The collection of quotes I created were aimed towards statements that empower hip hop culture, including feminism, clarity about sexism, community, racial equality and inequality within hip hop culture. This course has taught me a lot about feminism both in relation to hip hop and on its own. Much of the readings we were assigned expanded upons views of status, relationships (both professional and romantic), gesture and body language, and what it means to be female within the context of feminism which also expands into the topic of sexism and misogyny. It was always obvious to me that hip hop culture, like most spaces, is male dominated which puts the women and non-male identifying figures who participate alongside these men in an uncomfortable/difficult position. I found that with the certain presence of masculinity and machismo in hip hop and subsequent lack of space, or prevention for female expression the fire that is feminism is fueled. I included my favorite feminist quote from the Crunk Feminist Collective reading which states “ass-shaking is whatever we say it is, and our hip hop feminism means you will either respect that or you will learn today.” This statement really resonated with me as the message was anything but profoundly empowering and quite frankly, badass. Many critics of hip hop tend to blame the culture, specifically rap music, for its promotion or recurring use of sexist terminology towards women. Though there is some truth to this, I mean there are plenty of songs that refer to a woman as a “bitch” or “ho” and even reference to sex as “gettin’ some pussy”, its ignorant to think that hip hop is solely responsible for sexism. I couldn’t agree more with Tricia Rose’s statement on the topic which is why I included her quote in my collection. Rather than blaming its increased expression, she explains, we have to actually address the widespread problem of sexism in society and support the development of antisexist and anti-homophobic ideas.
As we’ve also learned throughout the course, hip hop culture does much more than just expose those issues above. In hip hop music and rap specifically, a community of people who haven’t had a place to voice their opinions and spread their message before, now have a platform to do so. I found both Fernandes’ and Morgan’s excerpts on the topic really ring true on the place of verbalization in hip hop, which is why I also included a statement from both of them in my quote collection. The rest of my quotes pertain to the support of gender and racial equality within hip hop as well as the empowerment, record-breaking, and revolution that is hip hop culture. One quote from the “Its All One” reading specifically, though simple in its wording, expresses this reality that hip hop is in fact record breaking. It doesn’t get more straight forward than “we’ve got more records to break”, a statement so true that we continue to see it throughout the music industry. Lizzo’s song “Truth Hurts” tied the record for the most weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for a rap song by a female artist. The other song tied with her is “Old Town Road”, which is sung and rapped by Lil’ Nas X who is openly gay. Both of the record-breakers have been seen as great achievements for both women and LGBTQ artists in hip hop.
I’ve learned a lot from our assigned readings, artist revelations, and peer discussions on gender, sexuality, and hip hop culture, and I think this collection of quotes expresses those findings and observations perfectly.
