Woman or object ?

I'm so happy I found this picture, because it represents exactly what I'm about to say.

WOMEN OR OBJECT ?

women objectifying their  body is not something new, but it's quite interesting to discuss this phenomena in the hip hop world.

We'll start with another theory ( don't worry you won't get the feeling you're sitting in class because I'm keepin' it real short )
The theory of sexual objectification says that the more focus on a person's body, the less we think of her brains. if mostly affects women, and make men be on top.
Let me show you an easy example not related to hip hop .

On the one hand you've got these kinds of advertising for a bag :

And on the other hand , you've got these kinds of advertising for a bag :

















Think you got the point now ( And I really hope that if I ask which one would you buy, it wouldn't be the latter )

Anyways, you also probably noticed the depiction of women in video clips. There is a very thin line between wanting to feel beautiful and objectifying your body.
In hip hop, you can divide the female singers into 3 different categories.

The first one is the kind that have a male dominated persona, and that kinda want to go in a fight against this objectification. They want the audience to listen to what they have to say, not what they have to offer with their bodies.
The first person that comes into my mind at this moment is missy elliot, who is famous for wearing her baggy clothes and keeping her hair short. In this song she's making fun of guys who see girls as objects.

Song : Work it by Missy elliot 

" Is it worth it , let me work it " 

The second category are the female rappers that just want to promote female power. They were more known in the time when female rappers just started to debut . 

Song: Unity by Queen Latifah 

'' every time I hear a Brother call a girl a bitch or a hoe

trying to make a sister feel low

you know all of that gots to go "

And theeeen we have them famous girls, who for me, look like objects rather than singers ( don't get me wrong, I still like their music though ). They maximize their femininity, their make up, and minimize their clothes. Moreover, they rap like their male counters, using a lot of sex and explicit lyrics. 

Song : Bed Rock by Young Money featuring Nicki Minaj 

'' okay I get it, let me think I guess it's my turn,

maybe it's time to put this pussy on your side burns

He say I'm bad, He probably right '' 

This is the perfect example. Our beloved Nicky singing along with the guys, starting her lines with 

'' Well I guess it's my turn '' . And she ain't stopping there trust me . 

However, It's interesting because beauty had been portrayed as what people looked like in the celebrity world of movies etc. But women in hip hop have redefined this look, and made them own . 

Just think about Beyonce with her hips, J LO and her behind ... 

So of course some took it to the extreme and exaggerated in my opinion( Nicky Nicky Nicky ) but on the other hand it was an important move to make the world understand that super ultra skinny, isn't what makes you beautiful. 

Point well made. 

Does is matter if I'm black or white ?!

I've been sick for a couple days now, and this really cool song has been repeatedly playing on my computer .

song: Bitches love me by Lil wayne & Drake

'' Yeah, long as my bitches love me,
I could give a fuck about no hater long as my bitches love me,
yeah yeah "" 

Not surprising if I'm telling you guys that I've been singing along the whole time .

 But the funny part is that as soon as a hip hop song has a gritty tune, it automatically gives me a certain air of '' badass-ness ''

My head's a little higher, my walk becomes a swag. And I realize I forget about the racial differences. 

Now this all relates to what we've been talking about in class last week; something that is called the colorblind theory . 

Before I explain the theory, I want you to ask yourself '' why do I listen to hip hop ? for the beats ? the swings ? racial purpose maybe ? 

Anyways sooo, this theory states that by consuming hip hop, members of the scene position themselves as cool or hip, by its association with African Americans, presenting themselves as confident, progressive whites, smoothly moving through another cultural milieu. 

Yet their adherence to the color blind ideology leads them down the path of consuming hip hop precisely to indicate the irrelevance of race in their own lives. 

In other words, it says that the majority of white hip hop fans use the color-blind ideology to justify their participation in a local hip hop scene. Why ? because according to the theory, we use the color blind excuse to keep our eyes closed at the inequality. 

The theory might be harsh, but we can't deny that the hip hop culture is not entirely colorless. 15 years ago anyone might have said that rapping is for black people from the hoods, while now the majority would say something such as '' I listen to hip hop because I like it, it has nothing to do with race or culture '' . Well I'll let you do the math for this one .. 

On the other hand, I don't think anyone should have to justify why he likes some kind of art or listen to some kind of music. 

Moreover the artist might have a certain meaning for his song when he writes it, but as soon as it's out in the world, everyone has the right to make his own interpretation of it. 

I have times when I find myself overanalyzing the meaning of songs, whilst others I couldn't even guess the meaning because I haven't given it any thought. 

this theory in my eyes is relative, but it might be explaining my different attitude when listening to hip hop. 

