Amaya Rivera
Our What’s Up in Hip Hop focuses on double standards in hip hop, placing a special emphasis on Jermaine Dupri and a controversial comment that he made pertaining to female artists and “Stripper Rap” or “Strap” as he suggested it be called, describing the type of music he believes that all these female artists rap/sing about. This is a double standards topic because how is it acceptable for men to rap about their dicks, having sex with different women in different cities, and so on – basically talking about their penis in each verse and song, yet it’s “repetitive” for women to rap about “sexualizing” themselves in the same way these male artists do, and “they should just start a whole new genre called ‘Strap’.
If Cardi B wants to rap about how she had to shake some ass on a pole to get by because times were that tough, then that’s her struggle and her story to tell. If any of these female artists want to rap about having fun in the club, this does not make their music any less good and it is a double standard for Jermaine to have tried to call out female artists out for their craft like they’re not going just as hard in this music game; they’re creating what sells and what we the audience want to listen too. If that’s the case, then some of these male artists can call their music ‘Strap’ since they talk about having sex with strippers in the club, etc. (The same thing! They’re just men!).
In my portion of the project, I essentially highlight who Jermaine Dupri is, who he worked with and provide such information about the man behind ‘Strap’.
Jasmine Weekes
Double standards have been present in the hip-hop community from the origins of the genre. The standards for men, women, and queer people within hip hop have never been the same and that is because of how hypermasculinity is attached to the genre. Since hypermasculinity is attached to the genre the objectification/oversexulaiztion of women and critique of women/queers in hip hop is seen as normal. When Jermaine Dupri made his comments about the up and coming female rappers craft being seen as ‘strap’ I was not shocked because of hip hop’s track of always critiquing women and queers. Having a large group of women with substantial platforms speaking out against Dupri’s ignorant and unnecessary comments is what matters because these women were all able to unite and expose him for his unwanted and unnecessary comments. “Similarly masculinity and gender are social constructs. Definitions of manhood, womanhood, and the proper way to be a man or woman are contested, challenged, and changed over time and across cultures and geographies” (McFarland 160). During the early stages of hip hop, Dupri’s comments would have been completely normal, without any push back from anyone, but as hip hop progresses women and queer people would not let comments like these go over.
Even though, hip hop has progressed there are still patriarchal influences that women within hip hop give into. This is present in the Thotbox remix music video, where we see Young M.A. and Chinese Kitty objectify the woman in this video.
Jenna Palme
Double standards are found in just about every community and will only change if people react and actively try to overturn outdated ideals. In the case of Jermaine Dupri, big names came out to speak against his comments about “strap” and defended the female rappers that choose to rap about stripping and female sexuality. Not only did they defend those female rappers, but they also built up female rappers that rap about other topics as well. In the case of Cardi B, she stripped to keep herself afloat and is open about that – she raps about it because it’s her life and she has every right to speak about it. It’s not uncommon for people to write songs about how they came up and times of struggle in their life, so why is it any different if someone used to be a stripper? It’s not progressive to call out women who just want to rap about their lives.
Lil’ Kim’s claims that Dupri is just looking for someone to spit some hardcore rap as if a rap about stripping can’t be hardcore. At least she thought the wording of his statement was off, but Kim still stood up for him with little explanation. Da Brat saw his comments as a way to open up a conversation about female rappers but frames Dupri in a positive light. How can a comment that wasn’t meant as a compliment be regarded in high praise? How is Jermaine Dupri a “genius” for combining the words stripper and rap?
Prince Opoku
Double standards are apparent throughout many aspects of our society, unfortunately, hip hop is one facet where we see double standards occur consistently. Our presentation partially focuses on the statements uttered by known producer rapper and influencer in hip hop made by rapper T.I about his daughter’s hymen. In this scenario, T.I holds a certain standard when discussing how certain actions of women reflect poorly on themselves but the same does not go for their male counterparts. In the case of T.I he reveals that in his household he is very protective of his daughter’s virginity as most fathers are, however he does not go to the same extent for his sons. T.I believes in checking his daughter’s hymen to ensure her virginity is still intact. Many believe this is excessive and a complete invasion of privacy. Not only that but this indicates a certain level of control that T.I is putting on his daughter that is considered to be problematic and toxic. For ages, women have been regulated by men on how to use their bodies and this instance is evident of how we as a society are 50x more restrictive on our young women than our young men. If young boys are not encouraged to be sexually active at such a young age maybe young girls would not need so much protecting. When discussing his son’s sexual activity T.I becomes very very supportive. He was so encouraging he might as well have thrown his son a party for having sex. This is nothing near the reaction he would have if he found his daughter to be sexually active.
Cristina DePaola
The double-standards in hip-hop are arguably more prevalent today than ever, with the lyrics/style of female rappers being coined as stripper rap or ‘strap’ by Jermaine Dupri. So basically, it’s not okay for women to rap and obscenities, or rap about their sexuality or bodies. However, it’s okay for rappers like T.I, Rick Ross, D12, DMX, Future, and other male artists to rap about things such as objectifying women, raping women, physically abusing women, having sex with minors, and straight-up disrespecting them. In my part of this project, I focused on the lyrical double standards/styles for men and women in hip hop. I found it so ironic that T.I had a whole thing about how he would be outraged if his daughter’s virginity was not intact, YET in his song ‘No Mediocre” he rapped the lyrics “I never fuck a bitch if she don’t do her hair/ No more, you won’t get no dick if there’s a bush down there/ Girl I should see nothing but pussy when I look down there.” So T.I condones the sexual objectification of females, and that they are seen as pleasure objects, yet his daughter is exempt from that? He would be outraged if his daughter’s virginity was not intact, yet he would also be outraged if a ‘bitch’ had pussy hair and he couldn’t fuck her.
With Jermaine Dupri and his views against ‘strap’ from female rappers, we see another lyrical double-standard. First of all, Dupri has never even produced a female rapper, he has only produced male rappers such as Jay-Z, who has rapped lyrics such as “You know I – thug em, f**k em, love em, leave em / Cause I don’t f**kin need em / Take em out the hood, keep em lookin good / But I don’t f**kin feed em / First time they fuss I’m breezin / Talkin bout, ‘What’s the reasons?’ / I’m a pimp in every sense of the word, bitch.”. So Dupri can work with and endorse a rapper that promotes things like pimping women and loving strippers, yet it seems he cannot stand to hear a female rapping about something like being a stripper or having sex with men. I think that it’s ridiculous that male artists are glorified for rapping about things like rape or having sex with various women, yet when a woman like Cardi raps about something like her body or former stripping job, it’s seen as disgusting and outrageous.
