Imus, Hip Hop, and Misogyny

In the wake of the Imus comments, many have tried to tie them to misogyny in Hip Hop or even blame Hip Hop for Don Imus' racist and sexist comments. Hip Hop and Don Imus are unrelated. Misogyny in Hip Hop is a very complex issue, but I'll try to be concise. I'd like to be pithy too, but that might be too much to ask.

There are a few ways to come at the question that many older people (35 and up) have asked about misogyny in Hip Hop. First of all, Hip Hop is a cultural movement based on a set of principles, one of which is to respect women and treat women as equals.

However there are numerous artists who betray this principle. Keep in mind that they are the minority within the Hip Hop community in general and emcees (rappers) specifically. This minority of rappers are more popular than those who are far more respectful to women. The reason why they're more popular is simply because their records are more successful. Their records are more successful because your kids are buying them. Parental responsibility is very important here. But it's easier to blame black rappers than yourself I suppose.

Another way to look at it is by examining Ice Cube. He was fiercely political in the early 1990s and used derogatory language towards women in some of his songs. But his producer, someone who makes a lot of money off of the music and has a lot of power, was a black woman. His argument for using that type of language is that he was trying to speak to a specific audience and he had to use coarse language to reach them.

Personally I don't like songs with misogynist language, so I don't listen to it. But it's offensive when Hip Hop is misrepresented and misunderstood, especially by people who don't know what the fuck they're talking about. In fact, I can't think of another genre of music that has so many songs dedicated to the artists' own mothers: Tupac - Dear Mama; Mos Def - Umi Says; Talib Kweli - Happy Home; Kanye West - Hey Mama; Nas - Dance; Encore - Home; Masterminds - 2 Moms; among many others. And let us not forget how important women have been to the development of Hip Hop.

To sum up: Hip Hop - Great, but misunderstood. Women - Great.
Moms - Also Great. Misogyny – Bad. Don Imus - Sexist jerk.