In this next song the lyrics doesn't let us to misinterpret the meaning, mix cultural races , or even apply the colorblind theory 

song : Fuck da police by N.W.A 

'' A young nigga got it bad cuz I'm brown,

and not the other color . '' 

And here's one of my other favorites at this time, that I must must share with you, and will make you feel badass too :) 

Song : Money tree by Kendrick Lamar 

Pretty fly for a white guy

Many arguments about White vs Black in hip hop music.
Let me tell you one thing I think is true;

White guys can't dance, but they sure can rap.

Mac miller , Hoodie Allen , Macklemore Asher Roth and of course Eminem.

I won't lie, I'll admit these are some of my favorite artists today.

However since i've been writing posts about black youth utilizing rap to engage in political critique, and racial differences , the obvious questions arises ;
why would a white person want to rap ? Is it accepted ? are they trying to copy ?

I think that rap ( or music just in general ) should be appreciated for what it is, without having the burden to look at black or white. Music is something that is able to bring me to a different world.
A world where I can forget all political, social and cultural struggles. Why would artists sing about those problems if it's not to forget them?

Many people would not agree with me on this one, and say that it's egoistic to listen to rap as just entertainment, because I didn't live with the same problems.
But at the end of the day, art is one of the few things that surpasses race, color, religion. And I think that only this, is beautiful in itself already.

I appreciate the music, and it doesn't matter where it comes from. '' I'm just trying to sing you a song '' said Hoodie Allen. And he is damn right.

I find this something that is hard to show with words, so let me show you that rap is not a racial matter, because these guys come pretty close to our rap ancestors.

song : No faith in Brooklyn by Hoodie Allen

'' I told her I can dance good for a white kid '' 

Song : Thrift shop by Macklemore 

song : Common knowledge by Asher Roth 

I love that I can probably say ' I told you so .. ' 

Anyways, as I'm writing this, I'm reminded of something we used to say in high school when Eminem was starting to become big , because he was the first white guy to be a Rap king : 

'' You know the world has finally accepted change when :

- the best golf player is a black person ( Tiger Woods ) 

- Women can become presidents ( In Brazil , Kosovo , .. ) 

- When one of the best rappers in the world is a white guy ( eminem ) ''

I'm happy to say that things didn't only change, but they actually became normal. 

Here you go world .


By the way, shocked of how the white guy does it well ?
What about a White religious jew rapper ?

Song : King without a crown by Matisyahu 

Oh, and what about this ??

song: my world by Iggy Azalea 

Riots

LA riots of 1992

The East coast - West coast hip hop rivalry is nothing new to me .. I mean listen to most hip hop songs and you'll hear something such as ' east coast killer ' or ' west coast killer '
Or Busta Rhymes'  ' I'm banging in the East AND i'm banging in the West '

But i never knew where this was coming from...

In 1987 in California where hip hop was previously socially and politically motivated, a sub group emerged ( which I already talked about, but repetition is always good ) '' gangsta rap '' . The lyrics were dealing with police brutality, racial profiling, financial disputes etc ..

Meanwhile on the East coast something similar was happening. Let the battle begin .

but why?

Riots associated with African American roots caused many injured and a couple of deaths which then evolved to lyrics associated with critique on criminalization of the black youth.

The rappers engaged in a long battle about where it's better .

Here is an example of a battle. 2pac's california love vs Notorious B.I.G 's juicy

Song : California love by 2pac 

'' California knows how to party ''

'' now let me welcome everybody to the wild wild west '' 

'' only in Cali where we riot not rally to live and die '' 

'' yeah that's right, West coast, West coast '' 

on the other hand we have juicy about the East coast :

song : juicy by Notorious B.I.G 

'' From the Mississippi down to the East coast , 

condos in Queens, indo for weeks '' 

A more recent battle is Katy Perry admitting that she has written the song California girls out of jealousy for Jay Z's anthem for New York ( who would've thought that right ?! ) 

What are you, East coast or West coast ? 

The art of rap

was sitting in class this week and we were watching a movie called '' something from nothing :the art of rap ''. Which is a performance documentary about the long way rap has come.
But what made me love it most was the personal journey into ICE-T's life ( whom, if you've read my older posts, you'd know I absolutely love). and how he's rap who started on the streets, changed to dominate the world.

Eminem, snoop dogg and kanye west were part of the documentary, speaking about the roots and history of rap.

I must admit I was stumbled to see ( once again ) the importance of the lyrics in rap. how they emphasize that knowing rap's language is crucial to both listen to or write rap music.
Last week I wasn't even aware that there was such a subliminal world carved into the lyrics. But I guess it's never too late to learn.

Here were some of my favorite and most inspirational parts of the movie.

