If you’re a fan of comedian Chris Rock you’ll remember that in one of his live acts he talked about the profanity found in rap music and how women will go out dancing, very clearly able to hear the swearing and misogyny the beats espoused; all the while telling each other and themselves, ‘He ain’t talking about me.’
Comedy Strikes out at Swearing in Rap Music
Chris Rock goes on to ask, if he isn’t talking about you, then which ‘bitch’ or ‘ho’ is he referring to because until Eminem, very few rappers mentioned a woman’s name in their songs. The impression was every woman is a bitch.
Like the women Chris Rock talks about, I was 15 when I got my first rap album. Who can forget Snoop Doggy Dogg’s 1993 album, Doggystyle, whose beats were so impressive they got me dancing and gyrating like I was the proverbial hoochie mama. But the lyrics, in the same vein, made me blush and be unsure as to whether I was entitled to be angry or not.
Hearing Swearing in Music for the First Time
I was often tempted to play the cassette tape when my parents were home hoping that Snoop and The Dogg Pound’s racy lyrics would simply melt into the heavy bass beats so that when my mother thought she heard ‘motherfucker’, I’d simply relay she’d heard wrong and it was actually ‘move faster’.
Of course, I never played my music when my parents were home because in between songs, Snoop Dogg couldn’t have been any more clearer about where women fitted in with regard their place in the universe.
Trying to Understand Rap and Hip Hop
Over the years, I found myself hating and loving rap; confused by the hip hop culture that was and continues to be dominated by men who love their mothers and would kill if someone spoke out of turn against them, but who feel it necessary to remind me I am a ‘nigga’, a ‘ho’, my vagina is a ‘pussy’ and my job (in addition to being barefoot and pregnant) is to ‘get down on my knees and then start juggling’.
Of course the hip hop culture (and its rap subculture) wasn’t always like this. From the early 1970s, rap or emceeing found its roots in African rhythmic elements, filling the gap created by disco and techno beats. With the advent of block parties where deejays would hold their own in front of a huge crowd and speaking over a looping beat, the hip hop culture was born.
The Birth and Rise of Hip Hop
It became a way of being for young black people in the ghettos of
Gangsta rap was everywhere and everyone loved its tempting high-wired beats, and yet no one was immune to the vitriol spewed by people who seemed to hate everyone, be it woman, politician, law enforcer, child or even president. Hip hop was angry and today we realise how damaging it was when we look at the deaths of two of rap music’s best MCs – Tupac and Notorious B.I.G.
Hip Hop Culture through the Decades
However, this is only just a small part of what was coming out of the hip hop culture and rap genre. All over the world, young people were waking up to realise stringing beats and rhyming lyrics to create music was a way to have you voice heard and in many instances leave behind the stench of the ghetto.
Positive influences have been in the form of The Roots, Common, the late Guru as well as the inclusion of female artists such as Queen Latifah, who rightly asked, ‘Who’re you calling a bitch?’
However, having said this, I look around and realise the young people to whom we’ve passed on the torch still espouse swearing, buy into a culture of baggy clothes, fawn over rappers who get the most women, money and cars. My own confusion from over 15 years still stands as I watch the young women in whom I hope to instill some sense of pride jockey to wear the skimpiest outfit and tightest dress whenever some ‘homeys’ roll around.
The South African Hip Hop Culture
I was at the Masters of Rhythmn 2010 a few weeks ago and, while I consider myself young, I was surrounded by hip and happening brothers and sisters all in their early teens who thought I was old enough to be their mother. And they eschew the meaning of hip hop fed to them from listening and watching MTV, VH1, BET and Channel O.
Talking to an 18 year old girl, I learned that this competition is one of the biggest events in the hip hop diary, which young people look forward to months in advance, choosing their outfits as if going to a matric dance. Everyone wants to make an impression and who else do you look to except the women and men who grace our screens looking extra ‘phly’ in their designer labels, making sure everyone else around them knows their swagger is tight.
I looked around and my confusion only became greater.
Rap Bringing About Individualism and Community
Sure they looked ‘phly’, but they also looked like they had not walked out the matrix, simply copying dress and using different colours and cut. It felt like the millennium’s version of Stepford Wives.
Perhaps I am too harsh, but as the show started a young man came on stage and gave what was supposed to be a heart-warming eulogy to hip hop, except I remained unmoved. Nothing in that room told me about individualism, which is what hip hop is also about. Nothing in that room told me about courage, about breaking boundaries, about young people initiating a movement to speak out and be heard.
Sure they had confidence, as it takes a lot to stand on stage in front of thousands and show your talent, all the while knowing you could be quickly booed off stage, but it’s a confidence that mimicks Jay-Z’s or Lil Wayne’s and in some instances almost bordering on arrogance as often found in Kanye West.
The Music Contains Explicit Content
I found it rather titillating when the organisers stated that any competitors who b-bopped, breakdanced, krumped or pop-locked did so using music that contained no profanity in it at all. If it so happened that a dancer assimilated sex as she or he gyrated seductively that got you an assessment from the judges, while swearing in a piece of music instantly disqualified you. The reason? The Masters of Rhythm is a family event. Mmmmmm…..
Well Marshall Bruce Mathers III is a family man, but that hardly stops him from addictively cussing in his lyrics. In fact, most rap musicians who are seemingly family men have the words ‘Parental Advisory – Explicit Content’ emblazoned on the CD cover.
Who is the Real Slim Shady
I was at a loss as to whether I wanted to write this review for SenseOnline (a women’s magazine that embraces all femininity) as the CD condones violence and abuse against all women, children and animals.
