop space. Even after this work is done and female artists rise to the charts, they are often put down and not taken seriously enough. Artists like Cardi B, Nicki Minaj, Megan Thee Stallion, and others are all berated for their sexual songs. Many question, how is this different from what early hip-hop was saying about women? However, there is a key distinction in language. The sexual bars from female artists are no longer in a third-person point of view and degrading the sex, they are liberating it.
From around the same time that Dr. Dre released The Chronic, Lil Kim released her song Big Momma Thang. In this, she raps:
“That's how many times I wanna cum, twenty-one
And another one, and another one”
While both Dr. Dre and Lil Kim sing about sex, they do it in vastly different ways. Lil Kim rhymes about her pleasure during sex and how she enjoys it. Dr. Dre and most male hip-hop artists use their songs about sex to degrade women; they mostly sing about their sexual pleasure coming from treating their female partner like an object. For a female artist to be able to rap about sex in a way that is focused on her pleasure and is not degrading to others, it is monumental especially for the time. From the misogynistic roots it was planted in, artists like Lil Kim have helped hip-hop grow into a genre that is exciting and freeing for all.
This issue of hip-hop hating women is not one of the past. We can see this in current songs like “Slut Me Out” by NLE Choppa. He raps:
“Play with my gooch, while you suck me (suck me)
Eat the dick like you was ugly”
In these lyrics, NLE Choppa degrades his partner and does not even talk about his own pleasure. Instead, he is focusing on how much he can brag about using a woman. In stark contrast, Megan Thee Stallion raps:
“I'm finna bounce that ass and drop that ass and pop it like a shootout
I pulled them panties down, he smilin' like they bought the food out
I hop up on that face and make my hips go like a lou out (ahh)”
Megan Thee Stallion raps these equally sexual lyrics as NLE Choppa, but these are arguably less jarring and degrading. The key difference is the ownership of sexuality in these lyrics. In Megan’s verses, she speaks on how she is proud of her body and sexuality then goes on to explain how happy her partner is about this too. She shows that rapping about sex does not have to show ownership of someone else, it can simply be about how the rapper themself enjoys sex and their body. Rapping about sex and sexuality is a big part of hip-hop, that is not the issue. Male artists rapping about how they sexually degrade women is the issue. What if hip-hop could instead be about embracing sexuality in a liberating way for all involved?
Hip-hop is an influential genre that has quickly taken over in the short fifty years it has been around. It is my personal favorite genre and dominates my Spotify playlists. However, it is music that can be difficult to listen to as it is one that has been historically degrading and excludes women. Male artists have always had an easier time getting into the hip-hop scene and are often given a free pass to consistently sexualize women in their songs. On the other side, female artists have fought long and hard to make a career for themselves in this misogynistic industry. These artists are successful and embrace their sexuality through their rhymes; they celebrate being a sexually liberated woman and do not put others down in the process. As women, we deserve to enjoy hip-hop and feel empowered through the culture. Sex has been and will continue to be a large part of hip-hop music; we want to be celebrated as women instead of using women as objects and accessories to the music and culture.
I love hip-hop and I hope to see it love and support all women.
@keir.vn