                                           

' I'm using simplicity , just getting to the point you know '

( yeah kinda .. ) 

No need to say that Kanye is just amazing in this video, I think it s the first time i've seen him so ' human' and so vulnerable, speaking about his first rap battle ever, that he lost , and this is the reason he has kept to simplicity in his lyrics. 

Anyways, even his ability to freestyle like this shows his true talent and his anger towards the world, Which only reinforces the idea of ' fuck the police ' . 

On to Detroit :

 ' In a club I got boo-ed , I went home and said man I quite . But a few days later i said to myself you gotta get up ' 

This is something a bit different than Kanye because Eminem is known to '' write complicated '' . Like he says, it's a puzzle that I wanna figure out  , I make sandwich words. 

What I like most about this interview is the part where he says that if something comes up, and he has no paper, he writes it on his hand . 

I think Eminem has a true passion for rap music, just listening to him saying that without rap he wouldn't have gone through his addictions , is so strong. 

and we can't forget the part that he is white in a Black's world. He certainly was one of the first ones to enter rap music and make the world accept it . 

I'm including the trailer for those who weren't convinced to see the movie ( even if you really should ) 

It was hidden

It's everywhere, all these political, social messages ...

Of course music is entertaining too, but we saw earlier that most musicians use music to make their views into the world.

Much of the subjects seem to be about having fun and partying all the time. But how much can you really believe ? how deep do you have yo dig to know the truth ?

I've been stumbling on blogs about these subliminal messages in music. and I must say that the critics were different.. some were like ' oh gosh how could I have misunderstood this ', while others completely '' hated '' the artist for what he was saying ( A christian man made a whole article saying that hip hop is the evil .. )

How deep do we have to go to understand the true meaning?  .. well .. a little, because Rappers use their lyric to criticize political power mostly, however if you're not from the 'Rap world' , and don't understand the slang, then I think you might spend way too much time to finally not even know the real meaning.

I'm not saying that I do understand, but I did some research and found some interesting things.

Gangsatrap for example is a form of hip hop that purports to reflect urban crimes and violent lifestyles of inner city youths. The rhyming vocals and urban slang in this type of music is so elaborated that I'm going to allow myself to call them poets. You all probably know the rapper Ice T ..
don't worry, I didn't know he would belong in this category; He's the FATHER of this category.
And I think I found the perfect song to show this.

song: Ice T- I must stand 

'' I was like makin' bout 1-50 a week

and after taxes, you know what that is lunch meat ''

Now this is something I laughed about; you know this song where Ludacris sings '' how low can you go , how low can go '' etc .. ? so someone told me there's another meaning that just going the lowest you can with your bump. And it appears to be drugs . 

How low can you go, for taking drugs, tearing your life away . 

So IF i'm right, and I know you're all thinking of it already too ; All these nice little girls in the club who are singing this line ( shouting is much more appropriate though ) , are , forgive my english , idiots .

Anyways .. I don't know if changes have been made thanks to this . but here's something, even our beloved Jay-Z isn't always using beautiful straight meanings :) 
Have a Listen : 

   song: Kanye West ft Jay-Z ; no church in the wild

A page from the 'understand rap book'

House of genres

I don't know if you guys ever asked people what their perfect person would look like/ be from .
But if you did, you might tell me i'm right when I say I heard many answers that sounded like this;
A Brazilian body, A swedish face, An African skin tone , etc etc .. ( these were just examples, i'm not referring to anything. )
However this shows that mixes of different cultures apparently would make the perfectly looking person .

So why not with music ?
Soooo many different genres of music all around us, so many we don't even know the differences anymore:
-Soul
-Blues
-Funk
-Gospel
-Sounding
-Skat
And I can go on and on and on

If a mix makes something perfect, why not integrate this in music ?
Well if I was the first person to be thinking this, maybe I wouldn't be sitting here writing my blog right now at 2am. I'd love to think I would be tanning on my private boat instead ..

Anyways, back to business
All these genres existed long before Hip hop and therefor we can hear influences of them all in hip hop songs.
I personally LOVE when the piano is integrated in new contemporary music, which is influence from classical music.

Listen to this song, the soft tone of piano playing Beethhoven's Fur Elise, and Nas' strong voice just make the perfect mix. It's like mixing black with white, water with oil;  You'd expect something weird and contrasting, but the final product is pure ' eargasm '
I'm sure Beethoven wouldn't have agreed with the idea at first, but after a listen I'd imagine him chilling to the beats :)

Song: Nas- I can 

Another mix I like is the one of hip hop with soul samples.
Kanye west is a God in this genre ( and I'm not only saying this because I'm a huge fan of Kanye )
Listen to this

Song: Kanye West- Through the wire

Bonus: mix of hip hop and funk . Delicious Jumpy sounds

Song: Biggie Smalls- Juicy