In the movie Roxanne Roxanne there were multiple recurring themes regarding hip-hop norms and standards throughout the film that I recognized. Roxanne Shante was a young, female emcee growing up in Queens in the 1980s who hustled by using her impressive rap battling skills to survive and provide for her family. Roxanne was considered to be an up-and-coming female rap legend due to her flawless flow. Rapping to survive, unfortunately, is not unheard of as people of color frequently utilized hip-hop to pull themselves and their loved ones out of poverty and make a better life for themselves. Her journey to success was a rough one, her and her mother experienced major setbacks from their goals because men in their life took advantage of them, their time and their money. More than that, Roxanne found herself in an abusive relationship with a much older man when she was only fifteen. He ended up getting her pregnant and then physically, mentally and emotionally abusing her to control her. Despite her tumultuous home life with her cruel new lover, her career was a success and it was accomplished by her displaying typical masculine characteristics seen in hip-hop to demand respect as a female rapper. She wanted to ensure no one would doubt her skills as an artist. I thought it was very interesting but also understandable how she would boast about her talent and rap about herself in a particularly cocky manner in order to gain respect (especially from males) and make sure that they would take her seriously. It makes sense, it is almost a defense mechanism and survival technique for making it big in the hip-hop music industry. In addition to her speaking highly of herself to be taken seriously, she also had to create music like this because it is what sold, its what the audience wanted to hear. This is seen a lot in hip-hop as it is such a competitive industry and involves constantly having to prove oneself worthy enough, creators apart of the community almost HAVE to be cocky to make a name for themselves in the hip-hop industry.