Eminem or Slim Shady is no stranger to controversy. He has taken a shot at every person who has pissed him off from Christine Aguilera, Mariah Carey, George W. Bush, Britney Spears and the legendary Michael Jackson.
In fact, in a story written in 2001 for The New York Times, columnist Bob Herbert said, ‘In Eminen’s world, all women are whores and he is eager to rape and murder them.’ He even got a mention in Bernard Goldberg’s book 100 People who are Screwing Up
And, yet, Eminem is a man, according to Wikipeda, ‘who was ranked 82nd on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All-Time. He was also named the Best Rapper Ever by Vibe magazine in 2008. Including his work with D12, Eminem has achieved nine number one albums on the Billboard Top 200, seven solo (six studio albums and one compilation) and two with D12. Eminem has had 13 number one singles worldwide.
The Adoration of Eminem
In December 2009, Eminem was named the Artist of the Decade by Billboard magazine. His albums The Eminem Show, The Marshall Mathers LP and Encore (in order) were ranked as the 3rd, 7th, and 40th best-selling albums between 2000 and 2009. According to Billboard, Eminem has two of his albums among the top five highest selling albums of the 2000s.
All in all, this rapper has sold over 80 million albums in his career, making him a very rich and influential man, despite the fact that in his latest album, Recovery, on the song 25 to Life, he states, ‘when you spoke of people who meant the most to you, you left me off your list/ fuck you hip-hop, I’m leavin’ you, my life sentence is served.’ Paradoxically, in the same album, through various songs, he highlights his downfall through his addiction to prescription drugs and alcohol, yet also letting everyone know Slim Shady, the man of yesteryear, is back.
Why We Pay Attention to Crazy Slim Shady
Giving the same excuse as many journalists have given before on why they can’t just ignore the rather effusive Julius Malema and his outlandish retorts, I say, ‘it’s best to keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.’ The truth – we must know what we’re dealing with, but honestly after having listened to Slim Shady’s album, I am not sure if I am dealing with a genius or a sad, once-broken misogynist who has come back to taunt the world yet again.
I can’t stop listening to Recovery. In my opinion this is Eminem’s best album since The Marshall Mather LP. As one reviewer said, he hasn’t quite got back the status of Slim Shady, but he’s definitely back on form again. Already Not Afraid and Love the Way You Lie have climbed to the top of the charts and are getting heavy radio play.
Go to any spot where young people are gathered and you’ll definitely be sure to catch Rihanna’s sorrowful voice crying out, ‘Just gonna stand there and watch watch me burn but that's all right because I like the way it hurts. Just gonna stand there and hear me cry but that's all right because I love the way you lie.’
Eminem Working with Others
I was very surprised when I walked into Musica and a blonde, middle-aged woman went up to a sales person and asked for Eminem’s latest album, pointedly saying, ‘the one with the Rihanna song on it.’
You have to admire a man, who despite his reputation as a homophobe and woman-hater, has managed to perform with some of the world’s best known artists such as Elton John, Dido, Sasha Cohen and, on the song Won’t Back Down, he features P!nk; a woman who lives the song title rather literally. What is his charm?
The Genius of Recovery
I believe it’s his honesty. Retorts from gangsta rappers on why they used such derogatory language in their music claimed the music was a reflection of the streets and the environment of the slums, ghettos and projects. I am repulsed when I hear Eminem use the word ‘bitch’ or ‘ho’.
No Love with Lil Wayne is the highlight of the album, showing Eminem spewing some of the best verses I’ve ever heard. It’s a powerful song that throws cold water on all those who turned their backs on him when he was down. As he throws down his verses, you can Lil Wayne in the background, of whom Eminem was once jealous, championing fervently the almost 40-year-old white boy whom we all thought was gone for good.
Listening to the Rap Songs
In the aforementioned Won’t Back Down, he makes good with P!nk’s influence of hard rock and guitar instrumentals and does the same in Going Through Changes, which samples Ozzy Osbourne’s Changes, giving the song a slightly retro feel to it.
Not surprisingly Eminem injects his usual candour and venom into his lyrics, making fun, as he calls it, of relationships, women (‘she got a tattoo of me right above her ass, man/ in the streets of Warren Michigan we call ‘em tramp stamps/ that means she belongs to me’), people, rap music and himself. In WTP, he refers to himself as white trash attending the White Trash Party, and yet also apologising for his humanness in Talkin’ 2 Myself, then going onto open his heart in Space Bound (‘I’m a space bound rocket ship and your heart’s the moon and I’m aimin’ right at you’).
The Profanity of the Hip Hop Culture & Rap Music
While almost all his songs deal openly and honestly with his addictions, temper flare-ups and other fallibilities, he still throws in some quintessential Slim Shady as shown in the On Fire where he reminds us, in case we might have temporarily forgotten, that he is a cold man; ‘this is a blisterin’ assault/ those are your wounds, this is the salt/ so get lost, shit dissin’ me is just like pissin’ off the Wizard of Oz.’
It’s hard to think of Eminem as Slim Shady. Eleven years on, he is not a boy anymore and satire, if not properly executed, can make one look pitiful. Fortunately, Eminem is aware he is getting older, but he keeps referring to himself as Shady, which can be a two-edged sword.
Even after all the swearing, the punctures, and hate lyrics, I am not sure if he is talking about someone close to him whom he hates or he is talking about me too, or even more, is he just reflecting to society the cards society deals to its own. If I hear the Chris Rock joke again, this time I won’t be laughing. I’ll be asking myself if a genius or a madman referred to me as a ‘bitch’, ‘ho’ or ‘cunt’.
