The Obsession of Sex in Hip-Hop 1

“what are the freaks in the video for, fuck a song give me a thong, pussy galore”- lamented rapper Black Thought about the great influence of sex in hip-hop. “it’s loud as fuck when  you sleeping with the one that you hate”-  Rapper Tumi Molekane’s take on the instant gratification that comes with sex. You can interpret this differently and juxtapose this with the relationship that sex has with corporations. Hip Hop hates being a concubine for corporations but it also loves the money that flows from it. This love and hate relationship is even highlighted by rap moguls who have racked millions from dealing with ‘the devil’. Sex is so ubiquitous in rap music that society is even forgetting that sex has been used before to sell music, way before hip-hop was found. Thus, rap has become the black sheep of the music family. Every social-ill under the sun is attributed to the moral bankruptcy of the music. But are the detractors justified in this missive?

You hardly turn on the TV without seeing some scantily clad woman gyrating with a male rapper or dancer in a music video. Video killed the radio star, perhaps that’s the problem. My granddad can’t fathom how these kind of videos even make it to our screens without any form of censorship, he cites our newly found ‘rights’ as the problem-born free problems. I guess that’s why our parents and the older generation of hip-hop heads now frown upon the music. They just can’t relate to the debauchery, it is too much. I tend to agree with them as well, even though I actually grew up watching the porn-sque music videos.

The obsession with sex in hip-hop isn’t just depicted in visuals like videos and hip-hop publications; both online and in magazines. Sex rules the lyrical content as well. There is even an entire genre of modelling called hip-hop ‘honnies’ or hip-hop vixens, it’s an entire industry on its own. Corporates have cashed in tremendously on this, copious amounts of skimpy clothes have been sold to girls who would like to mimic hip-hop ‘honnies’. You also see this dress sense at rap shows, events and the like. Moreover, the xxx-rated lyrical content makes it difficult to play it around young kids and parents, it’s just too profane these days. I know the consensus amongst hip-hop heads is that the older generation has become too conservative and out of touch, but this is not true. That is so because hip-hop has always been self-critical and the young have always taken heed of their predecessors’ rebuke. “Remember, you must learn”-KRS-ONE.

“when you on the stage, you own it, every inch of it, shake your ass, shake it a lot, sex sells, remember that”-Cookie Lyons ;  a character from Empire-the biggest hip-hop television series in the world. Now this production typifies almost everything that is wrong about hip-hop and once again corporates love it. Misogyny, senseless black on black violence, crass materialism, the over sexualisation of music and every known pathology of the black community are the bedrock of the story. And hip-hop loves it too. The problem is, it has added to a multitude of cinematic and television productions which have only depicted hip-hop culture in this bad light.

Rap music hails from centuries old African oral poetic story-telling, this art form eventually reached the west via the enslavement of Africans by European, Asian and American nations. The music has since morphed into the rap music that we all know today. In its formative years it was analogous to the age-old African tradition, very poetic and informative. This doesn’t mean that there was no sexual narrative in the art-it surely did because the music did not exist in isolation with other music genres like rock, disco, house and R&B Soul. All these music genres exploited sexual imagery as well and thus rap music wasn’t immune to such influences. However, there was more to the sound that the exploitation and objectification of women.

This over obsession of sex in the rap game has greatly eroded the true purpose of the art-form. Rap music was supposed to be poetry in motion everyday-it was supposed to be what the legendary Chuck D of Public Enemy called it the ‘CNN of the people’. Social commentary and criticism ought to emanate from it, instead we are bombarded with nonsensical crass consumerism and nihilism-sic. Let me paraphrase what Dr. Tony Sewell said about the decay in rap music: “Black music was not always about reflecting reality, it was about resilience and progress. But this music: It’s misogyny; it’s crass materialism, it’s the return of the minstrel, its thuggish, It’s going nowhere…”

Hip-Hop has heralded a second sexual revolution. It has become a catalyst to our new found liberties of self expression, albeit in a crass way.  This is not to say that rap music was supposed to be influenced by gospel music. Nicky Minaj has now replaced Lil Kim as the game’s most successful sexpot, let us see her sell a multiplatinum album with her clothes on like Lauryn Hill in years past. Again is this reflective of our sexist society? Is rap always going to just reflect our society or is it gonna transcend it? This trend of a sexually provocative female rapper is pervasive the world over, it’s not just an American malaise. I mean Nicky wouldn’t be the global superstar she is if being a sexpot female rapper wasn’t de rigueur.

Hip-Hop culture is the most dominant youth culture in the world. It has also managed to penetrate into societies where so called ‘western cultural influences’ are outlawed for religious, political and other despotic reasons. And now after a long time the youth wants to ‘get some’ and get it on again. This is not necessarily an evil thing, even though this generation is facing a sexual disease and teenage pregnancy epidemic. Such societal ills should not all fall squarely on the shoulders of hip-hop; but as a cultural tour de force it ought to parlay a message that espouses the responsibility that comes with freedom of expression. With the power that hip-hop has garnered comes accountability and responsibility.

“sex is the law, many an empire rise and fall”- again The Roots’ Black Thought manages to pierce the veil of power in hip-hop here. He seems to be arguing that the powers that be, namely corporations- are the wielders of the whip that has striped clothes off the back of the hip-hop emperor. This obsession with sex or the selling of it has turned our beloved art form into a fading caricature. It is no longer seen as a genre and as a culture that would outlive time itself with eternal poetry and prose. Rap music is on its back with its eyes closed and legs open, anything goes.

   © 2016 Bongani Spoogy Masombuka