I Think I'm Growing Up

I grew up in Detroit, my diet of music a combination of hip hop and R&B. The rise and fall of Tupac and Biggie was the era of music I belonged to.  While the two rappers were great story tellers of their time, like most rappers tend to do, some of their songs took on a negative slant concerning women. Tupac was good at that: uplifting women with one song and degrading us with another. I'd hear the misogynistic lyrics and just give it a pass, using the excuse that I'm not one of the hoochie mamas they're talking about in the songs. I'd focus more on the beat and the music, as opposed to what was being said. For years I listened to rap music, without really listening, until recently. When you know better you do better I guess.

This new rap music doesn't hold the same sway for me. Whether it was that way all along and I just ignored it, I don't know, but some of the new stuff is atrocious. The other night I heard a song with some troll who probably looks like something found on the bottom of my shoe calling a woman ugly. Or the song where a rapper boasts about some woman who doesn't like women "but a stack will make her kiss her". Even Usher went that route with a song about some weak minded woman in the club seeking another woman so the three of them can have 'fun'.  Most of what I hear from rappers is how they plan to use and abuse women for their enjoyment. They think that having money and fame gives them the right to treat women like objects to be discarded the next morning. Even Blurred Lines sounded a bit on the rapey side.

Maybe it's because I know and work with women who are fools for men and get heartbroken and played all the time, but the music isn't working for me. For the past few years, my taste in music has been evolving. If it sounds good, I'm there. Occasionally I've even strayed to the country channel. I absolutely love Billy Currington by the way.  I may not give up rap entirely, I'm not perfect and there are some good artists out there, but I'm more picky about what I actually take in.

If You Don't Like What I Have to Say, Get Off My Blog!

I'm going to make some people mad, I know I am. Too bad and if you don't like it there's the door.
As a black woman, I have an issue with black radio. About a month ago, I was in my car listening to one of the syndicated, drive time radio shows. The day before a white woman had called in to complain that the show was basically racially charged. Everything she heard was 'White people this' and 'White people that' which I agreed with and she compared him to the last radio show which did the exact same thing. The host got flippant with her and since it was a replay from the day before I'm not sure where the conversation went after that.

The next day I had a discussion with my mother about it and she shared my viewpoint since it's something she deals with everyday. As much as she loves the Tom Joyner Morning Show or the Steve Harvey Morning Show, she can't listen to it in her office. She works with two white women and who wants an awkward situation when one of the radio hosts launches into a white people tirade or joke? The office radio is set to a pop channel, a predominantly white channel by the way, with no fear of a racially charged topic or someone feeling uncomfortable. The only side effect is that my mother knows more pop songs than what I'm used to.

As a people we want people to open the door and accept us, yet we put our own dividers up. Now we have our situations from time to time where we have to get organized and involved, I know that, but it's not every single day.I even like the little known Black facts segment on the Tom Joyner show but the jokes concerning other races really have to go.  If a white radio station ranted about black people the way we talk about them, we'd be outside the building picketing with our pitchforks and torches with Al Sharpton and the Rainbow Coalition being flown in. So why do we feel we have the right to do that to other races?

If you want people to change, you have to start with yourself. If we're not willing to take change seriously, why would any one else?