Don’t Diss…
Something that I’ve been trying to champion in both my own writing and influences is the movement away from the ‘angry young man’ gangsta rap stereotype.
To me there is no place for images of violence, sexism, racism and homophobia in Hip-Hop and R ‘n’ B and it is refreshing to see articles and other movements supporting this view.
‘The Phat Family’ is a list of homophobic lyrics that appear in rap songs, acting like a name and shame policy.
The Southern Voice Atlanta article in particular sums up the conflict between this pointless abuse and the goodness that the genre has to offer:
“On the surface, hip-hop is extremely homophobic but beneath the surface, there’s a lot of interesting things going on. It’s an extraordinarily complex social interaction [between gays and hip-hop].”
It is predominately a culture issue that African-Americans have and as such it seeps into their lyrics.
However, there is slow improvement in the industry with artists such as Eminem and Common toning down their lyrics – albeit sceptism remains as to whether this is just down to commercial interests or a genuine realisation of the error of their ways.
The article also delves deeper into the issue, saying that words and insults don’t have to specifically be offensive to a culture or group, instead being used as terms to underline conflict between rappers in jest.
For instance, how many times have you asked a mate you haven’t seen for a few days what have they been doing and they retort: ‘Your Mum’ (or is this just my mates…?!!!).
You get my point …In comparison, the blog highlights the issues of sexism and violence in the industry and the fact the press are slow to jump on this bandwagon instead preferring to concentrate just on homophobia.
Certainly there’s still a lot to do to break down century old prejudices and stereotypes on all fronts but perhaps it’s a case of one battle at a time.
http://www.sovo.com/2003/8-29/news/national/hiphop.cfm
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