| By Dorna Mohaghegh - Jul 20th, 2007 at 10:36 am EDT |
| Also listed in: Campus Progress Blog |
Now anyone who knows me personally can testify to the fact that I LOVE to dance. It’s nearly impossible for me to be still when there’s a good beat pumping through my headphones or the speaker system at whatever venue I’m at for the evening. It’s infectious, and frankly, I think everyone in the world needs to dance more.
The problem is that a lot of the best rhythms come hand in hand with a lot of the worst lyrics from a woman’s perspective (you can see the very explicit lyrics for the aforementioned song here). Just reading over those lyrics again makes me a little sick. I know this topic has been discussed left and right and up and down and everything in between. Even Campus Progress has hosted numerous events on the issue, most recently with the Clemson University Public Forum on Gender and Hip-Hop: “Does Hip-Hop Hate Women?” event that took place on June 25th.
But all that discussion and debate from every imaginable angle still hasn’t given me an answer as to what decision I should make for myself. When I’m at a party or a club and “Wait” comes on, my instinctive reaction is to get to the dance floor and enjoy the music, but then the feminist in me hears the lyrics, some of which border on sexual assault, and wants to resist. I don’t want to endorse that kind of thinking or behavior. I keep going back and forth between the “it’s just a song” argument and the “things like this perpetuate disrespect and even violence towards women” argument.
I’m not gonna come up with any kind of deep or novel conclusion. I guess I’m just looking for some input.
!
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Well, I can think of at least one noted feminist that would disagree with you: Link
Seriously, though, while I totally agree with your point in general (And we should be supportive of hip-hop artists, like K-Os, that break that mold), I think the "Whisper Song" is probably one of the worst beats I've ever heard.
Luckily, Timbaland's new single ( Link ) is both incredibly danceable and relatively progressive from a lyrics standpoint. (The girl loves the guy even though he's poor, the guy loves the girl even though she's a bit big)
"Wanna skeet skeet you bout to get your feelin's hurt
Cuz I'll beat dat cat with a dog
And knock da walls of a broad til she crawl," etc.
That's a little too dominating for my taste.
While we disagree on how good The Whisper Song's beat is, I can definitely back you up when you say we should support artists like K-os. He's actually one of my favorites.
It's a good thing artist/producers like Timbaland are moving away from lyrics like this, and hopefully that'll help move the entire genre over to a better place, but I'm still left wondering what to do with myself when not so progressive artists mix infectious rhythms with abusive words.
Hip hop beats are so good to dance to so driving, you're right you can't help but dance. someone really tapped into something basic and deep with hip hop's beat driven style of music. With all the universal appeal of the beats it'll be so nice when the lyrics catch up to that universality.
Can't wait.
While I can think for myself it won't matter if I dance to this song, the annoying part is there are so many guys (and girls) who hear certain lyrics and use them to justify their misogyny and/or actually thinking speaking that way is somehow attractive.
I think (or at least hope) hip hop and rap will become more progressive as time goes on. I think many in the industry, whether underground or mainstream, have become a little more aware of the issues (I know this doesn't apply to all of them) but mostly I think so because eventually it's going to lose its appeal. I think it became popular for awhile because it seemed daring and fresh in a way and eventually most people are going to get tired of it and look for orignal material with more substance.