When I’ve had a particularly challenging day, I listen to a playlist I created called IDGAF on the drive home. Comprised of rap and hip hop songs, it’s a curated soundtrack of music that fits my mood, articulating what I am unable to say during the day. It is my middle finger without lifting a finger, and it feels good to sing along with the windows down until the heat of anger or disappointment dissipates.
The music is like my stand-in (remember the Obama anger translator skits from Key and Peele?), my way of saying all the things I can’t say. It’s a relief, a release, a method of communication. And yet.
The older I’ve become, the more I’ve noticed that so many of the songs I’ve loved over the years, or the songs that give voice to my frustration and yearning, are not in my voice. These songs are not for me. They are authored by my people, but they target or leave out a huge swath of my people: women. If women are mentioned in these songs, we’re often bitches or body parts, referred to as orifices or objects. Articulated as mere objects of desire, or worse, derision.
My escape has become another landscape riddled with landmines, the pleasure I once experienced tainted by the now-unavoidable language that denigrates people like me, which hits different when it’s expressed by people like me.
There is nothing more coveted, and simultaneously more degraded, than the body of a Black woman.
In searching for rap songs authored by women, hungering for a voice that sounds like my own, I am met with more body parts, more objectification. Sexuality is a part of living, something to be unashamed of, but songs about W.AP. (I was going to link to the song here but couldn’t bring myself to!) are not what I am looking for. I rankle at the idea that to rap about our sexuality in reference to men is a kind of freedom. I disagree with the agreement that in objectifying ourselves we remove the shackles of objectification.
So much music is about our appearance or what we get when we use our bodies as a means of gaining power. Our bodies are currency, and this buy-in is much too similar to the bodily currency that we had no freedom in to sit well with me.
I want an outlet for my dismay and frustration, not another assault on my personhood. I want to rage against the machine, not listen to a subverted version of it. But it’s complicated, isn’t it?
Can we just enjoy things without interrogating them? Can’t we just enjoy the beat and forget the lyrics? At this point, for me, I don’t think so.
We have been erased from so many genres and canons, our creativity co-opted and appropriated by white performers, their output celebrated as original when we were doing it from the jump (I’m looking at you, country music). Why would we choose to erase ourselves from the genres we have rightfully claimed as our own?
There is music out there that celebrates our skin, our womanhood, our freedom, but not enough of it. And, to be honest, not enough of it has the slap, the bass, the staccato rhythms and spitfire rhymes that I want to hear after a day of compliance to culture that prioritizes urgency and perfectionism over thoughtfulness and collaboration.
Of course, there are artists who serve and songs that deliver everything that I’m looking for. I love Tish Hyman, Gizzle, Dope Saint Jude, OSHUN, Janelle Monae, Tierra Whack, Wande, Ivy Sole, Saint Bodhi, to name a few. But why are so many popular artists willing participants in the dizzying dissonance of Black bodies as objects? As vehicles of desire that are then discarded? Why are we so willing to continue the narrative that Black women are just bodies? Why do we engage in the glorification of human beings as objects?
This is not a treatise on rap as bad. I find life and poetry in this music. There is no need to justify the relevance and magic of the art that we create. This is about the small space we confine ourselves to, and how we can and must claim more space for ourselves. Rather than replicating what’s been given to us, why don’t we build something new?
The Friday Finds
Action. Stand with Standing Rock and sign Seeding Sovereignty’s petition by Monday, November 13.
Listen. “Grrrl Like” by Dope Saint Jude. This one’s a banger.
Watch. Desperately Seeking Soulmate: Escaping Twin Flames Universe. You know I love a cult documentary, and this limited series is no exception. The show delves into the twisted world of the “Twin Flames Universe,” a YouTube account-turned-business predicated upon finding your ultimate soulmate. Jeff and Shaleia Divine, the couple behind the account, are self-proclaimed twin flames who offer the promise of true love to those who buy their class packages. As the Twin Flames Universe empire grows, things become more and more sinister. Prepare to be gobsmacked.
Read. This roundup of resources on the Israel-Palestine conflict from Equity in the Center:
A Rabbi and Imam on How They're Counseling Their Communities | NPR
In Solidarity and with Sorrow | Tzedek Social Justice Fund
Jewish and Palestinian Employers Step Up to Help Workers | SHRM
Love, Justice & Dignity for Palestine | Change Elemental
Rapid Response Resources for Community Members Addressing Hate, Anti-Palestinian Racism, & Islamophobia in the US | Muslims for Just Futures and Building Movement Project
The Only Liberation is Shared Liberation | The Adaway Group
The Root of Violence is Oppression | Jewish Voice for Peace
What You Can Do to Support the Unfolding Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza | Anti-Racism Daily
Thank you for being here. Take care out there.
In solidarity,
Emma