is the author here female or male? just wondering.
i take the author's points on board, and i do think that a lot of the lyrics on the album seem like mysogyny for mysogyny's sake, but that article, for me, is just taking it far too seriously. i've never had a problem with mysogyny in hip-hop, mostly because i really think it's all just an act, a facade, "part of the game", etc. i don't believe that Kanye really was holding a girl up in the bathroom fucking and choking her. that "champagne wishes" line, which the author dissects for an entire paragraph, to me is just a great line to sing along to. it doesn't offend me, doesn't make me feel inferior to black men, it just sounds cool. hell, i love this part from Killer Mike & Big Boi in Outkast's Snappin' & Trappin':
now that is as violent, as mysogynistic a lyric as you're likely to find. but i enjoy singing along to that, it's crazy. i absolutely understand how people have problems with it but it's not going to make me go out and choke someone.
but that's just me!!
For the record, the author is
male.
I'm not saying Kanye is actually doing any of these things, and I'm not saying misogynistic lyrics aren't fun to sing along to...I'm known to have a soft spot for Eminem and plenty of hip-hop I listen to is misogynistic (in stereotypical "bitches and hos" sorts of ways). I'm sure as fucking hell not saying that men are going to necessarily go out and re-enact some of these rapes or whatever. But, you can't say this rhetoric of misogyny doesn't perpetuate a continuing stereotype of female inferiority. Most people in this day and age don't come out and say, "Yeah, women should be cooking and cleaning or around for fucking," but that doesn't mean the feeling isn't underlying and unspoken.
Masculinity in hip-hop is a whole other book. If you haven't seen it, watch Byron Hurt's documentary. It's an hour-long questioning of masculinity in hip-hop.
Beyond Beats and Rhymes.
I'm not going to get into it here, but there is a long, long history of race being tied up in hypermasculinity as well. Read Frantz Fanon's
Black Skin, White Masks, and it's plain to see this need to compensate for perceived inferiorities elsewhere often results in hypermasculinities being performed.
And, why does masculine=misogynistic? It sure as fuck doesn't have to. Take dead prez, who are "revolutionary but gangsta" and put out songs like "Mind Sex" and "The Beauty Within." Are they not masculine?
YouTube - dead prez - Mind Sex
YouTube - DEAD PREZ - The Beauty Within
But that doesn't sell records. Bitches and hos sell records. Women getting raped sells records. That's a huge fucking problem for me. But it's a societal problem too, which isn't completely the artists' problem, unless they're exploiting this fact for gain (especially monetary). Then it becomes a huge fucking problem again for me.
I'm not going to say it isn't a complicated and complex issue. Clearly, it is. Something about Kanye's album hit a nerve with me and many others though, and it's something that's worth talking about and not just brushing off as "an act, a facade, 'part of the game,' etc." because that continued mentality of underlying misogyny will only continue if nobody does.
Kanye shouldn't be crucified for this, and I don't think any of these articles are necessarily doing that, as they are placing praise alongside criticisms. Individual artists shouldn't be crucified for this, but they should be questioned. Society should question itself through these artists as well, because these artists are coming out of that. To whatever extent, society plays a role in producing these types of mentalities, and thus, it should play a role in eradicating or reducing them as well. But, the only way to do that is to begin questioning it when it appears around oneself.
Enjoy the album, but also think about what's being said. That's really all I think I and most of these other critics are saying.
Apologies for writing a book here, but as you can all probably tell, this sort of thing really hits a nerve.