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I'd like to use this space to respond more fully to a common set of misconceptions that keep cropping up, expressed in part by remorse here and, more specifically given the issues I want to address, by DJ Plan B here. I'll quote the relevant posts:
remorse:
“I am defitely saddened by the almost overnight switch from the four elements (mic, sneakers, turntables, spraycan) to the four sell-aments (ice, mysogony, hooks, rims). Yes, mainstream hip hop is an image based industry where an mc gets laughed at if he wears the same jacket twice, ever. Yes, females have been berated in rap looong before Mathers was in the buisness. Yes, chorus and song structure must be maintained if an "artist" wants to see any radio play at all. And Yes, like the ice, quarter-of-a-million-dollar vehicles play an important role in the status of a hip hop performer.
There are underGround artists that challage these hip hop stereotypes and I love them for it. I just think there aren't enough yet.”
DJ Plan B:
"“While it is true that some of these people (not very many at this point, at least that I see in media I read) still see hip-hop as a sub-art, the fact is that most mainstream hip-hop (or country or rock or whatever) sucks. I've been listening to hip-hop for 15 years and there isn't much angry or political hip-hop in the mainstream, but that's the way the record companies want it (it's all about the least common denom these days -- Britney, O-Town, etc.). You won't ever see The Coup, Dead Prez or El-P being plastered all over billboards with big-money backing. That's why the critics like them because they're different than the Jay-Zs and Master Ps of the world, whose only concerns are about getting paid. I guess my point is it's not the critics who are the problem (though they may not always help the situation), but rather the political and economic power structure that rewards booty-shaking, misogynist pop bullshit over artistic endeavor.”
Let's start there, with "booty-shaking, misogynist pop bullshit", and work backwards. The very use of the term “booty-shaking” as an insult despresses me, for many reasons not least of which is the implication that music that makes you want to dance is a bad thing. But let’s leave that aside for the moment and consider “misogynisytic pop bullshit”.
Here's what I think: at the point where it crosses over into r&b and pop music, hip-hop is currently the least misogynistic music in the world. It's one of the few musical genres in which women have as strong a voice as men, if not more so. Now, I'll admit that this has only really developed in the last five or ten years, but it's quite interesting that this development has occurred in tandem with the supposed decline into "pop bullshit" that the purists are always lamenting (to which I'll return).
Point is, less than a decade ago the lack of female MCs, not to mention producers, was widely berated. Now, they're everywhere, and busy kicking the blokes' arses on regular occasions. The rise of the duet and the 'answer record' have a large part to play in this. Often this takes the form of a fiercely fought battle of the sexes, sometimes with the interrogation of gender roles thrown in for good measure - and yes, sometimes this involves a large dose of misogyny and machismo from male rappers - but it's usually reclaimed and thrown back in their faces two bars later. The Rolling Stones never did *that*.
Another point - this is from an online chat I recently had with someone else on Barbelith, in which they summed it up better than I could:
”Women are allowed to have a wide variety of body types and still be sexy. It's the only area of pop where you can be fat, or really short, or kinda weird looking. It's the only area of pop where men are allowed to be overweight and not be ridiculed, and women are allowed to be sexually aggressive and assertive without necessarily doing it for the sake of sales, or being coy. Women are allowed to own their sexuality.”
Can you imagine the kind of open scorn that the white music press would pour on a white female rock singer of Missy’s build, let alone one who dared sing about their need to find a man with enough staying power to sacrifice their sexual appetite? (Remember the things that were said about pre-skinny Courtney Love, come to think of it?) It’s interesting to think of some comparable female artists in indie today, or the bands that contain them – The Gossip, Bis, Le Tigre – and then to consider how little coverage these people get and how marginalized they are within the wider culture. Now compare and contrast with the relative standing of Missy Elliott in the hip-hop/r&b/pop world. Ta da.
