Hip Hop in its Essence is Real
This week, listen as professors Dr. Joseph Ewoodzie and Tyler Bunzey stop by MASKulinity to talk gender performance in hip hop. These scholars stumped us a few times with terms like “hip-hop sublime,” some important context around Southern hip hop in this episode.
Hip-hop in its Essence is Real.
If you’re a hip-hop fan, you might know that that’s what “H.E.R.” stands for in Common’s 1994 ode to hip-hop “I Used to Love Her.” It’s a classic that perfectly charts hip-hop history through a love song—but not necessarily a happy one. Let’s explore this love story.
Read more: Remember our friends Samantha and Remoy from the MASKulinity podcast? If not, get to know them here: “the Best of the MASKulinity Podcast”.
I met this girl when I was ten years old
And what I loved most, she had so much soul
Common personifying hip-hop culture as a woman embodies our society’s association of femininity with community. In our recent MASKulinity episode, Sugarhill Band? Capitalism and MASKulinity in Hip Hop, we discussed how commercialization narrowed hip-hop culture to a mainstream genre by upholding MASKulinity for profit. This song is Common’s lament of what feels like a move from values of community and expression to values of capitalism and patriarchy. We’re in alignment, and his lyrics can tell it better than me.
Not about the money, them studs was mic-checkin' her
But I respected her, she hit me in the heart
Hip hop started out as real in essence. The art brought communities together in the “Boogie Down Bronx.” During those early years between that DJ Kool Herc party in 1973 and its first commercial song, hip hop flourished throughout New York City’s boroughs, bringing friendly competition through MC battles. The focus was on growing an artform and culture that relied on audience engagement to determine quality. In the beginning, the music was about appealing to multigender, multigenerational communities personal to DJs and MCs. While the performers themselves had personas consistent with some expectations of masculinity, the spirit of the culture itself mirrored some borderline matriarchal (heavy on the ‘borderline’) values even while not being matriarchal.
Did a couple of videos and became Afrocentric
Out goes the weave, in goes the braids, beads, medallions
She was on that tip about stoppin' the violence
About my people she was teachin' me
That spirit meant that anyone could participate.
While many women of the ‘70s hip-hop era had mostly been omitted from its history until recently, ‘90s women MCs thankfully have generally been widely recognized for their contributions to the artform. This is partly because of their messages of resistance to the patriarchy. They stressed that U.N.I.T.Y. in the community is only achieved by stopping sexual harassment against its women, and put lyricism above any and all romantic interest just like any other MC would. Queen Latifah would don a kufi while Arrest Development had their African mud cloth clothing as they respectively called out men who’d disrespected a “Black queen.” These expressions reflect a partnership between genders grounded in a respect for a culture in which folks each do their part to uphold the community wholly. It’s in direct contrast to what hip hop had already started to become: a mostly profit-driven industry designed to make money for the top.
I might've failed to mention that this chick was creative
Once The Man got to her, he altered her native
Told her if she got an image and a gimmick
That she could make money, and she did it like a dummy
Now I see her in commercials, she's universal
What started as an art form bringing the community together was adapted into catchy music for sale. Hip hop’s popularity and novelty made it instantly exploitable as a marketing tool, which many MCs in that era blamed on the release of “Rapper’s Delight.” They viewed Sugarhill Gang as a manufactured group put together to exploit their artform for profit and they were absolutely correct.
But it was a Catch-22 in many ways, because commercialization meant expansion, and that move still meant unprecedented exposure for the genre. So while many MCs were disgruntled at hearing their stolen rhymes on the radio, many in the club scene, albeit reluctantly, took hip hop’s commercial success as a sign to make their own mark beyond their city. But what did that look like?
Take the infamous Rap Battle for Supremacy. In 1980, the label Tommy Boy Records starts the New Music Seminar, an event designed for networking within the community. Out of that is born the Rap Battle for Supremacy, an event where MCs and DJs showcase their raw talent. In 1985, Roxanne Shanté, a 15-year-old burgeoning MC who is so good she regularly wins neighborhood rap battles against male opponents, slides past all the male MCs to make it to the final round of the contest. After unequivocally outrapping Busy Bee, an adult MC she herself thought of as the “ultimate party rocker,” she overhears Kurtis Blow, the first solo hip-hop artist signed to a major label, ask what score he has to give for her to lose.
“Four,” he’s told, so that’s what he gives her.
Roxanne ultimately loses by two points. When she asks him about the incident years later, Kurtis Blow admits that “for the sake of hip hop, there was no way that a 15-year-old girl could be the best. There was just no way that we could do that, Shanté.” With this action, we see legends of the community start to make decisions not based on the art or what the community responds to, but on hip hop’s potential as a mainstream industry. And what crossing over into mainstream success required was to uphold male superiority at all costs to fit in with the rest of the world. Even if everyone knew it was a lie. While this may not be the single instance that caused female pioneers to not get their credit for their contributions and skill, it feels like an official rejection of the community values that hip hop held previously, in favor of patriarchal values that would help hip hop thrive in our larger white supremacist and capitalist society.
She used to only swing it with the inner-city circle
And there were many reasons why folks were invested in hip hop crossing over. As Remoy has been pointing out throughout this series, the social backdrop was very grim as all of this was happening. Bronx and Harlem residents were living in abject conditions because of racist and classist systemic policies. For many, hip hop represented a life-changing opportunity and even survival. So the choice to avoid hanging the future of hip hop on a 15-year-old girl, while sexist, comes from an intense fear of fumbling that chance. And even if hip hop has come a long way in terms of whose artistry and voices it values, there is still that pressure of being valued and of being good enough to stay in the mainstream. Because let’s face it, hip hop is a genre developed by BIPOC and we live in a white supremacy, and to get mainstream respect, upholding Black and Brown communities regardless of gender was less important at that point; to be taken seriously and seen as a commercially viable genre, hip hop’s best had to be a man.
But I'ma take her back, hopin' that the shit stop
'Cause who I'm talkin' about, y'all, is hip-hop
It’s one thing to be rapping about cars and ladies when performing in front of their own community. It became quite another when rhymes originally intended for audiences familiar with these MCs were then stolen and performed in Berlin, Stockholm, London, etc,, where there was no context for hip hop. This phenomenon not only contributed to a particular image of hip-hop masculinity globally, but also of Black masculinity.
The flamboyance of flashy cars, gold jewelry, and designer clothes was always part of hip-hop culture, but as the genre rather than the culture started to expand beyond its New York nest, that flamboyant masculinity became the standard, something to uphold, the Joneses to keep up with. And that’s the image that was commercialized for the world, in turn influencing the very communities that hip hop came from; life creating the art and then imitating it.
While Common didn’t necessarily rescue hip hop as he intended, we’ve been blessed to see an evolution pushing past the boundaries that hip hop once sternly held. There are more gender representations of MCs getting their recognition as entertainers and as artists than ever before. While I wouldn’t say that hip hop is pulling a switch from the patriarchal genre it became back to the community-focused values it once had, perhaps with these new faces and experiences, there’s an opportunity for an evolved middle ground. And you can find out more about these diverse representations in hip hop in our newest episode out today, “When Hip Hop Unmasks MASKulinity, Part 1.”
Thanks for reading.
Check it out: Next Gen Men brings together podcast creators to tell the stories of the movement Find us here!