For this blog post I am going to break down two different songs that soulful romantic production paired with some equally romantic themes...and some extremely degrading and sexually objectifying ones. I am going to provide you all with a close reading of each and let you decide for yourselves, as I have no idea what category the songs can fall into.
"You should be the brand new love in my life, Rashid got you under his sight, but I'm not the husbanding type, I come around when your man ain't f*cking you right. When you fussing and fighting going through scary things"
Chicago underground legend MC and producer Rashid Hadee is widely known for his "old school" type sample based production paired with witty lyrics generally involving love and life in the lower income areas of Chicago. The song "Surrender"starts with the sound of a female vocalist singing "Oh when love is born it's so warm. I feel you there. Everbody is willing do surrender." From first glance this song sounds like it's going to be all about your typical love story. But it is not. Over this extremely romanticized beat Rashid essentially only raps about being mesmerized by this nameless females body. He fantasizes over and over about having sex with her, even after he mentions he has a girlfriend or "one he's with." Throughout the song Rashid just speaks about having sex with this girl while openly admitting she has a man, but claiming he will just have sex with her on the side when her man cannot do it right. Then the loaded quote posted above this blurb is said which is SO contradictory and not allowing me to draw any sort of conclusion from the purpose of this song. All that being I absolutely love this song, and think it's a very well done piece of hip hop.
"I used to get a threesome every other weekend, cheated on my girl until we nearly stopped speaking, she broke down and cried and it hurt so bad, her friends went and told her I was a brand new dad."
Okay, this one is going to be fun. I'm sure many of you are familiar with Staten Island's Ghostface Killah. A member of the Grammy winning collective the Wu-Tang Clan, Ghostface has been known for his coined style of storytelling through hip hop depicting life in the ghettos of New York and stories of violence and drug dealing. However, Ghostface took a quick break from doing all of that in 2009 with "romantic" album Ghostdini Wizard of Poetry in the Emerald City. The track "Do Over" provides listeners with a extremely romantic beat accompanied by R&B singer Raheem DeVaugn singing about wanting another chance at love with some lost partner. Normal right? Yeah, until Ghostface picks the mic up. He begins the song stating that he used to get threesomes every other weekend while having a girl friend, but got off scot free. But then the inevitable happened and Ghostface got one of these girls (not his girlfriend pregnant). His girlfriend who was aware of all of the sexual activites Ghost was engaging in while they are dating then leaves him because apparently the stipulations of their open relationship was for him not to get one of the random women pregnant. I would say this is quite an outlandish songs in a number of ways but I think it depicts a very vital relationship in Hip-Hop. After giving the listener insight on the story of why things fell apart, he then spend the rest of the song lamenting on how sad his is about this girlfriend of his leaving him. I think this depicts the difference between love and sex in hip hop very well in a sort of abstract way. Rappers who are involved in this hyper masculine art form, and thus are involved with hyper sexualized females all the time are maybe sometimes held to different standards and norms than others in society. I mean use Snoop Dogg's marriage as an example. Then in his last attempt at reconciliation he states that if he would if he "Would of took the chance to see what was placed right in front of my face, 9 out of 10 times my actions wouldn't have been so naive and blind to carry out these mistakes." Really Ghostface in your testament of love for this girl you cannot even promise that you won't do it again, but instead say you very likely won't do it. I appreciate the honesty, I guess. He then closes the song by wishing this now ex girlfriend the best of luck in life and love.
So tell me, what were your reactions to either or both of these songs?
Do you think they fit the cast of what could be considered a "love" song? Or do they contain too many questionable concepts and themes especially those with sexually objectifying and sexualized females?
I am sure there are a myriad of other examples containing similar themes and ideas, feel free to post them and discuss them.
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