Of course, the idea that women have a strong voice in pop music, r&b and rap music, and are almost entirely silenced within indie/alternative rock, is one that the (mostly white, male and middle class) indie rock press cannot allow to be considered, as realatively self-evident as it might be. So various doctrinal camouflages are invented, some of them more openly patriarchal than others. One favourite technique is for the critic to assume that he can speak for the female artist, usually in a way that devalues her: she’s stupid; she’s ‘fake’; she’s being manipulated (by men) and doesn’t realise it; her sexuality and creativity are not her own… Often these assumptions are presented without comment, as self-evident. “How do you know she’s not making her own decisions about how she presents herself?” “Well just look at what she’s WEARING!” I’d say this falls pretty squarely into the category of “misogynist feminism”, or more accurately misogyny wearing the doctrinal disguise of feminism, as described by plumsy here.
Sometimes of course the misogyny is more open – see the commonplace dismissal of a pop artist’s music via the accusation that they are only liked by “little girls”. This kind of snobbery, so insidious that even Chuck D basically said it, is "if girls like it, it sucks". If young kids like it, if girls like it, if non-whites like it or if gay people like it, it sucks. From r&b to disco, from queercore to UK garage, we can see this being demonstrated without all that much in the way of doctrinal pretence from Mojo to NME. Hence pop in its arguably most pure and perfect form is an abomination to them because it is all of those things… plus fulfils an other rule, one that’s tied in to class. I also see this as being part of a broader, older trend. It's been said for the past 100 years by a self-appointed elite that culture is becoming stupider, and it always boils down to the same thing: the culture the masses like cannot by definition be any good, because they are a stupid mindless prole herd… but I’m getting kind off-topic now.
Back on point: DJ Plan B also seems to be implying that the ‘underground’ is home to a much less misogynistic culture and music. Again, untrue. The beardy backpack scene is much more of a boy’s own/only club these days than ‘hip-pop’ – look for example at the way that it’s widely disparaged to have women (or “r&b bitches” as celebrated underground rapper Edan calls them) sing on your records if you’re ‘underground’. Or look at the way ‘underground’ rappers often berate ‘mainstream’ ones for allegedly using their looks to sell records (to women or, worse, gay men – the underground is * definitely * no less homophobic than hip-pop, arguably more so) – cf the then-widely-acclaimed and ‘underground’ Canibus on pop idol LL Cool J – “mad at me cos I kick that shit real niggas feel, while 99% of your fans wear high-heels”. And we're back to my earlier point.
As another example, we might want to consider the largely unexamined way in which misogyny takes other forms in the lyrics of ‘conscious’/’intelligent’ rappers. A good example would be Black Star’s ‘Brown Skin Lady’ - a really *positive* song in which Talib Kweli goes on about respecting women who don't wear make up. Because women who wear make-up are only doing what the TV and magazines tell them to do. Silly hoes. In case the earth-mother/whore dichotomy being set up here weren't clear enough, he also has the line: "My brown lady / creates environments, for / happy brown babies..." Good little woman. Stay at home and raise the kids...
It doesn’t take much effort to detect a strong puritanical streak here. You only have to look at the way the ‘underground’ berates someone like Lil’ Kim – an artist with her flaws, for sure, but increasingly at her best the glorious bastard amalgamation of Grace Jones, Peaches & Notorious B.I.G., and incidentally probably the closest thing to a successful openly pro-queer rapper the world has yet to say. “Ah”, says the underground, “but she dresses like a WHORE!”
I'm only getting started and I'm already out of time for now. Be back with more thoughts laters about the misogyny stuff, but also wanted to just say this specifically for remorse: your remark about “chorus and song structure” is also pretty far off the mark. Hip-hop is in fact currently about the only musical genre in which artists can do weird and bizarre things with song structure and still be considered ‘commerical’. Take as an example Cam’Ron’s ‘Oh Boy’ – the kind of shamelessly poppy bling-BLING hip-hop destined for the charts that I’m sure you despise. It doesn’t really have a chorus. It doesn’t really have proper verses either – its structure consists of lines squeezed in between a looped series of vocal samples.
That's enough to be getting on with for now, surely? |
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and once again, sorry if you don't understand my wrong english.