The Wake

“I don’t listen to the lyrics,” she says, “I just like the beat.”

Erase the beat and listen again. My newest un-favorite: “Drop down and get your eagle on, girl.” Nelly tells me in “Flap Your Wings,” “Hoe! I need to see you take it down to the floor/Spread your wings/ If you will ma, fly real low/Pause for a second ma, grind real slow/And if you do it right, hoe, there we’ll go.”

Yah I know, “I’m not a hoe and he’s not talking about me,” we say. Please, I’ve heard this again and again. So he’s not talking to you but he’s talking to somebody, and millions buy it, pay for it and encourage him to keep saying the same thing in every rhyme. The homiez join in, telling us to “Shake your tail feather,” “Shake it fast,” “Shake it like like a salt shaker,” “shake it like a Polaroid picture,” “make that body go bump, bump, bump,” “pop that thang,” “bend over to the floor and touch your toes,” and to “back that thang up,” but when they’re finished with you they say “Move bitch get out the way/get out the way bitch/get out the way.” It’s not enough to just give you orders, he talks about you too; “It ain’t yo face so it must be yo’ ass, you’se a tip drill,” and asks, “Is that your ass or is your momma half reindeer?”

Chickens, chickenheads, ghetto birds, ducks, and pigeons, are you listening? Blame the rappers? The media? Labels? Ourselves? We all need to be accountable, even you, hip-hop. Hip-hop: I love you. Your beats have been the soundtrack to my life. I’ve grown up on you, bathed you, birthed you, try to help raise you, and now I teach you. I can barely watch what BET and MTV share of you. I cringe when I listen to what major labels try to whisper to me. They sell me so short. They have taken a small percent of what you are and broadcast only that to the world. The foulest, most sexist, and most offensive lyrics get broadcast 24/7. They use us to sell soda. They put their messages to control us over the hottest beats so we dance ourselves right into that box. They box us in, cage us, and frame us in wide angles so all we see that we can be is thin, big-breasted, light-skinned, fake-hair-wearing, branded hoes who takes orders. I am not that girl, please don’t be her either: LISTEN TO THE LYRICS!

We never spoke up when B.I.G. spit “Chickenheads be cluckin” (where we are women who talk too much and can’t keep a secret) and “Chickenheads be cluckin’ in my bathroom, f*ckin’” (where oral sex acts, the motion of a woman’s head is back and forth like a chicken, and is all that defines us). We never said a thing, we just danced to the beat and didn’t listen to the lyrics. I keep hearing that people are tired of college women hating on Nelly and his boys. I’m past being sick and tired; I’m with the ladies at Howard and I’ve got a warning to the rest of y’all sexist and misogynist rappers: Watch what you say because we do listen to the lyrics. I’ll never sit down, shut up and shake it for you to get paid.

What have you been listening to lately? Hit me with the good, the bad, and the ugly - raim0007@umn.edu.