Excerpts from a Diary

Musically Challenged II

The following is a response to a recent article published by Essence Magazine:

I can’t tell you how timely your article was in the latest edition of Essence (January 2005). I was recently online watching a few music videos on Yahoo’s Launch website during my lunch hour at work and what I witnessed made me abandon my lunch, open up my webpage and publish my confusion.
There were full-grown (apparently mature) black women, (sisters!!!) losing their minds in fabricated clubs and dancehalls. It is not just the rump-shakers-for-hire that are lending to the objectification of black women but some of the female artists themselves. http://excerptsfromadiary.blogspot.com/2004/12/musically-challenged.html

Artists, not to be confused with musicians, according to Nelly’s definition, are guilty of sending a crippling message to our young black generation. Our black men are learning that it is okay to categorize our women as hoes, bitches, skanks and tricks. A woman that is starved for physical attention and emotional affection is a ho, a woman that does not put out is a bitch. A woman that expects a monetary or emotional reward for her uninhibited morals is a trick. Our women are being taught that these are categories that they fall into and refer to one another is this way.

Talib Kweli’s comments, in all his unearthly wisdom, really sent me into orbit. “I believe an artist’s responsibility is not to uphold the morals of society…[but] to speak honestly about what’s going on and what people are going through.” But if the Hip Hop industry, the portal through which many of our urban youth catch a glimpse of those ebony brothers and sisters that have “made it”, only depict the Nelly’s platinum pendants, Melyssa Ford’s eye candy and guns, drugs and violence of 50-cent, can’t it be reasoned that the starts in our eyes, the ones we want to be just like “when we grow up” are setting the standards for our morality. There isn’t a rapper out there (correct me if I am wrong) that has talked about those black women out there that go past college and enter the workforce and provide for their families. Not one rapper that has not glorified the single-mother-absent-father phenomenon that is constantly repeating itself when they glorify the wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am syndrome in their videos.

Therein lies the moral limbo stick that our culture has set up for our youth to bend over backward to try to get under. It seems like the bar is being set lower and lower, the raunchier the images, the more raw the lyrics, and the edger the music the more albums it sells.

But I believe your article hit the nail on the head. In all of the “popular” music videos that I have seen, heard of and endured I have yet to find an accurate depiction of myself in any of the highly edited booty shots. I have never gone to a club in 4 inch stilettos and hotpants, nor have I ever found myself climbing all over strange men in dark corners. These are not the black women I see everyday, nor the ones that I aspire to be. Our healthy reflections of ourselves are too few and far in between. Music videos have set the trend for the latest clothing, shoes, hair and makeup in our society, we have all permitted and accepted that, why shouldn’t we hold them responsible for the moral trend that they are setting as well.

posted by Onika @ 6:26 PM